Bars, Gels and Drink Mix

1. Bars, Gels & Drink Mixes

FS: Do you have to use recovery-specific products, or even athlete-specific products like bars, gels, drink mixes, etc.? Do those have anything in them that normal foods don’t? Or for the most part, can people rely on the stuff they find at the grocery store?

AK: When it comes to bars and gels, we use them, absolutely. When we’re here in Park City, I try to really push the athletes towards the food, because when they are traveling and competing, that’s when they need to rely on those bars. I don’t want them to have 23 bars a week in training sessions, and then get over to Europe being so sick of them that they don’t want ’em. We’ve all had the experience where you get somewhere and the food is terrible, and you have to have a bar for dinner. I always try to make sure that they have the right bars handy and tolerate them well, but my first goal is to really get them to have the real food when they can—and the bars when they need them.

Things like Gu and gels, they’ll be using those in most training session—we’ll be working on finding the ones they like, and timing them. They’ll use those pretty consistently during training, and then really try to go for the sandwich or the smoothie after a session.

[excerpt from fasterskier.com]

Richard