The Complete Handbook of Nutrition Gels & Chews

Chapter 1: Understanding Nutrition Gels & Chews

For anyone involved in endurance sports, the small, dense packets of carbohydrate gel and the chewy, candy-like cubes are as familiar as a water bottle or a race number. These products are not a novel fad; they are a technological solution to a specific physiological problem that every endurance athlete eventually faces: the point where running on body fat alone is like trying to drive a car with the fuel light on and an empty tank in a rural area with no gas stations in sight. Your body can burn fat for fuel, but only at a limited rate. When your effort level rises, your muscles rapidly switch to burning carbohydrate in the form of glycogen and blood glucose. The problem is that your body's stored carbohydrates are very limited. For most athletes, this means about 90 minutes to two hours of sustained effort before the tank is effectively empty, a state commonly known as "hitting the wall" or "bonking."

Nutrition gels and chews exist to prevent this state. They are, at their core, a concentrated, engineered source of carbohydrates that can be consumed during exercise without the requirement of chewing a solid meal or drinking a vast quantity of a liquid solution. They are designed for a narrow window of time and a specific metabolic state. This chapter will dig into what these products actually are, how they work biologically, and why the details of their formulation are not trivial marketing points,