App road test: CORE
By Charles Ashford, Director of Sports Nutrition, University of North Texas
It is highly likely that if you are reading this, you are familiar with the work of Dr. Asker Jeukendrup. Jeukendrup has conducted a wealth of research and published a number of articles in the field of sports nutrition with a number of these focusing closely upon carbohydrate ingestion and endurance performance. However, you may not know that he has created an application which allows individuals to create a fully customized fueling and hydration plans based upon their training session or event in question. This is really neat given growing popularity of seeking a personalized and periodized approach to sports nutrition over recent years. This allows the athlete to get individualized guidance instead of adopting generic textbook guidelines.
Dependent on the duration and intensity of the session, the benefits of consuming carbohydrate and fluid during exercise are well documented in the sports nutrition literature for the endurance athlete. However, it is not always something the individual gets right. CORE aims to help the user remove this guesswork. A well-designed fueling plan may improve performance, help avoid dehydration, prevent overhydration, and limit gastrointestinal issues.
CORE takes some basic information from the user, such as weight, estimated sweat rate, and familiarity of training with exogenous carbohydrate. The application will then account for a predicted weather forecast, expected performance for the event, and allow the user to select the fluid and carbohydrate sources they wish to consume. Following this the app will then formulate a tailored fueling and hydration plan alongside a handy key to inform the exact amounts of fluid and food quantity required along the event timeline. This plan can then be printed and easily carried during training or competition.
Furthermore, CORE allows you to input your own sessions based upon the selected modality (bike, run, or triathlon) and distance. This is ideal for an individual to properly determine a fueling strategy based upon their event and its duration. What is even more impressive, CORE also gives users the option to develop a plan for popular upcoming endurance events across the world which are already cleverly pre-programmed on the application.
Finally, this application may also serve as a valuable tool for the sports nutrition practitioner who works frequently with endurance athletes to help them formulate training and competition fueling plans. It is worth highlighting the additional paid features allow the user to input supplementary information in regard to caffeine intake, nutrition available on the race course, and customize your own carbohydrate intake targets by the hour. This may be beneficial for an individual who has an understanding of how well they can tolerate carbohydrate during exercise or recognizes an intake at which they are comfortable consuming.
Overall, CORE appears to be a valuable tool for both athlete and practitioner alike!
Visit their website here.
