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How Liquid Shot Delivers More Energy, Faster
photo: Brian Black Hodes
Introduction
In this blog, Dr. Luke Bucci explains why glucose is the ideal fuel source for the body when you need gut-friendly energy fast.
He also summarizes the body’s love/hate relationship with fructose, explaining why pure fructose (which so many other exercise fuel products contain) can actually be a hindrance.
Hail to the King, Baby
Energy is fuel, fuel is carbohydrates, and the carbohydrate we want is glucose. When glucose supply drops, exercise performance suffers. Eventually, it falls off a cliff, which we all know as bonking. Regardless of where it comes from, glucose is The King. When Dextrose Elvis has left the building, you’re done. Continuing to exercise with depleted glucose levels leads to serious deleterious effects like bonking, and it also risks injuries.
Getting glucose to muscles in timelines and quantities that actually support (rather than impede) performance isn’t as straightforward as “consume sugar; go farther.” There is a limit to how much glucose your cells can uptake and convert to energy at a given time.
To get around this limitation with Liquid Shot and maximize energy production, we did what we always do: turn to the scientific literature and our own work with endurance nutrition.
Your body uses glucose to create ATP, which it then uses as energy; however, your gut can only uptake and process so much glucose at once, and it’s easy to outpace that limit during exercise. Liquid Shot’s inclusion of maltodextrin and glucose sidesteps that limit by utilizing different transportation pathways, delivering more fuel to your muscles than pure glucose alone. Taking advantage of those alternative pathways accounts for that impressive potential of doubling energy oxidation rates.
The Deep Dive
Now here’s a deeper explanation of how Liquid Shot lifts the fueling limit. (You didn’t think we’d let you off with just a summary, did you?)
We want carbs for energy to fuel our physical performance. The sooner the better. There are three major types of carbs that are converted to metabolic energy: monosaccharides, disaccharides, and polysaccharides.
Monosaccharides are single sugar molecules like glucose and fructose. Disaccharides are two sugars stuck together in a specific way, like the sucrose in EFS and EFS-PRO. Polysaccharides can range from three to millions of single-molecule sugars strung together like pearls on a necklace, or branches of a tree, and are often simply referred to as starches. Liquid Shot’s maltodextrin is a polysaccharide.
All carb shapes and sizes can be found in foods, and human metabolism is better equipped to handle certain preferred combinations – and it’s the reason why Liquid Shot includes glucose and maltodextrin.
We’ve already established why glucose matters – it’s The King. Maltodextrin is included because its polysaccharide structure is basically a glucose carpool. It’s a more efficient way to deliver glucose in bulk, and your body produces an enzyme to easily unpack the glucose once it arrives. (We’re glossing over in this blog, but see more details here on maltodextrin.)
Unlocking Your Full Fueling Potential
New research has revealed that the gut can absorb and utilize glucose in greater quantities and more rapidly than previously believed. Glucose is ideal for quick energy because it can be rapidly metabolized to produce ATP, it is readily available in the bloodstream, and it supports both aerobic and anaerobic energy production processes. This is why glucose is your best option when you're bonking, and you don't have time to waste.
By working with your body’s infrastructure to deliver additional fuel, Liquid Shot is engineered to deliver a usable amount of fast-acting carbs and a clinically effective electrolyte dose that gets absorbed into the bloodstream almost instantaneously, and delivers more energy-producing glucose molecules into working muscles. Every ingredient was chosen to meet this end, so it gives you the quick energy you need when you need it most.
