Nutrition for the Athlete

Nutrition for the Athlete

WHAT IS PROPER NUTRITION? • PROPER NUTRITION MEANS THAT A PERSONS DIET SUPPLIES ALL THE ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS NEEDED TO CARRY OUT NORMAL TISSUE GROWTH, REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE.

What is it that you REALLY need to know? • Fuel Nutrients: • Carbohydrates • Protein • Fat This is where you get your energy. Your level of energy and how long your endurance will last depends on what you eat and how much you eat.

What is a Carbohydrate? • TWO KINDS: • Complex Carb’s: pasta, bread, crackers, fruit. Needed for energy. You should be replacing complex carbs consisting throughout the day as you burn energy (calories.) • Simple carb’s: sugar. Candy bars, junk food, chocolate, pop, et. These types of carb’s should not be consumed when in season.

What is protein? • MAIN SUBSTANCES THE BODY USES TO BUILD AND REPAIR TISSUES SUCH AS MUSCLES, BLOOD, INTERNAL ORGANS, SKIN, HAIR, NAILS, AND BONES. • PROTEINS CAN BE USED AS A SOURCE OF ENERGY BUT ONLY WHEN CARBS ARE NOT AVAILABLE. • You body cannot store protein so you need to replace it during the day

What is Fat? • USED AS A SOURCE OF STORED ENERGY AND INSULATOR TO PRESERVE BODY HEAT • However, you do need to fuel with “Proper” types of fat such as nuts, peanut butter, or found in the meat (protein that you are naturally consuming.)

Reading A Food Label

Suggested portions • 50-60% carbohydrates: fruit, fruit juices, breads, cereal, vegetables • 20-30% protein: eggs, cheese, meats • No more than 30% fat: mayo, butter, salad dressings • Good sources: olive oil, canola oil, soybean oil, peanut butter

Why the need for education to athletes? • Good nutritional practice will help athletes train hard, recover quickly, and adapt more effectively with less risk of illness and injury." • The right diet will help athletes achieve an optimum body size and body composition to achieve greater success in their sport, especially wrestlers." • As most competitive athletes train hard and often, their high energy expenditure can easily mask poor nutritional choices. • The problem is, most athletes don't really understand how outstanding they could be if they did take care of their nutrition.

Three extremely important things to remember: • Recovery-your body must have proper nutrition in order for it to recover from intense practice and performance. • Nutrient Deficiency-not getting enough proper nutrients for your body to perform as an athlete. • Nutrient Timing-when, what, and how much to consume before, during, and after practice.

Nutrient Timing • Helps protect against injury • Prevents fatigue • Restores essential nutrients for practice and competition • the body is most receptive to certain nutrients at different times of the day. • Happens in three stages: • Recovery • Exercise • Re-fueling Interval

Before Practice • Four hours prior to practice the athlete should consume plenty of carbohydrates. • Bananas, apples, oranges, bagels, and low sugar fruit juices are a great source of carbohydrates. • Juices should only be used as a supplement to consuming the fruit or for those who are not big fruit eaters. Pomegranate, concord grade, and cranberry are the best as they contain many types of antioxidants. • Juices should be limited to 8 to 12 oz. servings as to limit the extra calories that could potentially be consumed by drinking several servings.

Exercise (practice or competition) • During practice you should consume some type of carbohydrate/electrolyte beverage to help alleviate the onset of exhaustion and will allow you to maintain energy levels. • Drinks that provide an ideal concentration and blend of carbohydrates and 5 different electrolytes give you optimal hydration.

Recovery • Whenever you work out, you're attempting to sort of destroy your body in a specific way. Your muscles breakdown and tear. You must recover from an intense workout. • You want to destroy what your body is today so you can make it better tomorrow.

Recovery • To accelerate recovery, ingest a small snack of carbohydrates (50-60 grams) and protein (12-15 grams) within 45 minutes after exercise. • It is also show to enhance exercise performance. • This is critical for recovery, repair, and muscle growth after exercise. • Possible foods: • Peanut butter on whole wheat • Bean burrito • Low-fat yogurt with fruit • Cereal

Nutrient Deficiency • Over eating bad foods, under eating good foods, ending up with nutrient deficiencies,which are usually inevitable with hard training athletes that aren't nourishing properly. • Ask your parents to stock up your house with good foods.

Cutting Weight • Most wrestlers simply cut calories and fluids while working out like crazy for a week prior to competition. Then they step on the scale dehydrated and have a few hours to replace fluids. • What's the best way to do that? • It all depends on how much weight loss through dehydration they experienced. If it's minimal, in 2 hours they could get about 2 liters of water back into their bodies (2 liters – 4.4 lbs). If you've lost more weight, you will still end up a bit dehydrated.

Consequences of cutting weight • However, food restriction combined with fluid deprivation has shown to drastically decrease an athlete’s competitive ability • Loss of more than 2% of an athletes body weight in less than 24-48 hours will result in a decrease in aerobic performance and endurance • Losing more than 5% of an athlete’s body weight in less than 72-96 hours will negatively effect power, muscle endurance, aerobic performance, muscle strength (especially in the large muscle groups of the legs) and mental concentration • Fluid reduction or restriction has been shown to be the most detrimental aspect to an athlete’s health and performance. It has been shown that adaptation to dehydration is impossible. The greater degree of dehydration the poorer one’s performance and the greater risk of health and medical problems. • Research indicates that it is impossible to completely rehydrate the body in less than 24-48 hours

Maximizing Re-hydration. • From the time between weigh-in to the actual competition, you sip a huge diluted carbohydrated beverage like Gatorade with a bit of sodium added to it. I'm talking about 2 liters of fluid. Sip them throughout the 2-hour post weigh-in period. • Second, glycerol is a carbohydrate-like substance that increases fluid uptake and retention. Throwing some glycerol into the drink above might help drive more fluid back into the body. • Now, the important point here is not how to recover from dehydration. It's not to dehydrate in the first place! • Dehydration of just 2% of body weight (for a 200lb individual that's 4lbs of water loss) is performance reducing. Maximal power as well as aerobic capacity is diminished. So why not just learn how to eat to manage body composition in the first place? • When wrestlers dehydrate themselves they severely compromise the ability of their body to deliver oxygen and nutrients to their muscles. As a result, your muscles can’t work as hard, or as long.

Tournaments • What's fundamentally happening as you fatigue during a tournament day is that your muscle carbohydrate stores are getting depleted, your liver carbohydrates are getting depleted, and the carbohydrates in your blood are getting depleted as well. • And, truth be told, it's the blood sugar drop that really gets you feeling rundown. When your muscles start to run out of energy, yeah, they don't contract as well. But really, that feeling you get where you simply can't produce as much force any longer is really low blood sugar. • So you have to be sure to keep your blood sugar constant throughout the day. Don't let it dip or you'll crash. Now, there are lots of ways to do this but based on my research and experience, here's what I think is best. • Throughout a tournament day, sip a protein-carbohydrate drink. Constantly. It will ensure adequate blood levels of protein and carbohydrate. However, don't just do this. Snack lightly on easily digested foods. Pick foods that you like that have a high water content, and that are easily digested. Snack on those throughout the day in addition to your protein carb drinks.

Sample Menu for a 125 pounder

Sample menu for a 160 pound wrestler

Nutrition for the Athlete