Muscle glycogen supercompensation: absence of a gender-related difference

Recently it has been reported that women do not have the capacity to accumu late supranormal levels of muscle glycogen when subjected to a carbohydrate (CHO) loading regimen [Tarnopolsky et al. (1995) J Appl Physiol 78:1360-13 68]. Since, in this study, CHO intake relative to body mass in the female s ubjects was much lower than that in males, our primary aim was to reexamine this issue using subjects fed comparable amounts of CHO. Endurance-trained female and male subjects ingested 12 g CHO.kg(-1) lean body mass.day(-1) i n conjunction with the cessation of their daily physical training. A 3-day exposure to this diet resulted in a marked rise in muscle glycogen levels f rom [mean (SD)] 108 (15) mmol.kg(-1) wet weight to 193 (14) mmol.kg(-1) wet weight and 111 (16) mmol.kg(-1) wet weight to 202 (20) mmol-kg l wet weigh t in the female participants during the post-menstrual and pre-menstrual ph ases of their menstrual cycle, respectively, and from 109 (27) mmol.kg(-1) wet weight to 183 (25) mmol.kg(-1) wet weight in males. We conclude that (1 ) female athletes have the capacity to accumulate supranormal levels of mus cle glycogen, and (2) when exercise-trained males and females are fed compa rable amounts of CHO relative to lean body mass, there is no gender-related difference in their ability to accumulate supranormal levels of muscle gly cogen.