The Role of Nutrition in Top Level Sports
by James P. Outreach & PR ExecutiveFormer England cricket captain and once-BBC
Sports Personality of the Year Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff recently appeared in a
BBC documentary titled Freddie Flintoff – Living with Bulimia.
The 42-year old opened up about his own
experience, battling an eating disorder while representing his country on the
world stage. But he also delved into another conversation — the role that
nutrition plays in performance sports.
The common perception is that high
performance athletes are not only the fittest but the healthiest individuals on
the planet. This isn’t always the case. Maintaining an image expected of them
by the media or by sponsors has prevented many athletes from being their best
in order to look their best.
With this in mind, polo shirts
retailer, Charles Tyrwhitt, who has recently partnered with England Rugby as
the team’s official formalwear partner, delve into nutrition in sport in order
to gain a better understanding of the role it plays.
Nutrition then
In the past, nutrition was something almost
completely disregarded in sport. We aren’t just talking about the drinking
culture that existed within English football in the 80s and 90s either!
Lionel Messi, considered the world-over as
the GOAT, was hardly an advocate of a healthy diet during the early years of
his career. The South American diet traditionally emphasises red meat and
stacked carbohydrates, and Messi’s was no different. However, it was his
adoration of fizzy drinks and snacks that owed to a drop in performance. During
a qualifier for the 2014 World Cup, the striker began vomiting on the pitch,
something his dietician later credited to his sugar-filled binging.
The first nutritionist to grace the Premier
League was in 1996. But as late as 2008, Harry Redknapp, former Spurs Manager,
was quoted saying: “If you can’t pass the ball properly, a bowl of pasta isn’t
going to make the difference.” It wasn’t so much ignorance necessarily, rather
a sheer lack of understanding.
The importance
Nowadays, you’ll genuinely struggle to find
a sporting discipline or sports star that doesn’t have an attributed
nutritionist.
The body is a high-performance machine, one
that requires not only maintenance but the correct fuel in order to run at
optimum levels.
Nutritionists will plan the holistic,
day-to-day diet of athletes which help maintenance and recovery. They also
create an athlete’s performance diet which is used for game day and training
sessions.
Everything must be considered, from the
obvious features like protein for muscle growth and repair to the more obscure
additions, like beetroot to reduce inflammation.
England Rugby Nutritionist Graeme Close
states that: “Advice must be research-informed and evidence-based in orders to
deliver the best possible results.”
Similarly, the inclusion of high quality,
fresh produce can be counterproductive if it is not being utilised effectively.
Simply eating good food does not yield good results.
The smallest margins
The physical intensity within most sports
in recent years has increased tenfold. Heavyweight boxers are becoming more
agile, long-distance runners are becoming considerably quicker, and rugby
players are getting heavier — in the most unlikely of positions.
The thing that coaches need to look at then
is those minuscule margins. Whether it be the final strides of a 26.2-mile road
race or the additional half-centimetre reach at the tip of a lineout, when
you’ve catered to everything else, where do you turn?
Technology, of course, can do so much. Conditioning
has its proven worth. But if you’re wanting to be the best you can be over a
long period of time, your diet and nutrition needs serious attention—and this
applies to more than just sport, it can be implemented into all walks of
life—as we’ve previously suggested, the body is a machine.
At a younger age, athletes might not
experience the over-arching effects that the lack of a constructive diet brings.
But having navigated their early 20s, the recovery toll begins.
This is the time when the smallest margins
have the biggest impact. In recent years, it is at this stage when we’ve seen
athletes opt for a meat-free diet. Professional footballer Chris Smalling hails
red meat as the reason behind the inflammation in his joints and suggests his
decision to go vegan has significantly reduced this. Meagan Duhamel, Olympic
figure skating champion, meanwhile, suggests that her major boosts in energy
levels and athletic performance are inextricably linked to the removal of meat
from her diet.
Regardless of what the diet entails, there
is no denying that the success involved in the likes of Eliud Kipchoge’s recent
sub-two-hour marathon, which has been partly facilitated by a focus on
nutrition.
As time goes on, we are inevitably going to
witness considerably more research carried out in regard to the role nutrition
plays in sport.
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Created on Oct 28th 2020 08:08. Viewed 416 times.