What is Sports Nutrition: The Ultimate Guide to Fueling Athletic Performance
Sports nutrition is the study and application of nutritional interventions to support all areas of athletic performance. When combined with other areas of athletic development, such as training and recovery, sports nutrition can significantly improve an athlete's performance.
Key components of a nutrition plan will be understanding why macronutrient distribution is essential, energy requirements, macronutrient timing, micronutrient requirements, hydration levels, supplementation and meal planning.
The Role of Macronutrients in Sports Nutrition
Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Fats are the three primary macronutrients, each of which promotes optimal nutrition, health, and sports performance. While fats are essential to a healthy diet, we'll focus on the nuances of carbs and proteins below.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are often seen as the most important fuel source for athletes, as they provide ample glucose, which is used for energy. Stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver, glycogen is the most readily available energy source for the working muscles because it is released quicker than other energy sources.
Carbohydrates come in two forms:
Simple carbs
Complex carbs
Simple Carbohydrates
These are typically found in refined products, such as sugary cereals or white bread, but are also naturally occurring in food like:
fruit
vegetables
brown sugar
maple syrup
molasses
And more.
Generally speaking, it is more desirable to consume foods that have naturally occurring sugars rather than refined foods, which typically have additional, non-natural ingredients.
Complex carbohydrates
Also known as starches, they include grains such as bread, pasta and rice.
Similarly to simple sugars, there are more appealing forms of complex carbohydrates. Less refined options will typically contain more vitamins, minerals and fibre.
Complex carbohydrates also benefit from digesting more slowly. Combined with additional fibre, these foods are more filling and provide energy over a longer period. Due to this, complex carbohydrates are a great addition to a diet as they can help with weight management.
How much to consume?
Daily carbohydrate consumption for an athlete can vary greatly depending on a few factors, such as what sport they play, what part of the season it is and their general build.
For example, marathon runners need a vastly different amount of carbohydrates than powerlifters.
On a standard diet, carbohydrates should make up 45 - 65% of total calories. If you consume 2500 calories a day, you can expect 280 - 405g of carbohydrates.
Proteins
Proteins are made up of amino acids and are present in every cell in the body. They serve as the body's building blocks to repair and build tissues, such as bone, muscles, cartilage, skin and blood.
Typically, we derive protein from animal sources, but some plant-based foods also provide sufficient amounts.
Learner sources of proteins, such as:
Chicken breast
Ground turkey
Fish
Low-fat Cheese
Eggs
They are generally preferable to those that come with a lot of animal fats.
Protein is particularly important for building muscle mass and helping you recover from training because it promotes muscle protein synthesis, the process of building new muscle.
The general recommendation for protein intake to support lean body mass and sports performance is 0.7 - 1.0g per pound (1.4 - 2.0 per kg) of body weight per day.
Hydration and Electrolyte Balance in Sports
Athlete hydration is a core area of sports nutrition that can substantially influence performance. The general understanding of hydration is to ensure we drink plenty of water, but we also require tiny charged particles called electrolytes. These are vital for maintaining healthy sodium and potassium levels in our body.
Sodium is also a needed component for the firing of neurons and the movement of muscles.
Hydration status also directly regulates cell function. Water is used for all body transportation and cellular exchanges. As we exercise, we lose fluids and electrolytes in sweat, which is our body's primary way of cooling itself.
Athletes training or competing in hot conditions must pay close attention to their hydration status, as fluids and electrolytes can quickly deplete at high temperatures.
Simply being just 2% dehydrated can impair an athlete's ability to perform, emphasising how imperative it is for them to control their hydration status.
Electrolyte replenishment can come via food or drink, but it's always best to incorporate both. Foods such as bananas, yoghurt, spinach and nuts can provide a natural source of electrolytes while offering additional nutritional benefits.
Sports drinks are also beneficial and are available in numerous forms, such as tablets, powders and gels. For these, you'll need to ensure that they don't contain sugar and are high in these five electrolytes:
Calcium
Chloride
Potassium
Magnesium
Sodium
A common method for determining the appropriate amount of water to drink (combined with your electrolytes) is 0.5L per 0.45kg lost during training.
Nutrient Timing: Optimising Performance and Recovery
With hydration secured, it's time to look at optimal nutrient timing.
A general rule of thumb for pre-workout nutrition is to not eat immediately before a workout, as your stomach will still be digesting the food.
