With more and more people partaking in sports, the more important it is to understand trustworthy sports nutrition information & make the right selection. Getting the right nutrition is a core part of optimal performance. Don’t eat the right foods or don’t eat enough and you’ll limit your potential for performing at your peak.
Whether you’re a professional athlete, bodybuilder or just exercising to boost your health, sports nutrition plays a massive role in maximising your sporting efforts. Making better choices when it comes to your diet and hydration can optimise performance, recovery and even prevent injuries.
Your body must be continuously supplied with energy so it can carry out its countless complex functions. If your training and competition levels increase, so do your body’s energy demands. Numerous energy systems in the body can provide athletes with ample fuel, so long as they’re eating the right foods. Athletes may require more calories than the average person, so if you’re especially active or simply want to start training regularly, don’t neglect a good nutrition plan.
Weight management rests heavily on eating well. If you want to shed some pounds for sport, it’s not a good idea to cut down the amount of quality protein, fats or carbohydrates you consume. Doing this can negatively impact your performance, not to mention damage your body.
Try and include the below types of foods in your diet to maximise your sports nutrition:
Wholegrains
Fruit
Vegetables
Healthy fats
Sources of lean protein and low-fat dairy products
In intense training sessions, carbs are the key fuel the body uses, however, your supply is fairly small. Exhausting your supply of carbs, called glycogen depletion, can occur after one lengthy workout session or across a few days of more moderate distance running. When you experience glycogen depletion, you feel fatigued and as if your legs are like lead.
A diet rich in carbohydrates increases endurance performance because of the extra store of carbohydrates in the muscles and liver, called glycogen. Our PRO 2GO® PROTEIN shake, for example, contains 20g of carbohydrates, which is especially useful if you’re training intensely. Carbs play a key role, like protein, in the repair of muscles after high intensity/extended physical exercise.
Fat is an essential fuel for light to moderate intensity training, as it helps the body to absorb nutrients as well as being a brilliant source of energy. While fat is an important metabolic fuel for muscles during endurance exercise and performs numerous critical functions in the body, you shouldn’t eat more fat than you need. Consuming large amounts can lead to an increased risk of serious health problems.
Good fats. Unsaturated fats are the best kind, found in foods including olives, nuts, oily fish and avocados. They’re thought to be heart healthy, can work to reduce your LDL cholesterol levels and increase your HDL (good) cholesterol levels.
Bad fats. Saturated fats are typically found in animal products and processed foods like dairy, meat and chips. This kind of fat isn’t deemed healthy for the heart and is believed to increase your LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.
If you want to build and maintain muscles, protein is a prime fuel for your body. Athletes should include a wide range of premium-quality protein foods in their nutrition plan. Protein is present in every bodily cell and is vital for aiding the body in repairing and building tissues.
Additionally, it’s used to create hormones, enzymes and an array of additional body chemicals, not forgetting the formation of the building blocks of bones, muscles, skin, blood and cartilage. High protein foods include meat, fish, eggs, pulses, nuts, seeds and soya products.
Perhaps one of the most crucial nutritional concerns for any sportsperson is staying hydrated. Around 60% of body weight is water. When you train or compete, you lose fluid through the skin by sweating as well as through the lungs when breathing.
Don’t replenish the fluid regularly, and you run the risk of becoming dehydrated. This isn’t good news for an athlete. Not drinking enough results in decreased blood volume circulating though the body and, as a result, the amount of blood pumped with each heartbeat decreases. Additionally, exercising muscles don’t receive enough oxygen then exhaustion kicks in, waning your performance.
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