If you’re coaching athletes involved in meets or tournaments, the skills you’ve helped to hone and the strategies you’ve developed may give them a competitive edge on paper, but if they compete dehydrated or low on muscle fuel, those advantages may never materialize. A number of sports — soccer, basketball, swimming, volleyball, tennis, and others — require multiple competitions on a single day or over a few consecutive days. Optimal recovery between these competitions can be critical to getting the best performance out of your athletes. The last thing you want after fighting your way through the tough early rounds of competition is for your athletes to run out of gas and not be their best in the later rounds when the stakes are highest.
So what can you do as a coach to help ensure that your athletes recover optimally after each competition?
The answer is plenty. Read on.
Start them strong
One of the most important things you can do to help prevent a drop-off in the performance of your athletes over the course of a multi-event competition is to make sure that each one starts the competition fully hydrated and fueled. If you do, they’ll be able to compete at their best for longer. Also, recovery later will be less difficult if they don’t have prior fluid or fuel deficits to contend with.
Encourage your athletes to make up for any previously incurred fluid deficits by consuming 14–20 oz (400–600 ml) of water or sports drink 2–3 hours before competition begins, and to continue to hydrate during warm-ups, especially if conditions are hot or humid. Also, emphasize the importance of getting into the habit of self-monitoring hydration status before exercise by checking urine color. A light-yellow color is consistent with adequate hydration. If urine is darker, like the color of apple juice, more fluids are probably needed.
Eating before competing will help top off glycogen stores and ensure a steady supply of blood glucose during exercise. The general advice is to consume a carbohydrate-rich meal about 2–4 hours before the action begins. The goal is to start exercise fully fueled, but also feeling comfortable. Carbohydrate-rich foods include cereal, grains, pasta, bread, fruit, vegetables, and sweetened dairy products such as flavored yogurts and milks. Have your athletes experiment during training to find the right foods and timing that work best for them. Also, pre-exercise meals don’t have to be complex. Here’s a good example of a basic high-carb breakfast:
- Breakfast cereal with low-fat or nonfat milk
- Banana
- Toast with jam or honey
- Yogurt with fruit
For those who suffer pre-game jitters, suggest liquid or less-solid carbohydrate sources such as a fruit smoothie, a meal replacement drink, yogurt, applesauce, canned fruit, or fresh fruit.
For early-morning starts where a full pre-exercise meal isn’t feasible, a high-carb meal and snacks the night before, along with a high-carb snack about an hour before exercise, is the way to go. Yogurt, fruit smoothies, meal replacement beverages, and breakfast cereal with milk are all good before-exercise snack choices. If your athletes are in transit to the venue, PowerBar
® Performance Energy bars, PowerBar
® Fruit Smoothie Energy bars, PowerBar
® Energy Bites, PowerBar
® Gel, PowerBar
® Gel Blasts™ energy chews, and PowerBar
® Endurance sports drink are all examples of convenient, portable options for getting needed fluids and/or carbs.
If seriously depleted muscle glycogen stores and resulting fatigue are a concern because of a particularly grueling tournament schedule, carbohydrate loading should be considered. This strategy will enable your athletes to super-maximize their stores of glycogen muscle fuel prior to the start of competition. To achieve higher glycogen reserves, taper their training for a few days before the start of a tournament. Simultaneously, direct your athletes to boost their intake of carbs to about 4.5 grams per lb (about 10 grams per kg) body weight daily. Where athletes commonly stumble is by not eating enough carbohydrates. Case in point, an athlete weighing 150 lbs (68 kg) would need to consume about 675 grams of carbs each day to effectively carbohydrate load, and that’s 2,700 calories from carbohydrates alone! For more information on effective strategies for carbohydrate loading, click on
Carbohydrate Loading at PowerBar.com.
Between-event recovery can start immediately
Your athletes emerge victorious from the day’s first competition, and now it’s on to the next round. Yes, you’ve got strategic adjustments to make and convey, but it’s also important to make recovery a priority. The tougher and longer that first competition is, the more important it will be to pay attention to recovery. Fluids along with sodium are needed for rehydration, while carbs are needed for reloading muscle glycogen stores. Also, it’s vital to understand that the ability to restore glycogen is greatest just after exercise. So make your athletes aware of this fact and ensure that they have ready access to easy-to-digest carbohydrate sources along with fluids.
