Carbohydrates for Endurance Athletes in Competition Questionnaire (CEAC-Q)
Do you know how much carbohydrate to eat before, during and after competition for optimal performance?
The Carbohydrates for Endurance Athletes in Competition Questionnaire (CEAC-Q) was designed to help guide where you could optimise your race and training nutrition strategy.
As an Advanced Sports Dietitian specialising in cycling sports nutrition, I frequently see endurance athletes at all levels - recreational to professional - underfuelling in training and competition.
Considering there is so much strong evidence supporting the strategic use of carbohydrate in endurance sport to optimise performance I found it surprising that more amateur and elite athletes weren’t taking full advantage of this.
Do athletes not know carbohydrate recommendations of how to fuel before, during and after competition?
Do athletes know what to do, but struggle to translate it into practice? OR
Is there something going on in competition that limits the ability for athletes to fuel optimally?
These questions were the key drivers of my Professional Doctorate research at Liverpool John Moores University under the supervision of Dr Jose Areta and Prof James Morton.
The first step was to identify what athletes do and don’t know about carbohydrate for endurance competition.
To do this I created the Carbohydrates for Endurance Athletes in Competition Questionnaire (CEAC-Q) and had three distinct groups complete it during the validation process.
The general population who don’t participate in any sport,
Endurance athletes competing in cycling, running and triathlon events
Sports dietitian and nutritionists
This helped determine what was low, moderate or high levels of carbohydrate knowledge.
The following studies then used the CEAC-Q with >2000 athletes to identify common knowledge gaps, and assessed the relationship between knowledge of carbohydrate recommendations and practice during competition.
Research Papers
Carbohydrate for endurance athletes in competition questionnaire (CEAC-Q): validation of a practical and time-efficient tool for knowledge assessment PDF
Mind the gap: limited knowledge of carbohydrate guidelines for competition in an international cohort of endurance athletes PDF
A broken link: Knowledge of carbohydrate requirements do not predict carbohydrate intake around competition in endurance athletes - PDF
Fuel your cycling with confidence
Do you want to know how best to fuel your training sessions? Are you keen to lose weight and optimise your performance?
The Cycling Nutrition Framework will fuel your cycling goals.