Maple Products and Exercise Performance

Subjects will be required to ingest 2 litres of the experimental solution, spread over the 2 hours of exercise. A first ingestion of 572 mL of solution will be made at rest, 30 minutes before starting exercise, and 286 mL will be ingested immediately before the start of exercise and every 30 minutes during the exercise period.

Subjects will be required to perform 2 hours of cycling exercise at a power output eliciting 60% of VO2max.

Subjects will be asked, twice, to provide a forced expiration into a 10 mL plastic tube in order to collect a sample expired gases. This procedure will be done immediately before blood sampling and ingestion of the solution, every 30 minutes.

A mouthpiece and nose plug will be placed on the subject and expired gases will be analyzed by a metabolic cart during 3 minutes. This procedure will be done immediately before expired gas collection, blood sampling and ingestion of the solution, every 30 minutes.

Subjects will be asked to fill out a short form on the palatability of the solution ingestion, after ingesting the first solution and at the end of exercise, after ingestion the last solution.

At the end of the time trial, subjects will be asked to fill out a short form on gastrointestinal issues they might have had during experimentation.

A catheter will be inserted in an antecubital vein and a saline solution will be continuously perfused to maintain the vessel open. 15 mL of blood will be collected every 30 minutes, immediately before ingesting the solution.

Subjects will be required to complete a simulated 20-km time trial on the cycle ergometer set in linear mode (where resistance is proportional to pedalling cadence), starting at 70% of the peak power output for the cadence spontaneously adopted by the subject during 2 hours of exercise.