Transcript Slide 1

Sports Nutrition for Tennis
The Basic Principles:
Food, Fuel and Fluids
Becky Stevenson
LTA Sports Nutrition Service Manager
Performance Nutritionist
Back to Basics
• Good nutritional practices
should be part of any tennis
player’s normal routine.
• It is one factor that every
athlete can control.
• Good nutrition is essential
to support training
adaptation, injury and
illness prevention and
optimise performance.
Key messages in sports nutrition
A good varied diet should:
• Meets energy demands of
training and competition.
• Provide adequate essential
nutrients to optimise health
and recovery.
• Help the player stay
hydrated to prevent
performance declines.
• Help the player achieve
ideal physique for
performance, plus growth in
younger players.
Sports Nutrition and Healthy Eating
• Sports nutrition focuses
on what athletes need to
consume to be fuelled
and hydrated during
exercise and to promote
rapid recovery after
exercise.
• Healthy eating underpins
‘cutting edge’ sport
nutrition.
Tips for Healthy Eating
Aim for well balanced diet
• Carbohydrate: from a
variety of whole grains,
vegetables, beans and fruit.
• Protein from fish, poultry,
leans meats, low fat dairy,
eggs, beans, pulses and tofu.
• Fats from healthy sources
such as olive and rapeseed oil,
pumpkin and walnut oil, nuts, seeds
and avocado.
Tips for carbohydrates
• Healthy sources: wholegrain
cereals and breads, pasta,
fruit, vegetables, beans and
pulses.
• Nutritional benefit: energy
source, vitamins, minerals and
fibre.
• Performance benefits:
carbohydrates are the major
muscle fuel for high intensity
exercise, essential to
tennis performance.
Tips for protein
• Healthy sources: fish, lean
meat, turkey and chicken,
beans, pulses, tofu, low fat
dairy.
• Nutritional benefit: provides
amino acids the building
blocks for making protein.
Important in digestion,
metabolism and the immune
system.
• Performance benefit: repair
and resynthesis of muscle
proteins.
Tips for fats
• Healthy fats: olive oil,
rapeseed, walnut and pumpkin
oil, olive oil spreads, nuts and
seeds and oily fish.
• Nutritional benefits: major
source of fat soluble vitamins,
ADEK, omega 3 fatty acids.
• Performance benefits:
important muscle fuel, need to
limit saturated and trans fatty
acids and processed foods
with high fat content.
Healthy Eating for Athletes
• Essential nutrients: from the
diet support growth, repair
tissue, carry oxygen around
the body, support the
metabolism of carbohydrates,
fats and protein and immune
system.
• B vitamins – energy
metabolism.
• Vitamin C – immunity.
• Antioxidants – protect cell
membrane.
• Calcium and vitamin D for
healthy bones.
• Iron for transports of oxygen to
exercising muscles.
Athlete Performance
needs to focus on both
Healthy Eating
↓
to make sure that the
athlete is healthy over
the long term.
Sports Nutrition
↓
to help athletes fuel
their training and
competition, stay
hydrated and promote
rapid recovery post
exercise.
Principles of Sport Nutrition
1. Hydration: to prevent
dehydration related
declines in
performance.
2. Fuelling: to provide
energy for training and
competition.
3. Recovery: to support
rapid recovery post
exercise.
Hydration
• During exercise you lose
fluid and salts through
sweating.
• If you don’t replace you
can become dehydrated.
• Losing >2% body weight
during exercise can
reduce aerobic
performance (~20%).
• Thirst is not a good
indicator of hydration.
• Drinking too much is also
not desirable.
Hydration logs
•To individualise your hydration
strategy you need to measure
sweat loses during exercise.
• Use a hydration log in
different environments.
• Weigh yourself before and
after training or a match, try to
minimise sweat loses less than
2% body weight.
• For every 1kg lost = 1000mls
Replace 1.5 x fluid losses.
How can I minimise
fluid loses?
1.
Make sure your are well hydrated
before exercising
2. Make sure you don’t suffer from
mild dehydration day to day
3. Symptoms of dehydration are
fatigue, headaches, loss of
appetite, feeling excessively hot,
light headed and nausea
4. Check urine colour each day
Drinking
•Always carry a drink and be
aware of your daily hydration
status
•Drink well right up to 30
minutes before training or a
match, take few sips before
you start exercise
•Start drinking early in training
or competition, take a few
small sips at change of ends
Water or a sports drink?
Water is ok when
exercising for less
than 60 minutes in
moderate temperate
conditions.
Sports drink is ok
when exercising for
over 1 hour or longer,
or any time in
conditions that are hot
or humid.
Fuel your game
• Carbohydrates are the
main fuel for exercising
muscles.
• 60-90 minutes of high
intensity exercise can
deplete your glycogen
store.
• Start training with good
stores to delay fatigue
and train or compete
effectively.
Carbohydrate requirements
• Tennis player will need
approximately
5-7g per kg body
weight.
• Low intake will lead to
fatigue, poor levels of
concentration which can
impact performance.
• Inadequate carbohydrate
intake can reduce
immunity.
Fuelling
Pre-match
meal/snack
• Eat pre-match meal 2-3
hours before playing.
• Go for foods that is easy to
digest, low in fat, high in
carbohydrate.
• Take a snack 45 minutes
before a match.
• Carry foods/drinks in
luggage be prepared.
• Keep drinking.
Protein requirements
• Athletes need slightly
more protein than
sedentary individuals.
• About 1.5g per kg body
weight e.g 70kg x1.5 =
105g protein per day.
• 2g per kg body weight if
still growing.
• To gain lean mass you
need extra total daily
calories.
Recovery
Nutrition
• Every athlete needs to start
refuelling and rehydrating as
soon as possible after exercise
to be able to recover optimally.
• Fuel stores need to be
refuelled and muscles repaired
and regenerated.
• Fluid and salt losses need to
be replaced.
Recovery Nutrition
• Poor recovery nutrition
can lead to fatigue, low
energy stores and poor
training adaptation.
• Poor recovery may lead
to an increased risk of
injury, or infection.
• Research shows
carbohydrate based
snack or drink should
provide about 10-20 g
protein – ‘recovery
window’.
Recovery
• Important to refuel and
rehydrate straight after
exercise especially if
competing or training again
in 24 hours.
• Start eating and drinking
within 30 minutes after
exercise or as soon as
possible.
• Try a sports recovery drink,
or a low fat sandwich with
your sports drink, or a low fat
milk drink.
• Aim to eat high carbohydrate
meal within 1 hour.
Summary
Looking after all aspects of
nutrition and hydration is
fundamental to performance
and long term health.
Remember:
1. Hydration
2. Fuelling
3. Recovery