Man…it seems like just yesterday that I posted PART 1 to this article! Just goes to show you how quickly the Fall Season is approaching! We’re now down to just a couple of weeks. That said, are you going to be ready when your kids get to practice to ask them the right questions? Will you be ready to get to the root of their nutrition woes so you can reverse course and help them make their nutrition an ally instead of an opponent? You will if you ask these questions. So without another second delay…let’s take a look at questions 4-6!
4. Are you taking Nitrous Oxide Products?
If so…tell them to stop! These incredibly popular fad supplements are the rage right now. I don’t have actual statistics but I would bet that at least 50% of all males (and some females) who are working out and taking supplements in high school are using some form of a nitrous oxide product…and that’s BAD NEWS! These “vasodilaters” are unsafe and definitely not the right mix for an athlete who may already be a bit stressed (from the competition of trying to gain a spot on the varsity) and who might have a tendency to dehydrate (particularly if they are NOT watching the color of their pee and ARE taking creatine already!). Nitrous Oxide (NO) products are usually laced with high amounts of caffeine to give an intense stimulatory effect. The caffeine not only interferes with motor control (yes that means that your athletes can become jittery and prone to false steps/injuries/etc) but it can drastically change your body’s ability to absorb other important nutrients like iron. The dilation effect that this causes on the vessels in the body will not only shuttle more blood to your muscles (which is supposed to be one of it’s benefits…giving more energy) but also to your brain! This rush of blood flow to the brain has led to more than just a few documented migraines and is not the sort of chemistry you want your athletes to be fooling around with. Want to get them pumped? Have them watch HOOSIERS or “300″ a couple times before the big game, or pull out your best Knute Rockne speechto motivate them and you will have accomplished the same thing….in a far less dangerous way!
5. Did you eat a snack before practice?
One of the most overlooked times of the day to be fueling up is right before practice. If you think about it, the last time the majority of your athletes will have eaten is at lunch time (usually 3 hours before). Attempting to go an entire practice with no more incoming calories is like trying to drive your car cross country when you’ve only got enough gas to make it across the state lines! In order to produce a sustained effort and energy levels your body needs to be “fueled” every 3 hours AT THE LATEST! Failing to do this is not only going to take it’s toll on the performance output for that particular day or practice…but in the long haul, the ability of the body to recover and grow stronger will be compromised as well. A prepractice snack of a protein bar, a piece of fruit with skim milk, a half of a peanut butter sandwich, or even some trail mix is enough to help them to sustain some blood sugar stability heading into the next two hours of intense practice. Knowing that your athlete has “fueled” their tank can now give you confidence in knowing that they can give you all they’ve got without attempting to “run on empty!”
6. How many hours are you sleeping at night?
WHAT?!? That’s not a nutrition question! Actually, indirectly it very much is! In fact, it may be the most important of all of them. Why? Because even the greatest nutrition game plan can come absolutely unglued when the body isn’t allowed to recover properly. When you are sleep deprived your body fights all day just to provide you with enough energy and focus to “zombie” your way through the day. None of the nutrients are used to build you up stronger. That would be a waste of good useable energy in a time when perceived survival is the more immediate concern. Dating all the way back to the cavemen…being alert and having enough energy to run in case you found yourself face to face with a T-REX (the prehistoric version of that 300lb left tackle!) was the prime focus of your body. Any incoming energy was directed at allowing you to survive in situations like this. Where do you think muscle growth and performance enhancement fell on that priority list?? Umm…nowhere close to survival! Same thing applies here. If you’re burning the candle at both ends and barely squeaking by on your recovery and sleep…I don’t care how good you’re eating, or how hard you’re training…none of that will be reflected in your results since your body will just be trying to keep you from sinking even further into the overtraining abyss. The phrase “playing for the tie” applies perfectly here. No continued decline, but certainly NO improvement at all (in your skills, focus, muscularity, or athleticism) if you’re not completing the “nutrition” picture with proper rest and recovery. 7.5 hours of CONSISTENT solid sleep a night will get the job done. Find out how much your athletes are getting…before their lack of zzzz’s puts them on energy empty!
So there you have it. The 6 simple but information loaded questions that you need to be asking your athletes when they hit camp just days from now. No hard sell is needed. No need to go out and try to get a 2 week PHD on nutrition. Just 6 informative questions that will help you get a huge head start on not only knowing your team and what you’re bringing to the field or court this Fall…but also a giant edge on your competition who aren’t asking these questions!
