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Hosted by Paul Evans, Registered Nutritionist (@paulthenutritionist)
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Noteforking Nonsense and today we're talking about Sports Nutrition. Now this is for you if you are a professional athlete, semi professional athlete, the parent to a professional athlete or semi professional athlete or even just somebody who wants to get the most out of your performance, of your training, if you play a sport at a grassroots level, if you indeed compete, whether that's doing a 10 ks run, running an ultra marathon, whatever it is, this episode is for you. We're going to be going through the importance of fuelling, the importance of recovery, the importance of getting your nutrition right to get the most out of your sport. Let's get stuck in to today's episode. So I imagine you're probably in one of two camps listening to this, you're either a parent who has a child who's competing or you indeed compete yourself and it doesn't matter what level you compete in, this episode is going to be hopefully really relevant to you.
@paulthenutritionist:Just some background, I have worked within Sports Nutrition with GB athletes, I have worked with national athletes, I've worked with sports, with swimming, with high rocks, with running, with rugby, you name it, I have worked within the field of most sports and the nutrition for fuelling, for recovery and for performance is relatively similar to an extent across all disciplines and I want to try and simplify this because we could go into so many nuances of this but I wanted to really ensure that we are covering the most essential things and
@paulthenutritionist:if you apply what I'm about to say to you in this conversation, then I promise you you are going
@paulthenutritionist:to see a significant improvement to you or your child's sports performance and recovery. So I want to start by talking about why fuelling matters and essentially your muscles run on stored carbohydrate and that's called glycogen. So if you have heard the word glycogen before, all it is is stored carbohydrate and what happens is that you have essentially got a limited amount of stored carbohydrate in you. If If you think of it as like a fuel tank, for a short easy session it's unlikely that you are going to tap into much of that glycogen whereas for a ninety minute football match or a long run or a hard training session, you can drain quite a big chunk of it. And when that tank runs low, two things happen.
@paulthenutritionist:Firstly, you'll slow down. So your legs will go heavy, your sprints get shorter, you can't get back into position and this is the bit that people often don't take into account when it comes to being a little bit depleted in glycogen. Your decision making will go to shit. So your brain literally runs on glucose too, so often games are won and lost when we are talking about sports like team games, they are won and lost in the final twenty minutes and that's a combination of inadequate hydration, which we will get into, inadequate carbohydrate, which is impacting decision making and that's why you will often see late game mistakes, misplaced passes, lapses in concentration and it's very very often a fuelling problem and it's something that's so important and also so simple to get right but it doesn't happen. Most amateur athletes aren't unfits and in fact working with professional athletes as I am at the moment it's still an issue, that it isn't that they are unfit, it's just that they are under fuelled and by getting that fuelling right and the timing of that fuelling right, we can see almost certainly an improvement in that final twenty minutes.
@paulthenutritionist:In terms of how to fuel, I want to break this up into certain events I guess. The rule of thumb is that the longer and harder the event, the more carbohydrate you are going need. For most sports, under ninety minutes you probably don't need to carb load. You need to eat normally and you need to eat properly so the day before, probably three decent meals, proper a portion of carbohydrate at each, so a good fistful and nothing new or experimental. Now for genuinely long events, so like if we are talking about running or an endurance event, so marathon distance or the equivalent in your sport, a long sports eve triathlon, that's where we have to probably consider carbohydrate loading.
@paulthenutritionist:Over the day or two before, Sports Nutrition guidelines put it at roughly ten-twelve gs of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight a day. That's a lot more than you probably expect and it does mean that you are going to be eating a lot more rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, cereal but really importantly we want to ensure that we are getting a much less fibre so you are not carrying around sloshing around the next day. Now the hardest one to get right is those morning events, so I have done a couple of Ironman before and it starts at six in the morning, so ideally you want to be getting up at like five to get enough food in. But the aim is something carbohydrate based two to three hours before the event, so porridge, toast with a bit of jam or honey, a bagel, cereal with milk, if you genuinely can't face food early doors, you want to eat something smaller an hour before, so a banana, a bagel, slice of toast, small bowl of cereal. Going in on nothing to any event is the worst option because you've already been fasting all night, so if your event
@paulthenutritionist:is first thing in the morning, you want to ensure that you're eating something first thing. If you've got an event in
@paulthenutritionist:the afternoon, so kick offs in the afternoon, whether that's football, whether that's rugby, whether that's any event in the afternoon, it's a little bit easier. We have a proper breakfast, a carbohydrate based lunch three or four hours before kick off and then a small top up an hour before if you're packish.
