Tag Archives: carbohydrate loading

2010 Dragon Boat Races and Asian Festival


August 27, 2010

2010 Dragon Boat Races and Asian Festival

By:  Jeff Roux

August 21,2010 marked the annual Asian Festival and Dragon Boat Races held at Mortensen Riverfront Plaza.  This year Hartford Young Professional and Entrepreneurs HYPE, entered two boats into the challenge.  Also this year, Excel Fitness proudly offered the complementary use of its facility to all HYPE Dragon Boat paddlers with the intention of helping the athletes get into top condition which may have contributed to faster overall times over last year.  The event has lots of attractions for people of all ages and ethnicities including Asian Martial Arts and Musical Performances, Art, Food, and of course the Dragon Boat Competition.  More boats enter every year sponsored by corporations, non-profits, and private entries.

Although the two teams shared the common interest of HYPE and bettering Hartford there was still a strong spirit of competition between the experienced boat from last year and the first-timers boat.  Jeff Roux was placed in the center of the novice boat known to paddlers as the “powerhouse” of the boat and Shoshanna Silverberg, yoga instructor at Excel Fitness, known for her fighting spirit was placed in the boat as well.  After winning its first heat the two HYPE boats were placed head to head in the next heat with boat teams improving their times by 15 seconds eventually with the novice boat winning the heat by a dragon’s head.  In the end both teams placed very well 12th and 13th respectively overall.

All participants look forward to next year’s races with another possible head to head rematch.

Jeff Roux and Shoshanna Silverberg                          Both HYPE Teams ready to go at it!

Carbohydrate Consumption during Intense Exercise

August 20, 2010 excelfitnesct.com

By: Jeff Roux

Carbohydrate Consumption during Intense Exercise

Have you ever tried to gain the edge over the competition by carbohydrate loading the night before an exercise event?  Just about everyone knows to carb-load the day before, but what about during the event?

Most people believe anything with carbs, sugar is the best thing during exercise, however; there is a difference between what forms of glucose you ingest, how efficiently they are absorbed and the effect on performance.  Fructose, glucose in the form of fruit actually delivers only about .2g of glucose to active muscles each minute whereas glucose, sucrose, and maltodextrins can deliver up to 1.0g.  Also too high of a carbohydrate concentration of more than 6-8% can diminish water intake on a cellular level and hinder temperature regulation.  Dehydration and heat exhaustion obviously severely decrease ones performance.

So what should you do?  For prolonged high-intensity aerobic exercise in cool weather consume about 70g of sugar in 6oz of water 20 to 30 minutes after the start of exercise followed by 24g of carbohydrate in 8oz of water every 15 minutes.

W. McArdle, F. Katch, V. Katch, 1994 Essentials of Exercise Physiology, Lea & Febiger Malvern, PA. pg 192

If you have any questions about your conditioning program contact me at jroux@excelfitnessct.com