A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself or a situation. SUP race training, in some ways, can be thought of as a paradox. With enough training and proper nutrition you will look fit and feel fit, but if recent research and recommendations by the USDA are true, paradoxically you might find that you are unhealthy on the inside and endurance training, such as SUP or prone paddle race training, may have negative and/or untoward health effects.

Part 1: nutrition

In the Riding Bumps book we talk a lot about sports nutrition when it comes to endurance sports such as paddle racing and training. We encourage everyone to read the book because good understanding of sports nutrition is essential to training and performance. To make a long story short, however, the gist of what we recommend is a relatively high carbohydrate diet.

The problem here is that the USDA recently did a 180 on high carbohydrate diets and is now recommending lower carbohydrate diets because high carbohydrate diets have been linked to all sorts of health hazards including diabetes, obesity, etc. If you have not seen the new diet recommendations here is a story from the New York Times discussing them in detail .

The question then arises “how can you recommend a high carbohydrate diet even though you know it might have negative health consequences?” The answer is two fold

First, nobody said that endurance sports nutrition was healthy. We know that proper sports nutrition will help you recover, avoid burnout, and race faster. To our knowledge, however, we do not know of any studies that say that eating to race and train will increase your longevity. As you will see later, there is ample evidence to suggest that serious endurance sports training (the kind of training that many paddle racers do) may actually (in some ways at least) be bad for you. Second, we do not know if the health effects of eating a high carbohydrate diet apply to athletes. It is possible (again we do not know) that what goes for sedentary individuals does not go for endurance sports athletes. Time will tell.

Because of the new recommendations, we have been asked about using high fat diets for endurance training. In our experience, it does not work. We have seen many athletes give high fat diets a whirl. Inevitably they go slower and feel fatigued and give up the diet. If you are considering a high fat diet to compliment your endurance training we recommend giving this article a read. It is possible that all of the dozens of athletes we know didn’t make it past the initial fatigue stage. It is more likely, however, that they were not able to benefit from the high fat diet which, according to the article, needs to be 80% fat. For most of us, eating 80% fat is not practical or palatable.

The bottom line for us, therefore, is that we still recommend the same sports nutrition recommendations we have seen work for athletes over the last 20 years. It is certainly OK to eat some bacon and other fats in your diet but your diet (at least if you are serious about endurance sports training and racing) should be primarily carbohydrate based. Athletes, however, should understand that this diet, although it will help them train and race, at least has the potential for, long term negative health effects. Moreover, we remain bearish on high fat diets for endurance athletes. We feel they are not practical and have seen too many athletes try and fail for us to recommend them.

Part 2: endurance training in general .

There are many things in life where a little bit is good but a lot is bad. Exercise appears to be one of them. As you will see in the following video, excessive amounts of endurance sports training (e.g. the amounts that we know a lot of SUP racers do) may have untoward effects on your cardiovascular health.

Conclusion:

Does all of this mean you should put down the paddle or hang up your prone board and sit on the couch?  That is up to you. All we are saying is that you should be aware that the sport you love might (in some ways) not be the healthiest thing for you.

And therein lies the paradox of endurance race training. You will look fit and feel great but because of the nutrition required to get you to race your best and cardiovascular effects that you might not be aware of, all endurance athletes should understand that endurance sports training and racing may have untoward effects that you might not be aware of.

NOTE: we are not doctors. The information in this article should not be considered to be medical advice. Please contact your doctor regarding any health issue you may have and for more information about sports nutrition and the cardiovascular effects of endurance race training.