How Much Protein Do Tour de France Riders Consume?

In the world of modern cycling, carbohydrates are king. But in our obsession with carbs, have we been undervaluing protein? We always associate high protein intake with bodybuilders, but what is its true role for the elite endurance athletes tackling the Tour de France?

To get the definitive answers, we spoke to three expert nutritionists from top World Tour teams. In this video, they reveal exactly how much protein pro riders consume, the specific timing strategies they use (including before bed!), the types of protein they prioritise, and the surprising reason why they eat ZERO protein during a race. The answers might change the way you think about your own nutrition.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS / CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Intro: Carbs vs Protein
00:58 – The Basics: Role of Fat, Carbs & Protein
01:52 – Why Is Protein So Important For Cyclists?
03:58 – How Much Protein Do Pro Cyclists REALLY Need?
05:29 – The Pro Timing Strategy: When Do They Eat It?
10:17 – Protein Sources: What Kinds of Food Do They Eat?
14:58 – The Big Question: Protein During a Race?
16:03 – The Off-Season: Is Unwanted Muscle A Risk?
18:31 – The Final Verdict

Thanks to the contributors:
Will Girling. Sports Nutritionist at Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe. www.willgirling.com
James Moran: Head of Performance and Lead Nutritionist at Uno-X Mobility Cycling
Maria Carmona: Sports nutritionist at EF Education Easypost. @‌mariacarmona_nutri

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In modern cycling nutrition, all we hear about are carbohydrates. Carbs, carbs, and more carbs, which is understandable. It’s the high octane fuel that fuels highintensity exercise. But what about protein? Protein’s always been a big consideration for bodybuilders. It’s increasingly so for general health and longevity. But what about for pro cyclists? How much are they consuming during the tour to France? What type of protein and when? Well, I’ve spoken to three nutritionists from world tour teams who’ve got the answers. The same thing for a to France rider, but the level of importance has exponentially gone up. It’s true that we are all very focused on carb because that’s our source of main for source of energy at least. But protein also has a big role in cyclist I would say. So we’re not having big amounts of muscle breakdown and wastage through through the tour to France. That’s that’s the main role really. Before we dive into the details, I’ll just give a quick and simplistic overview of the roles of fat, carbs, and protein in our bodies. Fat is the most highly concentrated form of energy with over twice as many calories per gram as carbs or protein. It’s essential to brain and body function and helps the absorption of key nutrients. Carbs when broken down into glucose fuel our muscles and brain and when converted into ATP through glycosis provides with our main source of energy during highintensity exercise. The muscles can only store so much though which is why fueling with carbs during longer events can provide such a large performance benefit. So what about protein? Well, it is essential for muscle growth, hence its importance for bodybuilders and strength-based athletes. But it’s also essential for muscle repair and recovery and every other tissue in our body. So, you’d have thought it would be a key part of Pro Cycler’s daily requirements. Is it? Let’s find out. You’re completely right in the foundation of what protein is used for there. And it’s essentially the same thing for a to France rider, but the level of importance has exponentially gone up in wanting to spread that protein out through the day, wanting to get paramount timings of that protein as well to give sufficient recovery. And ultimately, we’re really looking for reductions in inflammation and the ability to repair muscle as quickly and as much as possible within the time frames that they have. Well, protein has to do with a lot of things. H for sure it has to do with muscle repair as we all know. But during a multi-stage traces like the trance muscle takes action into also muscle recovery, the immune function, the enzyme production and also the mitochondrial biogenesis and for sure metabolic adaptations that come with the racing. So it’s a quite important nutrient in cycling. It’s true that we are all very focused on carb because that’s a our source of main force source of energy at least but protein also has a big role in cyclist I would say. Yeah. I mean it’s helping with you know muscle muscle recovery repairing muscle damage and um kind of optimizing muscle protein synthesis so we’re not having big amounts of muscle breakdown and wastage through through the tour to France. That’s that’s the main role really. Um the side, you know, some research that shows that it may help with glycogen reynthesis post post stage as well. Um but yeah, it’s mostly the the muscle muscle repair, but obviously protein, you know, all of the cells in our bodies contain protein. So there’s, you know, skin, you know, things like that when we crash in. It’s it yeah, for for recovery in general, but remodeling and repairing tissues. