As a competitive athlete it’s winning that counts - you don’t want to place second!
All the hard hours spent training, eating, doing conditioning, stretching and mobility work are well worth it when you step on stage in first place.
Getting to the podium is definitely the hard part - it requires dedicated commitment to everything that can influence your performance; your training programme, sleep, stress levels, stretching, mobility work and prioritizing your nutrition.
Oftentimes it is this last part which is somewhat overlooked - yes you eat clean because every other athlete is doing this or avoid certain foods as you have read some wacky article from some guru claiming it will give you amazing results but how do you know if you are consuming the right amount of foods, at the right time to give yourself the extra edge over your competition?
Many athletes simply just eat when they feel like it but have no idea whether they are eating enough, too much or should be eating more.
What if you could train at a higher intensity by ensuring your preworkout meal had some more carbs, would this attention to detail not improve your training performance and therefore, improve your overall performance?
To see the benefits of being mindful about your nutrition lets investigate where nutrition fits in.
Where does it fit in?
Recovery and training go hand in hand.
We train and then we need to place the body into an optimal state for recovery and thus allow the effects and adaptations of training to take place. If we do not have adequate recovery we simply will not progress at an appropriate pace!
Yes, we can still progress if recovery is impacted but what if we could and should be progressing faster but our blunted recovery is slowing us down? What if our opposition is recovering faster than us and are able to progress quicker, are we not at a disadvantage?
Therefore, we need to prioritise our recovery - a saying that many of you have probably heard before but are you really doing your best? You could be resting enough which always helps but what if you aren’t eating enough to fully recover before the next session?
are eating - this is placing the body under additional stress, reduce your ability to perform at your peak and can reverse the benefits of your training (1).
This is the exact opposite of what we want but is all too common among athletes - they simply eat as much as they can and hope it’s enough - most of the time it isn’t!
For example, regular everyday joes can meet their nutritional needs by following a normal diet consisting of 1800 - 2400 calories (2) as their caloric burn from exercise really isn’t that big - roughly 200-400 calories per session(3) and they normally will make up for this loss by overconsuming food. On the other hand, athletes who train 2-3 hours per day, 5-6 times per week or those with a high volume training block can burn between 600-1,200 calories per hour of exercise (3,4). Therefore, if you are simply following ‘normal’ eating habits or dietary guidance you could be woefully under eating, putting you at risk of injury, fatigue, poor recovery and putting your performance under jeopardy.
Now, it may not all be that bad as I’m sure you're not starving yourself - hopefully! However, even a small caloric deficit can lead to decreased performance unless you have the basics of nutrition nailed!
As a side note, smaller athletes may get away with eating more ‘normally’ however, if you are larger, you will definitely need more calories! I’m sure you have seen the articles of strongmen eating 6,000+ calories a day and Tour de France cyclists needing around 12,000 calories at the toughest stage (5) - there’s a good reason for it!
For optimal recovery and performance we need to address all factors that lead to optimal performance - a good, periodized training program, proper nutrition, adequate sleep, the use of various psychological techniques such as visualisation and stress management techniques to name a few.
As nutrition is part of the picture to optimal performance if you are simply hoping you are doing enough or winging it then this is an area where you could be slipping up!
What is proper nutrition?
A central component of success in any sporting endeavour begins with adequate energy intake to support the caloric expenditure of the athlete and help to maintain and improve strength, endurance, muscle mass and overall health. (2). A proper nutritional approach will meet the energy needs, have an optimal balance of macronutrients and incorporate proper timing of nutrients to assist in the recovery from and performance in training sessions. (1).
Put simply, if you do not consume enough calories and are not consuming the correct macronutrients around the training window, this is an area where you are losing ground - effectively, not performing at your best during training and not recovering optimally - dimming your chances of finishing first!
I like to view food as fuel, it’s part of creating optimal performance. If we can fuel properly we can perform properly!
If we take the analogy of ourselves or our athletes as a race car – you would not want to use the wrong fuel as this wouldn’t allow the car to start properly. You wouldn’t want to use too little fuel as you will not get the maximum amount of distance and will be stuck constantly refuelling. You also would not want to use too much fuel as this is wasteful and doesn’t really help the car. You would want to use the best fuel, in the correct amounts to get the most out of your race car.
The athlete is the same, we need the best fuel for them and in the right quantities!
An overview of “Dining at the Olympics” Safe to say these
Athletes are eating to perform!
Problems with too little calories
When we are not consuming enough calories we are termed to be in an energy deficit - where we are expending more energy than we are consuming. This means the body has to break down fat and lean body mass (unless sufficient protein is ingested) to make up the deficit and fuel our activity (2).
Additionally, it puts us at greater risk of overtraining or overreaching as the body is already in a situation of increased stress as it does not have enough calories to maintain homeostasis and therefore will not have a lot of calories left to dedicate to recovery.
For example, a restricted energy intake is normally associated with a reduced carbohydrate intake which means our glycogen stores are therefore less. This means that we may not be able to train at higher intensities for as long as normal or necessary.
Therefore, our performance is negatively affected as we cannot handle as much training volume as we don’t have the fuel sources present and it will most likely cause over training as we don’t have the energy availability for recovery.
Due to this fact, we then have to utilize lower volumes of training which will give us worse results.
Problems with too many calories
We have identified the various problems associated with a caloric intake which isn’t sufficient to maintain our bodyweight and performance. However, what if we have an athlete on the opposite spectrum - eating too many calories?
