"A good diet won't turn a mediocre athlete into a champion, but poor food choices can turn a champion into a mediocre athlete."
If you’re an athlete or someone who loves sports, you may have heard about the importance of nutrition for athletic performance. But can it really make a difference? The short answer is yes, it can.
I see many athletes and active people planning and executing their training program with detailed precision, but many of them don’t give the same importance to their nutrition. What you eat and drink plays a crucial role in how your body performs during training and competition. A well-designed nutrition plan can help you improve your endurance, strength, reaction time, and overall athletic performance.
Here are some of the main reasons why sports nutrition is so important:
• Improve performance: Consuming the right types and amounts of macronutrients at the right times can help optimize performance; research shows that carbohydrate intake during exercise can significantly improve physical performance by 2–3% and reduce fatigue by about 20% (Beck et al. 2015)
At the same time, insufficient muscle glycogen stores impair the perception of fatigue, motor skills, and concentration; muscle glycogen stores have been found to only fuel the body for about 90 minutes of high-intensity exercise (ACSM, 2016).
• Disease prevention: Inadequate energy intake is associated with a 4-8 times higher risk of upper respiratory tract infections in athletes. Therefore, good dietary choices can help reduce the risk of disease (Walsh, 2019).
• Effective recovery: Exercise can cause muscle damage and inflammation. What you eat and drink can help you recover after each workout, which helps you for your next session. Research suggests that consuming carbohydrates and protein after exercise is equally effective in maximizing muscle glycogen resynthesis (Van Loon et al., 2000). Dehydration (>2% reduction in body mass) has been shown to negatively affect aerobic and anaerobic exercise, cognitive function, and sport-specific technical skills (ACSM, 2016).
• Maximize training adaptations: Research shows that using carbohydrate periodization strategies based on training loads will produce specific training adaptations that ultimately improve overall competitive performance by up to 3% (Impey et al., 2018). Essentially, if you manipulate your carbohydrate intake across different training sessions, you can maximize your ability to oxidize fat, while maintaining your ability to burn carbohydrate efficiently.
Gillian Robinson: BSc, MSc PH, MSc Sport & Exercise Nutrition,
References
ACSM Position Statement (2016): Nutrition and Athletic Performance.
Beck et al. (2015). Role of nutrition in enhancing performance and post-exercise recovery, Journal of Sports Medicine, 6, 259-267.
Impey et al. (2018). Fueling the work required: a theoretical framework for carbohydrate periodization and the glycogen threshold hypothesis, Sports Medicine, 48(5), 1031-1048.
