No Effect of Delaying a Carbohydrate-Rich Breakfast on Afternoon High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise Performance in Trained Games Players: A Randomized, Single-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial

This study tested the hypothesis that delaying consumption of a carbohydrate-rich breakfast by 2 hr would impair prolonged high-intensity intermittent exercise performance in the afternoon. Fifteen intermittent games players (mean ± SD: age: 24 ± 6 years; VO ^•₂peak: 46 ± 6 ml·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹) completed a randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study with two trials (EARLY and DELAY) matched for dietary intake. In EARLY, participants consumed a high-carbohydrate (semisolid) breakfast shake (2 g/kg BM maltodextrin, 1 ml/kg BM orange squash, 0.15 g/kg BM xanthan gum, 0.067 g/kg BM artificial sweetener, and 6 ml/kg BM water) at 8 a.m., followed by a taste and texture matched, but energy depleted, placebo shake 2 hr later. In DELAY, the order of these shakes was reversed. Three hours following a high-carbohydrate lunch (888 ± 107 Kcal, 145 ± 28 g carbohydrate), participants completed a 90-min intermittent cycling test, consisting of two 40-min halves, with 10 min of rest in between. Each half involved 18 repeated 2-min blocks of steady-state cycling (100 s; 35% W_max), followed by 15 s of unloaded pedaling and a 6-s all-out sprint. There were no differences in peak power (first half: mean difference [95% confidence interval]: 6.6 [−10.9, 24.1] W, d = 0.03 and second half: 8.5 [−6.5, 23.6] W, d = 0.04) or mean power (first half: mean difference: 6.4 [−10.7, 23.5] W, d = 0.03 and second half: mean difference: 7.3 [−6.5, 21.3] W, d = 0.04) during the sprints between the DELAY and EARLY conditions. In contrast with our hypothesis, these data provide no evidence that delaying consumption of a carbohydrate-rich breakfast by 2 hr impairs prolonged high-intensity intermittent exercise performance in the afternoon.