Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

Endurance athletes make carbs your best friends!

7 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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In this concise video segment, the speaker addresses endurance athletes—runners and cyclists—emphasizing that carbohydrates are essential for performance. He distinguishes two carbohydrate categories: simple carbs (e.g., fruit, honey, maple syrup) that act like fire‑kindling for rapid energy, and complex carbs (e.g., whole grains, oats, potatoes) that function like logs for longer‑lasting fuel. The speaker outlines practical timing: consume simple carbs immediately before and during training or competition for quick boosts, while incorporating complex carbs in regular meals to sustain energy throughout the day and workouts. The overall message is that both types are important, but their effectiveness depends on when they are consumed.

Chapters

Runners, cyclists, make carbs your best friend. Endurance athletes need carbohydrates, period. There's two different types of carbs. There's simple carbohydrates and there's complex carbohydrates. If you think of it like building a fire, you need kindling, you need your fire starter, and then you need logs. Those logs help the fire go longer. The simple carbs are going to be your kindling. That's going to be your fruit, that's going to be your honey, that's going to be your pure maple syrup. That's going to give you a quick boost of energy when you need it. You need to be eating these foods pre-training and during the training, or pre-game and during the game. It helps you have quick energy. Then you take complex carbs. These are kind of the logs to your fire. It's going to be your whole grains, oats, potatoes, etc. Both of these are important. The key is knowing when to use them. Simple carbs are going to be right before and during training. Complex carbs are going to be during all of your meals so that you can have sustained energy throughout the day and throughout your workout.