@paulthenutritionist:And an evening event is, I guess the trap here is that people eat well at breakfast, they
@paulthenutritionist:grab something small at lunch and then they have nothing until the game and then you arrive at six-seven o'clock with your tank being empty. If you have an evening event, you want to plan an afternoon snack around three or four and that's the meal that's going to fuel an evening game as well. You want to ensure that you are again having a good source of carbohydrate, you want to reduce your fibre and you want to try as you get closer to the event and this goes through all time scales, you want to get as much more simple in terms of sugars. You might start the morning having toast and a bit of jam or some porridge but as the event gets closer, you want to simplify those sugars to the extent where probably the final thing you put in your mouth is either some kind of sweets, a Rice Krispies Squares bar or some kind of Luke's Soade. During the event, you've got an event that's under an hour, water is probably fine, maybe with a bit of electrolytes and if you sweat,
@paulthenutritionist:you probably I'm being really general here because I've said during the event, under an
@paulthenutritionist:hour is fine but if it's a really intense event, a really intense hour, then you may need to explore something but you probably don't need a sports drink for a gym session or probably don't for five a sides as well. If it's over an hour then your carbohydrate is going to be essential to replenish, so carbohydrate during. The other thing to tie up on here, when I say during the event that does include your warm up as well, so obviously the most intense period is the game, if we think of like a football or a rugby match, the most intense period is a game, but you have been running around from the warm up, so it is going to be over an hour, even if you are
@paulthenutritionist:only playing a half. But yes, so over an hour a carbohydrate is going to start to
@paulthenutritionist:help and the guidelines for adults are roughly thirty-sixty gs an hour and up to 90 for events over two and a half hours. In real life that's a sports drink, a jug and a few jelly sweets or a banana at half time. Now what I suggest to my athletes, so footballers, rugby players, is we ve got obviously a specific protocol before a game where we want to be getting those key numbers of carbohydrate in and then at half time when I'm working with footballers, I like to ensure that they're having at least 30 gs if not 60 gs of carbohydrate and electrolyte at half time, whether that's via a sports drink or whether that's a solid, depending on their preferences. For football specifically, half time is your window so having an electrolyte and something quick. Orange slices are tradition, they can work and they are not wrong but a sports drink for you jelly babies, banana is probably going to do a
@paulthenutritionist:little bit more if you are
@paulthenutritionist:playing football or rugby. Just on that really quickly, so there is a huge gap in professional sports where athletes often, certainly in football and rugby
@paulthenutritionist:and I've seen it all up to league two where and in fact currently working with athletes in the Scottish football pyramid
@paulthenutritionist:and there it's even worse by the sounds of things. There is a huge opportunity for athletes, footballers, rugby players, any team sports to get up to 35% of your performance in the final twenty minutes improved just by you ensuring you are replenishing your glycogen at half time. What does that look like? It means that at half time, instead of just having water, which is probably not going do too much for you, having a luke sage with 30 gs of carbs in at least. Maybe if you are a heavy sweater, having some electrolytes as well, having some carb powder, just trying to get the minimum of 30 gs of carbohydrate in at half time so you're ready to go.
@paulthenutritionist:For the parents, so this is for you if you're on the touchline, kids are not small adults right, they are growing which means that they need energy for growth on top of the sport that they are doing. The most common problem I see with young athletes isn't what they eat before a match, it's on
@paulthenutritionist:the school day. So if you
@paulthenutritionist:have lunch at quarter past twelve say and you're training at six and you're not having anything in between, that's nearly six hours on an empty tank before a hard session. And they get to training feeling a little bit shit, they perform badly and everyone assumes that they are tired and they
@paulthenutritionist:are not trying. So what you want to do is you want
@paulthenutritionist:to give them something in the bag for after school, so whether that's a sandwich, a yoghurt, a banana, some crackers and that single change will make the difference more than anything they eat on merch day, because you want to get the most out of their performance and their recovery. I really don't want you to restrict a young athlete's food, so not for weight and not for making a category, not because someone at the club made a comment, young athletes who don't eat enough for their training load are at risk of something called RED S, which is relative energy deficiency in sport And it can affect growth, it can affect bone health, it can affect hormones, it can affect mood, it can affect injury risk and it's far more common than people realise in boys as well as girls. So if your child is training really hard and seems constantly tired, if he's susceptible to injury or he's stopped growing and suspected, then it's likely that he's at risk of red S. It's worth speaking to your GP about it. But really, really importantly, to kind of prevent that, we want to make sure that they're eating enough food.
