EAT BREAKFAST:
Break your overnight fast as soon as possible upon waking. This gets nutrients into the bloodstream, replacing what has been used up throughout the night.
IN PREPARATION FOR ACTIVITY:
A full meal should be eaten 2-4 hours prior to a practice, game or training session. This, of course, would include CHO, PRO, fats, water, vitamins, and minerals. The meal should be complimented by a snack, 10-30 minutes before start of activity. The size and time of the snack will depend on that of the earlier meal. Higher quality PRO* and low fiber CHO should be chosen at this time along with water. The longer the upcoming activity will last, the more volume and variety of CHO is recommended.
Carbohydrate loading:
Glycogen supercompensation (Carb Loading to lay people) is a feeding strategy designed to maximize energy storage within the body. It is particularly popular with endurance athletes in the days leading up to a competition. It was once believed that restricting CHO intake and/or depleting muscle and liver glycogen through activity was necessary to precede the 2-4 day load-in.
More recently, it has been determined that exhaustion in not necessary and is probably best to avoid: The day before the competition, CHO intake is increased to 1.0-1.5g/kg body mass each hour (broken up into smaller feedings every 15-30 minutes) to maximize glycogen storage. Another successful strategy is to ingest 1.2g CHO/kg body mass every 30 minutes for the 5 hours leading up to the competition. In either case, some personal experimentation is necessary as gastric distress may occur when loading, or a bloated feeling during competition may be experienced.
Depending on your sport, position, playing time, and number of games played in succession (weekend schedule or tournament) carbohydrate loading may be beneficial. Your nutrition and training schedule through the week also play a major role in determining the merit of these strategies.
DURING TRAINING, PRACTICES AND GAMES:
For any activities lasting less than an hour, water is adequate for most athletes. But for heavy or salty sweaters, and for everyone engaged in longer duration activities, other liquids are recommended. Small drinks (125-250ml) every 15 +/-5 minutes are typically superior to more frequent sips, or less frequent gulps, but individual experimentation is encouraged.
During activity, water and mineral loss (electrolytes) through sweating can be significant enough to hinder performance, and in extreme cases can even put the athletes life at risk. Sodium (Na) is the primary electrolyte of consideration, but potassium, magnesium, and calcium are also of interest. The original formulas of Gatorade and Powerade are good choices as they are electrolyte solutions (the former with about twice the Na of the latter), which is absorbed more quickly than plain water, and helps replace/maintain mineral salts in the blood. Both these products have significant levels (6-8%) of CHO . This sugar helps maintain blood glucose levels, which allows athletes to maintain a high level of intensity for a longer period of time.
Consuming small amounts of PRO* can also help prevent a drop-off in performance, particularly if the last PRO rich meal was consumed many hours ago. (See sections above and below for more details.) Chocolate milk, for those who can stomach it, is a great choice. It has more than twice the electrolyte and CHO concentrations of a commercial sports drink. Furthermore, milk contains magnesium and calcium. These minerals are not really lost through sweating, but are critical to muscle contraction and inadequate intake can be a problem.
A small snack (cheese and crackers, or cold-cuts and dried fruit) with water at half-time can be a good source of Na, PRO and CHO particularly for those who don’t like like chocolate milk or Gatorade.
In the preseason, coaches should provide a long break during the occasional practice to simulate a half-time. Athletes can take advantage of this time to experiment with a variety of feeding strategies to determine what will work best for him or her or game day.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER INTENSE ACTIVITY:
To maximize recovery and to optimize long term adaptations, a complete meal should be eaten “before your sweat dries”. Since this is usually impractical, a CHO-PRO snack should be consumed. The need for CHO is related to the volume of the activity, i.e. the total energy expenditure, whereas PRO need is determined by the intensity. A 2:1 (CHO:PRO) ratio is recommended after a resistance training session; a 3:1 ratio after a team sport practice/game; and a 4:1 ratio after an endurance event. In all cases the PRO* should equal .25-.5gPRO/kg body weight. Chocolate milk can help (or in some cases, totally) meet this criteria.
*Total protein consumption in the exercise window (immediately pre-, during-, and immediately post-activity) should equal about 0.5g PRO/kg body mass. Ideally this will be PRO of bovine origin. How that 0.5g/kg is allocated among the 1-3 feedings doesn’t seem to matter if the PRO comes from food. The farther removed a meal is from the exercise window, the less important the tier of the protein becomes. Consumption of vegetable-origin and non-bovine animal proteins is encouraged at meal times. These foods are often of lower fat, and rich in different vitamins and minerals than beef and dairy.
ONE TO TWO HOURS LATER:
A full meal should be eaten one hour after the small snack. Two hours is appropriate if the snack was large. If you are fortunate enough to have a complete meal immediately after activity, this should simply be a CHO-PRO-based snack an hour or two after the meal.
TWO HOURS AFTER THAT:
Another snack should be eaten two hours later. Worst-case scenario this could be the time slot for the complete meal, if the previous two feedings were limited in volume or content.
TWO HOURS AFTER THAT:
If you’re still awake two hours later, another CHO-PRO-based snack is recommended. These small, but frequent feedings that combine CHO and PRO seem ideal for maximizing glycogen storage and supporting protein synthesis. This is likely because the timing coincides with the peaks of various anabolic hormones as they cycle in response to high intensity training.
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