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Nutritional tips for sports performance -

What you eat before or after a game, or even during the off-season, can greatly affect your performance on the field. Players at any level need to give their bodies the right nutrients to help them train properly, play better and recover faster.

Try incorporating these strategies into your daily routine. Try to eat every hours. Most athletes eat only times a day. By eating 3 meals and snacks daily, you can gain lean tissue, maintain energy levels and recover at an optimal rate. You can't afford to skip meals because you need to maintain your energy level.

Develop a regular eating plan that has you fueling up times a day, including before and after workouts. This helps you fuel your body for optimal performance, recovery and repair. Your snack should contain at least g of protein and g of carbohydrates.

For example, 12 oz. of low-fat chocolate milk has the perfect combination of protein and carbohydrates needed for post-workout recovery. The body doesn't use this type of food to build muscle, burn fat or create sustainable energy. Try to consume it in moderation. Limit trans fat like partially hydrogenated oils and saturated fat, found in fatty meat and dairy products like whole milk, cheese, and butter.

Choosing when to eat fats is also important for athletes. Fatty foods can slow digestion, so it's a good idea to avoid eating them for a few hours before exercising. Sports supplements promise to improve sports performance.

But few have proved to help, and some may do harm. Anabolic steroids can seriously mess with a person's hormones , causing unwanted side effects like testicular shrinkage and baldness in guys and facial hair growth in girls. Steroids can cause mental health problems, including depression and serious mood swings.

Some supplements contain hormones related to testosterone, such as DHEA dehydroepiandrosterone. These can have similar side effects to anabolic steroids. Other sports supplements like creatine have not been tested in people younger than So the risks of taking them are not yet known.

Salt tablets are another supplement to watch out for. People take them to avoid dehydration, but salt tablets can actually lead to dehydration and must be taken with plenty of water.

Too much salt can cause nausea, vomiting, cramps, and diarrhea and may damage the stomach lining. In general, you are better off drinking fluids to stay hydrated. Usually, you can make up for any salt lost in sweat with sports drinks or foods you eat before, during, and after exercise.

Speaking of dehydration , water is as important to unlocking your game power as food. When you sweat during exercise, it's easy to become overheated, headachy, and worn out — especially in hot or humid weather.

Even mild dehydration can affect an athlete's physical and mental performance. There's no one set guide for how much water to drink.

How much fluid each person needs depends on their age, size, level of physical activity, and environmental temperature. Athletes should drink before, during, and after exercise. Don't wait until you feel thirsty, because thirst is a sign that your body has needed liquids for a while.

Sports drinks are no better for you than water to keep you hydrated during sports. But if you exercise for more than 60 to 90 minutes or in very hot weather, sports drinks may be a good option. The extra carbs and electrolytes may improve performance in these conditions.

Otherwise your body will do just as well with water. Avoid drinking carbonated drinks or juice because they could give you a stomachache while you're training or competing. Don't use energy drinks and other caffeine -containing drinks, like soda, tea, and coffee, for rehydration. You could end up drinking large amounts of caffeine, which can increase heart rate and blood pressure.

Too much caffeine can leave an athlete feeling anxious or jittery. Caffeine also can cause headaches and make it hard to sleep at night. These all can drag down your sports performance. The link between good health and good nutrition is well established.

Interest in nutrition and its impact on sporting performance is now a science in itself. Whether you are a competing athlete, a weekend sports player or a dedicated daily exerciser, the foundation to improved performance is a nutritionally adequate diet.

Athletes who exercise strenuously for more than 60 to 90 minutes every day may need to increase the amount of energy they consume, particularly from carbohydrate sources. The current recommendations for fat intake are for most athletes to follow similar recommendations to those given for the general community, with the preference for fats coming from olive oils, avocado, nuts and seeds.

Athletes should also aim to minimise intake of high-fat foods such as biscuits, cakes, pastries, chips and fried foods. After absorption, glucose can be converted into glycogen and stored in the liver and muscle tissue.

It can then be used as a key energy source during exercise to fuel exercising muscle tissue and other body systems. Athletes can increase their stores of glycogen by regularly eating high-carbohydrate foods.

If dietary protein intake is insufficient, this can result in a loss of protein muscle tissue, because the body will start to break down muscle tissue to meet its energy needs, and may increase the risk of infections and illness. Current recommendations for carbohydrate requirements vary depending on the duration, frequency and intensity of exercise.

More refined carbohydrate foods such as white bread, jams and lollies are useful to boost the total intake of carbohydrate, particularly for very active people. Athletes are advised to adjust the amount of carbohydrate they consume for fuelling and recovery to suit their exercise level.

For example:. A more recent strategy adopted by some athletes is to train with low body carbohydrate levels and intakes train low. There is accumulating evidence that carefully planned periods of training with low carbohydrate availability may enhance some of the adaptations in muscle to the training program.

However, currently the benefits of this approach to athletic performance are unclear. The GI has become of increasing interest to athletes in the area of sports nutrition. However, the particular timing of ingestion of carbohydrate foods with different GIs around exercise might be important.

There is a suggestion that low GI foods may be useful before exercise to provide a more sustained energy release, although evidence is not convincing in terms of any resulting performance benefit.

Moderate to high GI foods and fluids may be the most beneficial during exercise and in the early recovery period. However, it is important to remember the type and timing of food eaten should be tailored to personal preferences and to maximise the performance of the particular sport in which the person is involved.

A high-carbohydrate meal 3 to 4 hours before exercise is thought to have a positive effect on performance. A small snack one to 2 hours before exercise may also benefit performance. It is important to ensure good hydration prior to an event.

Consuming approximately ml of fluid in the 2 to 4 hours prior to an event may be a good general strategy to take. Some people may experience a negative response to eating close to exercise. A meal high in fat, protein or fibre is likely to increase the risk of digestive discomfort.

It is recommended that meals just before exercise should be high in carbohydrates as they do not cause gastrointestinal upset. Liquid meal supplements may also be appropriate, particularly for athletes who suffer from pre-event nerves. For athletes involved in events lasting less than 60 minutes in duration, a mouth rinse with a carbohydrate beverage may be sufficient to help improve performance.

Benefits of this strategy appear to relate to effects on the brain and central nervous system. During exercise lasting more than 60 minutes, an intake of carbohydrate is required to top up blood glucose levels and delay fatigue.

Current recommendations suggest 30 to 60 g of carbohydrate is sufficient, and can be in the form of lollies, sports gels, sports drinks, low-fat muesli and sports bars or sandwiches with white bread. It is important to start your intake early in exercise and to consume regular amounts throughout the exercise period.

It is also important to consume regular fluid during prolonged exercise to avoid dehydration.

Official websites performace. Nutritional tips for sports performance A. Nutritinal website belongs to an official government organization Multivitamin with iron the United States. gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Find nutrition tips to help teen athletes fuel before, during, and after workouts to optimize performance. Sports nutrition is the study and application of perfirmance to use nutrition to support soprts areas of athletic tios. This includes providing education on tios proper foods, Heart health news, Nutritional tips for sports performance protocols, sporhs supplements Nutritional tips for sports performance help you succeed in pefrormance sport. An important factor that distinguishes sports nutrition from general nutrition is that athletes may need different amounts of nutrients than non-athletes. However, a good amount of sports nutrition advice is applicable to most athletes, regardless of their sport. In general, the foods you choose should be minimally processed to maximize their nutritional value. You should also minimize added preservatives and avoid excessive sodium. Just make sure the macronutrients are in line with your goals.