03/30/2024
Coach Shea on Pre Game Nutrition
As an athlete food is fuel and also plays a massive role in your performance. Being able to properly and effectively feed your body is one of the simplest ways to improve your performance. Over the course of the next few posts I’ll be going over pre and post competition meals to help you better understand how to fuel your body for top performance! First off let’s talk about pre-game nutrition. Whatever you choose as your pre-game meal is very important as it is going to be the fuel that one, hydrates you, and two helps sustain a high performance for the duration of your game. If you notice halfway through a game you fizzle out, feel slower than before, or your legs just feel tired, nutrition could be a good place to look first.
When it comes to a pre-competition meal carbs are where it’s at, as that is the main nutrient used to power your muscles during the event!
Pre-competition meal:
1. Low in fat and Fiber
- Fat and fiber both rapidly move through the digestive system and I think we can all imagine why that wouldn’t be good
2. High in Carbohydrate Content
a. 4 hours before competition: (1 kg is equivalent to 2.2lbs)
- 4g of carbohydrates per 1 kg body weight
- 0.15-0.25g protein per 1 kg body weight
- 5-7 ml of water or an electrolyte drink per 1 kg body weight
b. 2-3 hours before competition
- 1g of carbohydrates per 1 kg body weight
- 3-5 ml water per 1 kg body weight
c. An hour or less
- 0.5g carbohydrates per 1 kg body weight
- 8 oz of water total
3. Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!!! I can’t stress this enough
On average an athlete will lose 2% of their body weight in water throughout the duration of the game. That means in order to sufficiently restore water supplies you would need to drink 0.5 to 2 liters of water post match to restore what they lost!
In order to maintain your hydration levels throughout the game water and electrolyte drinks are going to be your best friend!
