Carbohydrate needs of athletes in training

Carbohydrate plays a central role in the recognition of sports nutrition, with major breakthroughs in the science and practice of sports nutrition involving activities related to carbohydrate and exercise. This chapter summarizes current guidelines related to the role of carbohydrate in the athlete's everyday diet, and in particular to optimize the adaptation to training. It focuses on new areas of knowledge or interest, and acknowledges that each athlete has unique and changing requirements for carbohydrate based on his or her periodized training program. The updated principles of eating to promote glycogen storage are also summarized. The aim of training is to achieve optimum performance on the day of competition via three processes or paradigms: “training hard” to create the required training stimulus, “training smart” to maximize adaptations to the training stimulus, and “training specifically” to fine‐turn the behaviors or physiology needed for competition strategies.