Your muscles primarily
use a mixture of carbohydrate and fat to fuel exercise. At lower intensity
exercise fat becomes the primary fuel but as you increase exercise intensity
your muscles rely more and more on glycogen. That's what understanding how much
glycogen is stored and the rate that it is metabolized is important for
every endurance athlete to know. When muscle glycogen stores are depleted you
"bonk" or "hit the wall". Glycogen use is highly
dependent on exercise intensity.
The table below show the relationship between intensity and glycogen
utilization. At 100% VO2 Max glycogen stores can be depleted in as little
as 8 minutes. On the other hand at an exercise intensity of 70% VO2
Max you can probably exercise for 150 minutes before depleting your glycogen
stores. To place this in perspective, increasing exercise intensity from 70 to
80% VO2 Max increases glycogen metabolism four-fold.
There are a number of
strategies you can implement to extend your exercise time of endurance.
Training makes your muscle metabolically more efficient. However the simplest
strategy is to make sure you consume the right combination of fluid and
nutrition during your workout which can significantly increase both the quality
and duration of your workout.
The bottom line - there is no simple answer to how far you can go on a tank of
muscle fuel.