If you’re looking to accelerate your knowledge of nutrition however and want to really gain the upper hand on your competition (but still don’t have the time it will take to learn ALL the ins and outs and the detailed scientific chemical reactions of nutrition and how it relates to performance) then head to http://sportsnutritionblueprint.com and get your copy of the TEEN SPORTS NUTRITION BLUEPRINT! It’s the practical solution you can implement in days with your team that is guaranteed to equate to at least another W or more this season without changing anything else! How important could that be? Be back next week with some more new tips and tactics to get the most out of your athletes by targeting the “INSIDE” track of their nutrition! See you then!
Jeff
Filed under Sports Nutrition, Supplements by on Aug 18th, 2010. Comment. 
When becoming an elite athlete is your primary goal, there are obviously a number variables that need to absolutely be addressed to fulfill the equation for success. Among these variables, nutrition, and even more importantly hydration rank high in this performance equation. Of course this can’t come as a surprise to you guys by now…considering the fact that I felt strongly about this to write a darn book on it!!
There are many misconceptions dealing with dehydration. Since football season is coming up and the weather here out East is blistering hot, I wanted to cover some of the things you should be doing daily to get yourself primed for peak performance. Notice I’m talking about “priming” the body and not “reacting” after that fact…when it’s often too late? Just as you wouldn’t attempt to run a car without motor oil, you can’t expect your body to respond for you as you hit summer camp practices…if you’re not supplying it with the liquid that makes it run smoothly. Proactive Hydration is where it’s at my friends! Let me explain.
Some of you out there reading this might be entering into your upcoming football season…possibly on the bubble of getting that starting spot, or that scholarship you’ve always dreamed of, or just impressing your peers (and that cute girl you wished would show you just a little attention in school!). If that’s you…wouldn’t you want to give yourself the best chance possible to succeed? I mean after all, you spent the hours in the weight room to improve your strength, you’ve worked on your footwork and agility, you’ve improved your speed (hopefully by listening to my buddy Latif’s unmatched advice on the topic!), you’ve even decided to eat better knowing it will pay off on the field. Well, then why have you neglected to do perhaps the simplest of ALL of those things and just make sure you’re getting in adequate amounts of water?!?
Believe me…I’m not picking on you…because I sat where you do for many years. I hated drinking water! Go figure. I don’t know what it was….I just felt inconvenienced every time I had to go get a drink of water, so I just wouldn’t do it. That was until I actually started to see the serious effects not drinking enough could have on not only my body, but perhaps even more disturbingly for me (since I was busting my butt trying to get ready for football in the offseason) was the negative impact it could have on my performance!
How’s this one for you? A 3% drop in body hydration levels can decrease reaction time by up to 20%, power output by almost %30 and total strength by somewhere in between those two!! Draw that out a bit and it’s not too hard to see that speed, quickness, defensive ability, and nearly every aspect of your game dramatically suffers at again…just a 3% drop in total body hydration!!
When you consider that some athletes may lose up to 10-12 cups of fluid when practicing in hot/humid weather, it gets even more disturbing. That said, though…I’m not trying to make this look like a bleak situation….because it isn’t. As a matter of fact guys, it’s got a real easy solution. You ready? Drink more water!! I know…scientific huh? But truly that’s the essence of this. But where I can help you is to point out a few helpful strategies to make the whole thing less of a chore and easier to tackle (no pun intended).
The first important point is, again, you’ve got to stay proactive with your hydration! Don’t wait to feel thirsty….ever! I always say…if you let yourself get thirsty it’s already WAY TOO LATE! Avoid this by drinking constantly. Either keep a bottle with you all day and refill it often (I’ll even keep some rubber bands wrapped around my bottle and take them off every time I refill it…as a way of tracking how many bottles I’ve had for the day!) or just try to keep a small little Dixie cup near the sink and every time you walk through the room, stop and chug down 5 ounces! The little amounts consumed consistenly will quickly add up to a lot!
As you approach competition, there’s no such thing in my mind as pre-event and post-event hydration. Instead, drink before, during and after! You’ll be losing enormous amounts of water (and electrolytes) through your sweat as you compete…so keep that steady replacement going to never have to experience that 3% dip I referred to earlier. As far as what type of replacement qualifies as GOOD replacement, well….you can probably imagine that coca-cola isn’t on my list!
Just remember…when we sweat we not only lose water, we lose sodium and potassium so it is very important for athletes to replace these electrolytes as well. Sports drinks fit the bill perfectly here. To be honest, the type of sports drink doesn’t really matter (although my boy David Wright is sponsored by Vitamin Water so feel free to support them!). As long as you are replenish your electrolytes the name of the drink is not an issue. The best strategy to ensure equal amounts of water and electrolyte replenishment is to either alternate cups of sports drink and water….or just to dilute a sports drink with water. Either will work. Just remember to get both!