Be prepared for all scenarios
The downtime between competitions will often vary, so be ready for long and short breaks between competitions. Also, venues often lack — or offer only limited — food and fluid options, so plan ahead. Whether it’s a team parent, support personnel, or you, make sure a reliable team bag and/or ice chest is packed with the types of fluids and foods your athletes will need to keep up with their hydration and fuel demands over the course of the day’s events.
Bring variety, including snacks and the makings for small meals. Taste buds often burn out on sweet carb snacks. Savory carb sources such as noodle soups, crackers, and pretzels are often more appealing during the latter rounds of a competition. They’re also higher in salt, which can help with replacing the sodium your athletes are losing due to sweating. Consuming sodium will also help stimulate the athletes to take in more fluids and better retain the fluids they’re consuming.
Having fluids close at hand also allows you to make them available to your competitors at every break or time-out. A sports drink such as Endurance sports drink should be a staple for tournaments and meets. The sodium in a sports drink makes it more effective than plain water at rehydrating, and this is especially important during hot/humid conditions and long competitions. Also, a sports drink has the added benefit of being a source of carbohydrate fuel. Cold fluids are usually most appealing, so keep beverages cool in an ice chest and use ice if you have it. You can also freeze sports drinks the night before and allow them to defrost slowly over the day of competition.
If the break between competitions is long (i.e., 2–4 hours or longer), a carbohydrate-rich meal, with some protein, is appropriate. Examples of good choices are rolls, sandwiches, fruit, cereal with milk, and low-fat muffins. Direct your athletes to steer clear of slower-to-digest fatty foods and those high in fiber, as these can cause digestive upset during competitions.
If the time interval between competitions is short or uncertain, consuming smaller portions, or “grazing,” is the appropriate recovery strategy. Here again, the focus should be on easy-to-digest carbs along with some protein. Good grazing options include:
- Liquid meal supplements
- Fruit smoothies
- Breakfast cereal with low-fat or nonfat milk
- Fruit-flavored yogurt
- Fruit
- Small sandwich
- Endurance sports drink
- PowerBar® Recovery beverage
- Performance Energy bars
- Fruit Smoothie Energy bars
- Energy Bites
- PowerBar Gels
- Gel Blasts energy chews
Overnight recovery
A long day of competing is now in the books, with more to come tomorrow. Your athletes are tired. Full recovery from exhausting exercise can often take 24 hours or more. But with competitions starting up again bright and early tomorrow, your athletes don’t have that long. So you have to act fast to initiate the recovery process, and that means as soon as the last competition of the day ends. The goal is to have your athletes reload their muscle glycogen stores, repair damaged muscle tissue, and rehydrate.
To kick-start muscle glycogen reloading, have your athletes consume about 0.5 grams of carbohydrates per lb (1.1 grams per kg) body weight within 30 minutes of finishing their last competition of the day. Have them repeat this in 2 hours if they haven’t made the transition back to their usual high-carbohydrate snacks and meals. For a 150-lb (68-kg) athlete, that’s about 75 grams of carbohydrates immediately after finishing and then again 2 hours later. They can also rapidly refuel by consuming smaller amounts of carbohydrates more frequently if that is more comfortable. Keep the carbs coming. In fact, encourage your athletes to continue eating carbohydrate-rich meals and/or snacks until retiring for the night.
Consuming 10–20 grams of protein along with carbs as soon as possible after exercise will promote muscle tissue repair. Protein in combination with carbs may also help speed the rate at which glycogen is replenished.
A full day of competing can lead to heavy fluid and sodium losses due to sweating, and these need to be replaced. If feasible, have your athletes weigh themselves before and after competitions to gauge their net loss of fluids. Have them replace this fluid by gradually drinking 23 fl oz of a sports drink, recovery beverage, or water for every lb (1,500 ml per kg) of weight lost. Here again, encourage the consumption of sodium sources along with fluids, as rehydration will be more effective.
PowerBar Recovery beverage is a fast and convenient option for jump-starting the recovery process. