Originally Posted by
MonsieurChrono
Does time play any role in this?
Can somebody burn the same amount of calories per hour in a short (< 2 hours) as in a long (> 4 hours) high-level performance ride? Or, in other words, can somebody maintain the same high-level performance (say, push 400 W, burn roughly 1 500 calories, per hour) in a short or long ride, if nutrition was not the issue?
Unless somebody looks like Vingegaard or other pros, who are at around 5% body-fat, is it necessary to match the calorie deficit entirely with sugar to achieve high-level performance?
I'm not sure what to make of this as a whole, so lets break it down.
Can somebody burn the same amount of calories per hour in a short (< 2 hours) as in a long (> 4 hours) high-level performance ride?
Seems reasonable to me that they can. Do you think otherwise.
Or, in other words, can somebody maintain the same high-level performance (say, push 400 W, burn roughly 1 500 calories, per hour) in a short or long ride, if nutrition was not the issue?
I can't. But others can that are at the same level as many pro cyclist. I didn't check your math on the watts to Calories (capital C). I assume it's correct.
Unless somebody looks like Vingegaard or other pros, who are at around 5% body-fat, is it necessary to match the calorie deficit entirely with sugar to achieve high-level performance?
Do you know that he is at 5% body fat? Is that important here? So taking his published weight of 58kg or 127.9lbs, he has 6.4 lbs of body fat worth 22,400 Calories. Certainly Jonas is one of the skinny ones. So what. I don't think you'll find that the Tdf is always won by person that has the lowest body fat composition. I believe that many or most of the pro cyclist are higher than 5% body fat. 5% is pretty elite, even for a world tour level cyclist. But that is just IMO.
is it necessary to match the calorie deficit entirely with sugar to achieve high-level performance?
Well if you read what I've said many times before in many threads including this thread, and have read what others that actually are somewhat of a authority on the subject and what even studies have suggested, one can't really consume enough sugar while on the bike to match their Calorie deficit while cycling at a hard effort.
In my case, I'd get too queasy in the stomach from that much sugar in my stomach while working that hard. And many others do too. I might be behind the times, but even pro cyclists only consume about 120 grams of carbohydrates per hour. Or about 480 Calories per hour. Well short of your 1500 Calories per hour for a person working at your sustained pace stated previously.
I only have about half that much that I consume during a ride. And that is still well below the Calorie expenditure given for that ride by my Garmin or the kilojoules reported by my PM.
So where do you wish to go with all of this?
Since the way you worded your question can't happen IMO, It might be you really meant to word your question like this.......
Is it necessary to achieve high-level performance when we ride our bikes?
And the answer to that is no.