NUTRITION

High intensity training programs geared towards maximizing your strength, power, endurance and stamina make special demands on you as an athlete. Rigorous training sessions and competitive events serve to challenge you and develop your capacity for maximum physical performance.


Convenience often dictates what and when you eat even when you understand how to properly select foods on a daily basis. Special changes in your eating habits (weight gain or loss) further complicate the convenience issue. Nutrition products are available to make such dietary changes easier to implement on a consistent basis. Guidelines on how to select appropriate products for such dietary changes are included. The following guidelines should be observed when implementing weight gain or weight loss programs.


    • Drink water before, during, and after each workout.
    • Eat three meals per day. Don’t skip meals! A growing, active student-athlete places many demands upon his body on a daily basis which require calories. The consumption of three meals per day will help ensure that you have the energy to excel in the classroom as well as on the playing field.
    • Eat a variety of foods. Eating a variety of foods helps ensure an adequate intake of all the essential nutrients necessary to maintain a healthy body.
    • Reduce your overall consumption of animal product especially high fat meat and dairy products as well as oils containing saturated fats. While animal products contribute a great deal of calories, protein, and variety of vitamins and minerals to our diets, they also contribute the major source of dietary fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, all of which are associated with the development of fat on the waist. By consuming lean sources of animal products, protein, fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol intake can be dramatically reduced.
    • Limit fast food meals to one per week. Fast foods are generally high in fat. If you are forced to eat fast food establishments frequently, you should order the most lean protein source available that is not deep fat fried. If salad is available with a lean protein item such as turkey, this will probably be the leanest item offered in the restaurant. Watch out for items like cheese, bacon, bits, and dressings. These items contain plenty of fat and calories and should be used sparingly.

WEIGHT LOSS

Many athletes join the ranks of overweight or obese Americans yearly as a result of over-consumption or sudden inactivity without appropriate adjustment of their caloric intake. Monitoring your bodyweight and waistline offer simple techniques to evaluate your body composition. Results of agility, speed, and endurance tests may offer other indications that you may need to reduce body fat. Your caloric intake should be adjusted in an attempt to minimize excess body fat. The following weight loss guidelines should be followed:




    • Avoid trying to alter your body composition during a high intensity time of your life. A competitive weight goal should be set after the busy time and the plan of action to achieve that goal should be implemented in the off-season.
    • You should continue with the workout program while striving to achieve your body composition goal. This is necessary to maintain muscle mass while reducing caloric consumption. Simply cutting down on calories without the correct program can reduce muscle mass, which can be detrimental to athletic performance on the field and to health in general.
    • Reducing fat in the diet has a greater effect than does reducing carbohydrates on controlling excess weight. Calories are provided by carbohydrate, protein, and fat in the diet. Protein and carbohydrates both provide approximately four calories per gram. Fat by contrast provides 9 calories per gram. Therefore, fat provides 2 times more calories than either carbohydrates or protein. In addition, most high fat foods are very concentrated sources of calories while many protein and carbohydrate foods are often diluted with water, and therefore, contain even lesser amounts of calories per unit weight.
    • It is important to maintain adequate protein intake to help prevent loss of muscle tissue while trying to reduce body fat. Protein requirements are actually increased when caloric consumption is reduced or activity levels are increased. Therefore, you must continue to eat foods with high protein consumption may also need to be reduced.
    • Additional activity can be added to your program to help create a greater calorie deficit, and thus, help reduce body fat. The most common activities added to our workout are aerobic in nature (running, biking, and swimming). These should be performed on rest days (Wed., Sat., or Sun.,) in the post or off-season and never before strength training or the conditional activities to reduce body fat.
    • When your activity level is low, cut down on amount of calories eaten. Weekends are usually less active than the weekdays when training, but often reflect the highest caloric contributions to the weekly diet due to changes in your lifestyle. Monitoring body weight on Monday and Fridays offers a simple way of evaluating your weekend eating habits.

WEIGHT GAIN

Gaining weight in the form of muscle mass is the major goal of some athletes. To achieve a desired competitive bodyweight, you will need to increase muscle mass by adding extra calories from the appropriate food sources. Simply consuming extra calories without the correct program will only result in additional body fat, which can be detrimental to your performance on the field and to your health in general. Heed the following weight gain guidelines:


  • Strength training will have the greatest impact on your weight gain endeavors and should have top priority in the post and off season workouts. The larger muscle groups (back, hips, and legs) contribute the most dramatically to the addition of body weight via strength training. Thus, the hang clean and squat become every important exercises in your weight gain endeavor and should be trained with consistency.
  • Adding mass to all muscle groups is beneficial when striving to gain weight, but often athletes over emphasize small muscle groups (chest, shoulders, and arms) when trying to add mass.
  • Make sure that less than two pounds are gained per week and that waist measurements do not increase dramatically. If your bodyweight or waistline increase is faster than recommended, the additional calories should be reduced by half to avoid the accumulation of body fat.
  • Extra calories should consist mostly of foods containing carbohydrates and protein. Additional fat consumption is likely to occur with the additional calories and need not be emphasized. Protein requirements of athletes could be slightly higher during the initial stages of training.

PRE-WORKOUT MEALS

A pre-workout meal should provide a lasting source of energy. It should sustain your energy level throughout the workout or competition without causing energy peaks and valleys. This meal should also provide the essential nutrients without causing an upset stomach during the workout or competition. The time it takes for your pre-workout

meal to digest depends on the food eaten and your emotional state. Follow these guidelines for the pre-workout/competition meal:


  • Drink water.
  • Avoid high-fat, high-protein foods, such as hamburgers and hot dogs, and fried foods such as French fries.
  • Being nervous before competition also slows digestion. Athletes should try to relax.
  • Pre-workout meals should be eaten two to three hours before the workout or competition. It should consist of high complex carbohydrates, moderately lean proteins, and low-fat food sources that you enjoy. The meal could range from 250 to 1000 calories. Servings from the fruit and bread exchange category provide excellent carbohydrate sources. Use low fat milk and lean meats.
  • Avoid foods containing a lot of sugar, such as candy and soda pop, as they can actually cause an energy dip prior to competition.

POST-WORKOUT MEALS

A post-workout/ competition meal should provide carbohydrates to replenish exhausted glycogen stores and a substantial amount of protein to meet the demands of an athlete undergoing heavy workloads. Follow these guidelines after a workout or competition:


  • Drink water.
  • Appetites may be depressed shortly after workouts or competition. A little relaxation will bring normal appetite back  


Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Stout