THE SHORT ANSWER
Sam Impey, sports nutritionist, world tour performance researcher, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast 2 times. Here's where Impey lands on hydration. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
WHO IS SAM IMPEY?
Dr Sam Impey is one of the WorldTour-facing performance nutritionists most relevant to the modern fuelling conversation — working with Tom Pidcock and Filippo Ganna at the elite level, advising Exo Analytics, and publishing on carbohydrate metabolism. His usefulness for the Roadman audience is that he is the rare practitioner willing to publicly say: stop copying the 120g/hr pro number — that protocol is built for 8–12 g/kg/day workloads across 20–30 hours of training and is the wrong starting point for amateurs.
IMPEY ON HYDRATION
Impey’s key positions on hydration.
- Sensible amateur starting point: ~60g of carbohydrate per hour (1g/min) regardless of intensity, then build from there.
- GI symptoms ≠ malabsorption — distinguish discomfort from carbohydrate not being delivered to muscle; overfeeding lower-intensity sessions can blunt fat-oxidation adaptations amateurs particularly need.
IN IMPEY’S OWN WORDS
Verbatim from Sam Impey’s appearances on the podcast.
“Carbs which are stored in your body as glycogen, they need three grams of water to store one gram of carbohydrate. So, it's a heavy fuel, but also what we can do is again because we're going fill the tank, empty the tank, fill the tank, empty the tank, that tank gets gets slightly bigger as you get fitter.”
HEAR IT ON THE PODCAST
Episodes where Sam Impey covers hydration and related ground.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
What does Sam Impey say about hydration?
Sam Impey, sports nutritionist, world tour performance researcher, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast 2 times. Here's where Impey lands on hydration. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
What is Impey's main point on hydration?
Sensible amateur starting point: ~60g of carbohydrate per hour (1g/min) regardless of intensity, then build from there.
Which Roadman Cycling Podcast episodes cover Sam Impey on hydration?
Impey discusses hydration in these episodes: "Eating for Race Weight: Cycling Nutrition with a World Tour Coach", "Why Pros' 120g Carb Rule Fails Amateurs | Roadman Cycling".