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Uh protein is essential for all of us in muscle repair and recovery, but also general tissue repair, regardless of how little or how much exercise we’re doing. But do you need more protein in a sport and race which is so heavily endurance-based? I mean, a lot of the literature would say kind of 1.6 six is is what’s recommended for for endurance athletes. But at the kind of elite level and the amount of um training and racing that they’re doing, I I find that 2 g per kilogram is more yeah more applicable to our guys in terms of mus muscle recovery. Um, and just again, even if you weren’t focusing on it, it would be surprising if riders were kind of falling below 2 g per kilogram at the tour to France or or on a high volume camp. Excess protein consumption will still cause weight gain. You know, it’s not like some magical nutrient that does that only builds muscle. You know, if you’re in a calorie surplus, doesn’t matter where those calories come from, you you will gain gain weight. And things like protein bars I banned when I joined the team because I can remember seeing them on the nutrition table and riders taking two or three as like a for a top up before lunch. And you know they they’ve had 400 calories that they’ve not even thought thought about. So we have an approach that if you want a chocolate bar, have a chocolate bar and enjoy it, but don’t mistake a protein bar for some miraculous free calories that that don’t count. And they actually have, you know, a lot of laxative sweeteners in there as well. So, so that, but yeah, the main the main reason is less protein means there’s more space for carbohydrate. Total protein is always the most important because even if you get the timing right on everything, if you don’t have sufficient bricks to rebuild the wall, it’s still going to be under repaired. But when we then look at obviously a tour to France rider where timing is also important as well as total it’s about getting the total protein balance through the day making sure that we’re stimulating that recovery process at breakfast and immediately after the stage and continuing that through into the evening as well as just before bed with an evening snack to keep a steady flow of amino acids released through the night. So typically that last meal of the day is also a dairybased protein supplement and that’s to make sure that it’s dripfed to the body through the night. Is it exactly? Yeah. So go for a really slow digesting protein like casein which uh is majority derived from like dairy. So like a yogurt or skier or something like this. And we’re just making sure that we’re getting sufficient amounts at these different timings to make sure that we’re always maximally stimulating that recovery process of um muscle protein synthesis. We take that into account and we know that if a cyclist gets in a crash and gets road rushes, we need to increase the protein because I’m not sure exactly the protocol cuz I’m not a physiology expert, but it is true that h it gets into the into the injury and it helps recover the tissue. So, it’s essential to include slightly more protein than in nor a normal racer that hasn’t crashed or anything. Yeah. So if it’s too low then uh there will definitely be an impairment in the ability to recover the muscle and and rebuild that wall as as we mentioned. But in terms of having too much, it’s more of a case of is it going to then take away from the other things that we need. So like mainly carbohydrate in this instance. So we’ll have a certain requirement of carbohydrate both to fuel the race and to make sure we perform adequately and also enough carbohydrate to replace all those spent glycogen stores and get ready again for the next stage. So if you’re having so much protein it’s taking away from that or of course protein is also very satiating. it’s very filling. And if they get so much protein that they feel really full and then feel unable to eat more food, then that can also be an issue because then you’re trying to really force them to eat a bit more and and they’re struggling and it’s already a bit of a battle sometimes when it is such high amounts. You know, when you’re doing low carbohydrate training, the body will start to use amino acids and and muscle protein for fuel. So if you’re not supplementing that quite aggressively around training, then there’s more chance of of breakdown and becoming weaker. But over the past 5 years, because we’re now much more carbohydrate dominant, we’re matching energy balance and we’re really avoiding periods of of low carbohydrate availability. So for me, it’s not as kind of critical. But just with the sheer amounts of food that riders eat in the tour to France, it’s very hard to be kind of have a low protein intake. You know, even if you were just if you