It's best to eat 1 - 4 hours before training, with the specific time frame being something that the athlete is comfortable with. Pre-workout meals should be lighter and more balanced to provide the body with what it needs to perform at a high level.
Food combinations such as:
Peanut butter with a banana
Greek yoghurt with berries
A handful of nuts and berries
Apple slices and peanut butter
They all include protein and carbohydrates in small portions, which is ideal for fueling an athlete's workout.
Post-workout nutrition is geared toward recovery from training and competitions. These meals will be much more substantial than pre-workout meals. Again, it's focused on protein and carbohydrates, which allow your body to replenish its glycogen stores and help build and repair the damage done to your muscles during the workout.
To optimise muscle protein synthesis, a recommended time to eat is within 2 hours of completing a workout. Examples of good post-workout nutrition can include:
A smoothie with fruits
Protein powder and nut butter
Lean protein on a wholegrain wrap with veggies
Low-fat yoghurt with berries and nuts
Sports Nutrition Supplements: Separating Fact from Fiction
Whole foods will generally make up the bulk of an athlete's diet. However, due to the demands of training and competing, they may have to supplement to fulfil their dietary and training needs.
Protein powders can help athletes fulfil their protein needs quickly and efficiently. They are isolated forms of various proteins that can be combined in a shake containing up to 50g of protein.
Protein supplementation can help promote recovery and increase lean body mass.
Carbohydrate supplements, on the other hand, are great for sustaining energy levels during training or long competitive events. Endurance athletes use gels and powders—usually every 30-45 minutes—to sustain energy levels in events lasting longer than an hour.
These concentrated forms of carbohydrates usually provide ~25g of simple carbohydrates per service, with some including additional add-ins such as caffeine or vitamins.
For other supplementations, Creatine is a popular choice. Creatine helps replenish Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the body's energy currency, giving your muscle cells the capacity to provide more energy. In turn, this enhances athletic performance.
Creatine can enhance high-intensity exercise performance by up to 15%.
Caffeine is another popular supplement often incorporated daily into many of our lives. From an athletic perspective, caffeine is widely used in natural or synthetic form as a pre-workout to enhance performance. It has been shown to improve strength and endurance in various activities and, thanks to its brain-stimulating effects, can help reduce the rate of perceived exertion.
Finally, Beta-Alanine is an amino acid-based compound found in animal products such as beef or chicken. In our body, beta-alanine serves as a building block for carnosine, a compound responsible for helping to reduce the acidic environment within working muscles during high-intensity activity.
The most notable benefit of beta-alanine supplementation is improvement in performance in high-intensity exercise lasting between 1 and 10 minutes.
When to consider taking supplements
When supplementation is considered with athletes, considerations must be accounted for. Firstly, is what they take safe for them, and are they taking it at the correct dosage?
Secondly, is the substance they take legal for the sport they compete in?
Competing athletes should have a personal dietician who can provide these answers, but it's essential to be conscious of them nonetheless. Many athletes fail drug tests carried out by governing bodies due to the supplement products they use.
There is no guarantee that any dietary supplement is free from containing prohibited substances due to contamination during the manufacturing process or inaccuracy of the ingredients label.
Tailoring Nutrition Plans for Different Sports and Athletes
Due to athletes' differing energy demands, their diets must also be different to optimise their performance in their respective sports.
An endurance athlete will require more carbohydrates, so they are on the higher side of the carbohydrate scale, with around 65% of their total caloric intake coming from carbohydrates.
A strength athlete requires around 40-50% of their caloric intake to come from carbohydrates. However, they would sit at the higher end of the scale regarding protein intake, with around 30% of their total caloric intake derived from them.
Each athlete is different.
It's imperative to construct individualised nutritional plans tailored to their energy, performance and recovery needs.
Building your perfect nutritional plan
Just like how your caloric intake will differ depending on your sport, so will your hydration status.
Hydration status will be a considerable focus of an endurance athlete's nutritional plan, whereas it will be less of a focus for a powerlifter.
These nuances help athletes and high-fitness achievers push themselves to their limits without burning out or failing to recover. The same can be said about life athletes and those looking to move past what they believe to be their limits.
While willpower and drive are important for achieving goals, so is ensuring the correct foundations of nutrition and hydration.
If you need guidance on your nutrition and hydration status and want to learn more, visit our Nutrition page or book in a nutritional consultation.
