I started writing about sports nutrition on the blog about 10 years ago, when research on carbohydrate timing was still relatively new.
This structured approach to fueling—called carbohydrate periodization, high-carbohydrate availability, or “fuel for the work required”—quickly gained traction. One of my most widely read articles was an attempt to simplify these best-practice recommendations into a graphic showing how to match carb intake with ride duration and intensity.
It was useful if you already knew the ranges, but I found it was still too complex for many athletes. They didn’t want to reference a chart or do math just to figure out how much to eat.
About seven years later, I took another shot, rewriting my guide to align with research that broke fueling into three phases: before, during, and after training. The Carbohydrate Fueling for Cycling Guide is the clearest version I’ve created so far, emphasizing how carb intake should vary based on your training.
With athletes, I’ve used this guide as a curriculum to teach the importance of carbohydrate periodization. But it still has a major drawback: athletes are left to crunch the numbers themselves, make adjustments on the fly, and try and fit it into their body composition goals.
That’s where a new sports nutrition app—Hexis—comes in. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge step forward.
Instead of charts and guesswork, Hexis generates a daily nutritional timeline tailored to each athlete’s training and body composition goals. As food is logged, the app flexes and updates in real time, applying consensus guidelines in sports nutrition to individual training sessions and daily meal patterns.
For the first time in a long while, I’m genuinely excited about a new training app. Hexis takes the biggest pain point in sports nutrition—communicating and implementing best practices—and replaces it with a real-time dashboard that shows each athlete’s fueling priorities across their day and week of training.
Alongside TrainingPeaks and OnForm, I’ve now added Hexis to the top tier of my coaching. It’s an incredible time to be a coach with such powerful tools to support athletes!