were kind of vegetarian, the amount of pasta, oats, rice, bread the guys are eating when you look at over a day, you know, a 7,000 8,000 calorie day, you’re hitting quite a lot of protein in the in the in the daily amount just by default. So we don’t we don’t go too high um with meal time portions. Typically yeah 150 gram of of chicken or fish would be yeah what we would be using for a for a um evening meal or lunch. Breakfast might be two eggs um or a skier. So it’s not huge amounts. And for me the most important thing with protein with the the hierarchy is the daily total. And it’s very easy to for our guys to hit two grams per kilogram without even trying to. So it’s yeah, it’s not something we we go after aggressively because they just hit hit targets quite quite easily. We start on the the carbohydrates and energy and then the fat and the protein kind of fall fall out of that. So protein intake is reasonably high. Two to two and a half grams per kilo of body weight per day is actually at the higher end of recommendations even for bodybuilders. But as our experts pointed out, it’s not hard for the rise to meet that mark because of the huge number of calories they need to consume each day. There’s even the risk they consume too much protein and it either prevents them consuming enough overall calories or conversely puts them in a caloric excess that leads to unwanted weight gain. Protein though comes in many forms. So I was keen to find out how specific riders need to be in terms of what form their protein comes in, whether timing of that intake is important and whether they ever consume any during the stages to increase speed of recovery. What we do, I can give you a an easy example. For example, on breakfast, we would do um some carbs for sure and then some protein for sure. Uh 20 30 grams of protein. Then during the race, we wouldn’t include any protein. That’s the team’s uh protocol. And then as a post race we would do just right after the stage immediately after we would include the tarter as we all know that it’s very popular for the antioxidant effect and also recovery shake. We work with Amax and they have a recovery shake with 20 g of protein of carbs and 20 of protein. And this is like a fast recovery to make sure that the glycogen reynthesis and also the muscle repair starts right after the stage. Then they shower and then they would do a proper meal with real food with carbs and chicken, eggs, whatever. And then depending on the rider, if they can eat more or less right after the stage, then we would do a snack or not. And then we would have a proper dinner also prioritizing whole foods. And then if necessary because the rider has crashed or they injured or anything or they just are not recovering very well then we would put a protein before bed low release protein to make sure that while they’re sleeping there’s anabolism instead of catabolism on one side I guess it’s also h for adding some variety and then on the same place h red meat or legumes can be harder to digest so we don’t want to compromise having uh digestion problems or having to go to the bathroom too much. Uh so we kind of avoid high fiber or slower digestion foods before important stages because we need to make sure that the riders are fueled well and don’t have any troubles with fueling both on and off the bike. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s evidence showing that more and more like when you’re just looking at pure muscle protein synthesis, it’s actually it’s actually fine to have larger amounts in less frequent sittings rather than the old adage of you have to have 20 g every 4 hours your muscles will waste away. I think as we as as the scientific techniques improve and we know more then the timing is probably less less crucial um with protein. I would say the opposite for for carbohydrate because we’re trying to from them crossing the finish line, we’ve essentially got 18 hours to get as much muscle glycogen restocked as possible. Um the only time that I would say protein is time relevant is periods of like if fasted training or low energy availability or if somebody’s maybe in a big calorie deficit, then we would um focus more on the timing of protein. But that’s not really something we we do too much of in this team. So we keep it to very high amino acid profile uh and a fast digesting protein in that immediate post uh race fueling. And that’s of course just to give rapid replenishment and and repair in that time period. But the rest of the day it is just making sure that we’re getting all the essential amino acids and at least a sufficient amount of protein in it. So that could be obviously the standard eggs at at breakfast and then moving to, you know, chicken and other meats and fishes um later on in the day and just making sure that we get adequate amounts. No, I mean with with vegan and and vegetarian athletes, we we don’t have any in this to France squad. You probably need to go a little bit higher with most of the research would say because some of those