Adding fructose to a cyclist’s pre-race breakfast improves cycling exercise capacity
By Alex Ritson MSc, Head of Education

To read the full paper, click here: Addition of Fructose to a Carbohydrate-Rich Breakfast Improves Cycling Endurance Capacity in Trained Cyclists by Podlogar et al. (2022) (open access)

The main objective of this study was to determine whether consuming fructose + glucose before exercise (as opposed to glucose alone) improved endurance exercise capacity following an overnight fast.

By adding fructose to a CHO-rich breakfast (2 g/kg⁻¹ BM of CHO), exercise capacity improved compared to the addition of glucose, confirming the hypothesis.

This study was conducted with participants who did not consume supplementary CHO during exercise. Therefore, further research is needed to determine whether similar performance benefits would be sustained when athletes consume supplemental CHO during exercise.

This study does imply, however, that pre-exercise carbohydrate intakes that target both the liver and the muscle are likely ideal for optimising CHO availability and performance before competition or intense training sessions.