@paulthenutritionist:We have to remember that a child's output in general is more than ours but equally as well if they're doing a competitive sport,
@paulthenutritionist:it's even more so and it's really, really worth exploring what their output is and how we replenish those calories. We also probably want to forget everything I've
@paulthenutritionist:said about gskg with regards to carbohydrate is adult guidance. For children the job is just to eat regularly, low to carbohydrate, snacks around training and never ever ever let them go into their chosen sport hungry. Your child should pretty much never be hungry if he's competing or training for a sport. So a quick word on caffeine because I really want to address this and it's something that I stumbled upon when I
@paulthenutritionist:was studying for a client of mine with regards to Sports Nutrition and it's something I'm kind of exploring in
@paulthenutritionist:my own kind of thoughts around caffeine. So the pre workout right, so it's an energy drink that often, I mean I've gone into professional sports changing rooms and there's Red Bulls, Monster Energy, you name it right, it's the energy drink before kick off. Doubled espressos in the car park. So caffeine does work and the research on it is obviously strong because it reduces how hard exercise feels, it helps with focus and the evidence mostly supports safety before exercise. However, here is a really interesting position that I want to explore with you
@paulthenutritionist:and it's a little bit stricter than the research and I'll tell you why. So on
@paulthenutritionist:match day, right, your body is already flooded with adrenaline, so you're nervous, you're switched on, you're ready, you know, you're kind of I've seen it right, so working with professional football teams, they get there really early, they go out into the stadium, they walk on the pitch and you can see that I get nervous for them, right? I'm on the pitch and I'm like big day here, can you get a
@paulthenutritionist:little bit nervous? Now if you're already nervous and switched on, means that you're ready and adding a big dose of caffeine on top of that isn't going make you
@paulthenutritionist:feel better, it's actually going make you feel jittery, it's probably going to upset your stomach and it will tip nerves into anxiety. Where it earns its place is when the focus slips. So my argument is if you're forty five minutes into a game and you can feel at half time you're going in, perhaps towards the end of the first half
@paulthenutritionist:your concentration has drifted a little bit. The initial game nerves have kind
@paulthenutritionist:of flattened off because you
@paulthenutritionist:played a little bit, perhaps you've been
@paulthenutritionist:making mistakes, whatever it is, that is when I would get a small amount of caffeine in at half time,
@paulthenutritionist:because that would make sense. Caffeine takes a while
@paulthenutritionist:to kick in, so usually thirty minutes or more from a drink, so a coffee at half time is probably going to land part way through the second half, which is often exactly when you need it. So if you want it faster, can get caffeine gum which absorbs a lot
@paulthenutritionist:quicker through the mouth and then you are probably going to find that hopefully the benefit from caffeine is a lot more relevant and specific there. The other thing I want
@paulthenutritionist:to think about is your sleep. If you are playing any kind of sport really, it's likely going be buzzing after a game if it's an evening game and so we probably want to consider that a big dose of caffeine before a 07:30 kick off is still going to be in your system at midnight. Poor sleep after a match means poor recovery and poor recovery means probably a worse week of training. With kids, you shouldn't be having any caffeine,
@paulthenutritionist:no pre workouts, no energy drinks, it's not going to help. And that by the
@paulthenutritionist:way isn't just me telling you that, from 2027 is it? It's going to be illegal in England for kids to have caffeine under the age of 16 so anything over 150mg caffeine per litre, government's reasons were that the impact on children who seek concentration and anxiety is just not worth it. So if your 12 year old is neck in a month before training, then it's probably worth having that conversation with them.
@paulthenutritionist:Okay, recovery. Here is something that people get
@paulthenutritionist:backwards training does not make you fitter. Training is our stimulus, recovery is where you actually get fitter. If you train hard and you recover badly, you've probably done the damage without any of the benefit. Recovery has three parts, You've refuelling, repairing and rehydrating. And the refuel is what you're eating, so you carbohydrate, top the tank back up.
@paulthenutritionist:Repair is the protein, so to rebuild the muscle that you've worked. For adults around thirty-forty gs after a session is probably what we're aiming for, so that's a chicken breast, a couple of eggs,
@paulthenutritionist:a glass of milk and a big
@paulthenutritionist:pot of green yoghurt. Rehydrate is fluid, electrolytes. If you want to be precise, weigh yourself before and after training and every kilo you've lost is roughly a litre of fluid and you'll probably want a bit
@paulthenutritionist:more than that because you keep losing it for a while.
@paulthenutritionist:This way we can explore electrolytes as separate conversation.
@paulthenutritionist:But the window, you will hear that you have to eat within thirty minutes or you have wasted a session. So something on this.