As you can probably guess this isn’t a great idea.
Why?
Plain and simple you get fat - fast! The body is really good at storing energy for future use in the form of fat.
Let’s put it into an example to see how fat will hinder performance. Let’s take a rugby winger. Now, they have to be agile and very, very fast. If they begin to eat too many calories and begin to have a slightly higher bodyfat % than necessary it may not be a bad thing, however, it’s not going to make them faster is it?
Infact, it will probably slow them down as they have an excess of weight they are carrying!
What would happen if they prevented the bodyfat gain by controlling their caloric intake? They would be just as fast or faster than they currently were and they would be bigger and stronger. This is a win win - they are bigger, strongerand faster meaning they are a more effective and better player!
As for weight restricted sports such as powerlifting, boxing or martial arts it should be pretty self-explanatory. Adding weight too quickly can add excess bodyfat which can impair performance through;
• more time being needed to ‘cut’ where it is harder to make strength gains
• A harder time to weighin, which could lead to the athlete relying on water cuts which can impair performance if done incorrectly or not recovered from effectively
• In some instances it could impair biomechanics ie a larger than necessary gut can hinder the starting position for the deadlift
• Quite simply with everything equated, who is going to win, the person who weighs 82kg at 10% bodyfat or the person at 82kg and 15% bodyfat - my money is on the leaner person!
There may be periods in the athlete’s calendar where they want to be in an energy surplus to gain the associated benefits such as increased ability to build muscle and maximise training volumes. However, it shouldn’t be an excuse to simply eat as much as possible as this will result in unwanted fat gain which will not positively impact performance. Instead the athlete’s goal should be to monitor their caloric intake and attempt to add weight at a sustainable rate to minimise fat gain.
There will be fat gain in a caloric surplus, it’s inevitable. However, we have some suggestions of appropriate rates of weight gain to minimise this fat gain. Based upon experience levels
The above is an excerpt from Eric Helms most recent book (5) and gives a good idea of the amount of muscle we can expect to gain in a month.
Now, this is incredibly low but we need to remember our goal is to have the best performance possible and if it means you have to minimise bodyfat levels then this is the best way to do it! If taking a slow and steady approach allows you to maximise your chances of adding lean muscle mass, spending less time in a caloric deficit if you allow bodyfat levels to get too high and through adding weight slowly, you can spend more time in a caloric surplus where most strength and performance benefits are evident.
Closing thoughts
Within this article we have provided an overview of why athletes need to be mindful of nutrition from the points of optimising recovery, optimising performance in training and on gameday. Furthermore, we have delved into the problems associated with too low a caloric intake such as inadequate recovery and training volumes and also the problems of consuming too many calories which are mostly due to unwanted fat gain.
In the next article we will discuss how to set up and track your nutrition along with general guidelines of how much and when to eat certain macronutrients,
Thank you Dave! Great breakdown of Nutrition for the readers. Looking forward to the next one.
Daves contact details are below;
Dave Carleton is a powerlifter who competes in the 66kg class and has represented Great Britain at European and World Championship level. He is currently study Sports and Exercise Science in Edinburgh and runs a nutrition and training coaching service, helping people get insanely strong and achieve their body composition goals. He creates regular articles and tips: carletonperformanceandnutrition.co.uk/blog-3 through his blog and facebook page :https://www.facebook.com/Davy-Carleton-Performance-Nutrition-1650952501824022/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
References
1 - Kerksick, C. and Kulovitz, M. (2013). Nutrition and enhanced sports performance: Requirements of Energy, Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats for Athletes. 36, pp. 355-366.
2 - Kreider, R. et al. (2010). ISSN exercise and sport nutrition review: research and recommendations, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 7 (7), pp. 1-43.
3 - Leutholtz B, Kreider R. In: Nutritional Health. Wilson T, Temple N, editor. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press; 2001. Exercise and Sport Nutrition; pp. 207–39
4 - Kreider, R. (1991). Physiological considerations of ultraendurance performance.
Journal of Sports Nutrition. 1, pp 3-27.
5- Helms, E., Valdez, A. and Morgan, A. (2015).The Muscle And Strength Pyramid – Nutrition
Andrew Richardson, Founder of Strength is Never a Weakness Blog
I have a BSc (Hons) in Applied Sport Science and a Merit in my MSc in Sport and Exercise Science and I passed my PGCE at Teesside University.
Now I will be commencing my PhD into "Investigating Sedentary Lifestyles of the Tees Valley" this October 2019.
I am employed by Teesside University Sport and WellBeing Department as a PT/Fitness Instructor.
My long term goal is to become a Sport Science and/or Sport and Exercise Lecturer. I am also keen to contribute to academia via continued research in a quest for new knowledge.
My most recent publications:
My passion is for Sport Science which has led to additional interests incorporating Sports Psychology, Body Dysmorphia, AAS, Doping and Strength and Conditioning.
Within these respective fields, I have a passion for Strength Training, Fitness Testing, Periodisation and Tapering.
I write for numerous websites across the UK and Ireland including my own blog Strength is Never a Weakness.
I had my own business for providing training plans for teams and athletes.
I was one of the Irish National Coaches for Powerlifting, and have attained two 3rd places at the first World University Championships,
in Belarus in July 2016.Feel free to email me or call me as I am always looking for the next challenge.
Contact details below;
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Facebook Page: @StrengthisNeveraWeakness
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Email: a.s.richardson@tees.ac.uk
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Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew_Richardson7