proteins maybe aren’t as bioavailable or absorbed as well. So, you probably need to have a have a bit extra. And I think for vegetarian riders, that that’s fine. That’s quite easy to to do because they’re still consuming yogurt and eggs. So, that’s not a big thing. But, I think with vegan riders, um I’ve not had any in the tour to France, but it’s then starting to think about the fiber load of some of those, you know, vegan sources. So, you you’ll probably have to supplement a little bit more there. But it’s not something I’ve had experience with in the tour to France, but I’ve worked with with vegan and vegetarian athletes before. Um, and I think generally as a society, we, you know, we we do eat too much meat, don’t we? We eat too much animal protein. There’s not, you can’t get away with that. And we we try not to um use too much um not using it excessively, being quite careful with our portions. Does a rider have any protein at all during a stage? No. No. there’s no there’s there’s not really any like rationale for it that I would see. Um it’s it’s more important that they’re getting the right amount of carbohydrate in the racing is so fast and aggressive. You know, there is potential for for stomach discomfort if you start throwing protein in the mix there. Satiety as well. So, no, it’s not something we we do in a race. The days have gone now of kind of a breakaway goes after 10k, easy pedalling in the pelaton for 4 hours, and then a chaotic last 20k. Those stages don’t really exist. I know that teams you may used to use protein on those kind of stages to to help riders in an energy deficit, but it’s not not an approach we use. So, it sounds like protein intake during a stage is a thing of the past. Our teams had certainly experimented with it, but with the intensity increasing year on year, plus more and more knowledge on optimal dietary timing, it’s no longer a consideration. My last question then was whether excess protein is a potential problem in the offse when proy is doing fewer kilometers and often spending more time in the gym. Is there a risk they could put on unwanted muscle? What we started to do previously uh at EF is I would get multiple DEXA scans through the year to monitor what their body composition was like pre-season, mid-season, and end of season to see both what the the toll of the season has been on them. Uh but also to keep a great monitor on their body composition and seeing where and if they’ve lost fat, if it’s the purpose or not the purpose. And same for muscle mass. And it can definitely be a case that you know they’re not wanting to gain muscle mass in their upper body that you know that is a a cyclist overall unless maybe they are a sprinter. Um and even then it’s not completely needed. So I don’t think they’ll consume so much protein and train so much that they’re suddenly going to come back off preseason like bodybuilders. But it’s definitely um a thought process that we go down in terms of what’s the program they’re being given, what’s um the nutritional ratios that they’re going to do. I think a lot of riders probably in offse probably just want to chill more than more than anything. So, it’s not been too much of an issue so far. It’s individuals. Some some athletes, they just need to to look at at the dumbbells and they can gain muscle mass, but as soon as they start Yeah. and weight and as soon as they start doing the um the volume on the bike, then that that generally balances out. I’ve seen some riders who they do a lot of crosscountry ski in the offseason and they will actually get some some definition and upper body muscle and shoulders and arms, but then as soon as that falls away and they start doing 20, 25, 30 hours a week on the bike, then that that muscle mass tends to tends to go the most important thing we’re trying to prioritize is the the lean tissue on the on the lower body. Um but yeah, it’s we we do try and individualize what what the guys do in the offseason, but again, it’s quite nice to gain some weight in the offse both mentally and for the metabolism as well and for hormonal health. So we do within reason like riders to to gain weight in the offseason break, but again the offseason breaks getting shorter and shorter. The quite soon back doing structured training now. So there is a lot that goes into dialing a professional cyclist nutrition. Carb intake is the highest priority as that’s their primary fuel as they race. But protein is certainly not ignored. Too little will impair muscle repair and recovery, but given the 7,000 calories they consume on average each day, that’s rarely a consideration. The type of protein and the timing of it is also calculated, but it predominantly comes through whole food. Anyway, I hope you all found this chat with the experts as interesting as I did. If you did enjoy it, I would really appreciate if you click on the thumbs up button below this video. And if there are any other nutrition specifics that you’d like us to delve into, let us know in the comment section down below.