@paulthenutritionist:It isn't as nuanced as even in thirty minutes or suddenly you go to shit. What is really important is ensuring that you capture post event, so if we think of football or rugby, after the event, within the hour you want to ensure that you are consuming a good source of carbohydrate and ideally a source of protein. By doing that, your recovery can improve going into the next seventy two hours, your recovery improves, I think
@paulthenutritionist:it was something like thirty five percent, which is pretty significant.
@paulthenutritionist:There was a study done with a Premier League team in 2020 or 2021 where they basically gave one set of athletes on the same team, one set of athletes a recovery drink and then the other set of athletes not a recovery drink and within seventy two hours the one who did have a recovery drink recovered significantly more, so really important. Which brings me on to the chocolate milk study. In 2009, was it this, a team at Northumbria University in Newcastle took nine trained cyclists and put them through a hard session designed to strain their glycogen. Afterwards they gave them one of three drinks chocolate milk, standard sports drink or a carbohydrate recovery drink. Four hours later they got back on the bike and rode until they couldn't anymore.
@paulthenutritionist:After the chocolate milk they lasted about 51% longer than after the sports drink and about 43% longer than after the carbohydrate drink. Although that was just nine people and the drinks weren't matched for calories, so chocolate milk probably had a bit of a head start. The trials have since been pulled together in systematic reviews and chocolate milk consistently holds its own against expensive recovery products. The reason for that is it's got the carbohydrate for the tank which is what we need but it also has protein as well for other vodkaitis. Usually it's roughly a three:one carbs to protein per
@paulthenutritionist:effect ratio and there's a
@paulthenutritionist:bit of sodium in there as well. So it's basically a recovery drink that somebody
@paulthenutritionist:forgot to put in black and white and it costs about
@paulthenutritionist:a pound.
@paulthenutritionist:So what to have after
@paulthenutritionist:an event by event, I promise you I'll do this. After a football or a rugby match, chocolate milk straight after. Especially if the next meal is a little distance away. Then have a proper meal within a couple of hours, so chicken or fish with rice, pasta and some veg, nothing fancy. After a long run or a long ride, chocolate milk again or a bagel with peanut butter and banana and maybe some jam and then a proper carb heavy meal because you would have drained the tank really properly so don't be stingy there.
@paulthenutritionist:After a gym session, protein is probably the priority so you could have shake, green yoghurt with fruit, eggs on toast, chicken wrap. But again if you're going be having dinner within the hour then I wouldn't worry too much. With an evening match, this is where people go wrong, because you get home at ten and you're wired, you're starving and you either eat nothing or you eat some kind of takeaway. So plan it before you leave. Get something ready in the fridge or chocolate milk and a sandwich and a kit bag, that's what I do when I'm playing rugby.
@paulthenutritionist:After a kids tournament or a gala, chocolate milk and a sandwich in the bag, honestly that is going to cover most of what you need for your child and then a normal family dinner as you would, maybe with some extra carbohydrate for your child. So what to take from this? Number one, most amateur athletes aren't unfit as I said, it's usually that the fuelling is wrong. Late game mistakes are usually it's to
@paulthenutritionist:do with fuelling rather than anything else. If you eat before you compete, even if it's early, it's really really important that you do so. Never ever go into a game on an empty stomach. In evening games I need you to be fuelled by the afternoon, like as an afternoon snack, not just relying on lunch.
@paulthenutritionist:For kids, fix the gap between school lunch and training and never restrict your young athletes food. Caffeine, really important, but I feel like it's more about relying on your natural adrenaline pre game and then topping it up if your focus slips by half time, but obviously not for kids. Next point, recovery is where our fitness is built. Most people
@paulthenutritionist:feel like we need to train more to get results, it's the complete opposite. We need to ensure we
@paulthenutritionist:get enough carbohydrate, enough protein, enough fluid and then the thirty minute, sixty minute window only matters if you're an athlete who is performing quite regularly. And then finally get yourself some chocolate milk, around 330ml is probably appropriate for most people.
@paulthenutritionist:So a few little key points summarising everything is chocolate milk essential and then we have a good source of carbs,
@paulthenutritionist:good source of protein for our meal within the next. Ideally you want to be having six grams of carbohydrate an hour every hour for three hours post sports if you're an athlete. Electrolyte is a separate conversation but you should probably be hydrated without relying on tap water because tap water doesn't have as many minerals in and prioritising sleep, that is how you're going get the most out of your recovery. And that hopefully gives you everything you need. If you've any questions let me know, I hope that makes sense and I'll speak to you soon.