Christos, a good blog friend of mine, has written a triathlon training book. This post, reblogged, is an excerpt from the book. Check it out, the man knows his stuff. And if it piques your interest, the kindle version is $10 on Amazon (my wife bought a copy).
Glycogen is the form in which carbohydrates are stored in our bodies and can be found in the liver and muscles.
Since the muscles have a greater overall surface area than the liver, a larger amount of glycogen (referred to as muscle cell glycogen) is stored there. Specifically, adults have about 2.6-3.5 ounces (75-100 grams) of carbohydrates stored in their liver glycogen and 10.6-14 ounces (300-400 grams) in their muscle cell glycogen. One of the processes taking place in the body of an athlete during an endurance race is that the stored amount of muscle cell glycogen can become twice as high as that of people who do not do sports.
In competitions that last over an hour, such as a marathon or triathlon, the glycogen reserve becomes exhausted, making nutrition during the competition an important factor. The stored glycogen (polysaccharides) is constantly broken down and converted into glucose (monosaccharides)…
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