Finally…what if you think you may have gone too far? You feel as if you may already be dehydrated? How can you check? There are a number of ways to check and see, but the two ways I’ve found most useful with both myself and my athletes are the weight test, and the urine test. For the urine test…simply check the color of your pee! I know, simple, a bit juvenile but pretty effective. Light colored, diluted urine probably means you are hydrated; dark colored, concentrated urine is a good bet you’re dehydrated. Sure certain vitamins can throw off the color and darken even a hydrated person’s urine…..but in general this is a pretty good guage.
Weighing yourself before and after exercise is the other simple method. Any weight lost is likely from fluid, so it gives you a target amount to drink to replenish your losses and ensure you avoid dehydration. For every pound you lose you want to drink 16 ounces of water. Simple straight forward and effective.
Like mentioned above there is no one thing that will make you a star athlete, but there is a combination of things that can drastically make changes in your game. Adding more water and sports drinks to your daily regimen will surely increase your performance as I just heavily stressed…. but are you eating at the right times? Getting enough sleep? Understanding how your body/metabolism actually works? These are all things that athlete’s should understand and monitor if you’re looking to gain that competitive edge. If you’re looking for a simple, “plug and play” system that you can either use yourself or with your team…then I highly recommend you grab a copy of my Teen Sports Nutrition Blueprint today (http://sportsnutritionblueprint.com) and reap the benefits immediately.
Filed under Sports Nutrition, Uncategorized by on Aug 5th, 2010. 2 Comments.
With so much going on in the Summer you may find yourself putting off workouts because you just cannot find the motivation or the time. One of the greatest benefits of organized sports during the school year is that the schedule of school and practice makes it almost impossible to fall out of routine. The Summer, as I have written about before however, is a whole other issue.
Being the competitive person that I am…I couldn’t just sit back and accept this to be the case and do nothing about it. I’ve seen far too many teens come back to Summer workouts and August training camps in horrible shape, only to lose their starting jobs or worse, get injured, all because they stopped training during the Summer. So you can see, simply accepting it as a “fact of life” wouldn’t be good enough. That said, I do think that sometimes desperate times call for desperate (or at least creative) measures! I’ve come up with some new ways for YOU or your athletes to stay motivated throughout the Summer. I figured, with the huge popularity of social media sites like Facebook dominating most teenagers time during the Summer, why don’t we join in the fun and use it as a primary way to keep motivation for working out high?!? Let me explain.
When I was growing up, everyone was always worried about how much weight they could lift, how fast their 40 was, how high their vertical jump was, etc. This was and is still very common especially in high school athletes. Coaches even use record boards in weight rooms to get their athletes staying motivated during their lifting programs. But what happens when there’s no coach there to force you to attend workouts? You got it…..time to break out the “virtual motivator”….Facebook and your friend and networks you’re linked to on there.
By having access to a social media site such as Facebook you are given a chance to actually host your workout stats/goals for the public to see. The mere fact of publicly stating your workout goals for all to see can be a great motivator. Accountability has a way of making people just a bit more of an action taker for fear of failure. On the other hand, if you have friends who are in the same predicament as you, start a Facebook group where you can all upload starting pictures, stats, goals and progress pictures. From there retest dates can be set and there can be constant communication with one another (ok, maybe a bit of trash talking!) as results are posted and progress is made by all. As a coach and physical therapist, I’ve used and had to resort to so many ways to keep players motivated to succeed (particularly when seasons weren’t as successful) however, I can’t say I’ve found one that has been as big of a hit as this one. It’s engaging, fun and most of all effective. The “Buzz” factor is high too, so even with just a few kids starting out, it quickly spread to others who just wanted to be part of the “hot” thing that was going around. Again, realizing the amount of time our players are spending on social media sties, I figured, if we can’t beat em…let’s join em! Why not get them to spend some of that time in a productive way?
Once established, you can create a group called something like the “90 Day Transformation” crew and invite all of your friends who you think would want to join. Appoint moderators so there can be judges of the contests throughout. This group will serve as more than motivation. You can also use it to find out other friends workout schedules or see when they are at the gym. Working out with a partner usually works out better for most, but either way, whether you choose to go it alone (using that accountability to boost work productivity) or partner up with some buddies….it’s a win-win for all. Setting it all coudln’t be simpler. If you have trouble with any of it and you’re the coach, just simply call in one of your players… odds are, they’ll get it ten times quicker than you could any way…andy hopefully they won’t charge you!
Stay strong and continue to enjoy your Summer!
Jeff
Filed under Sports Nutrition, Uncategorized by on Jul 7th, 2010. Comment.
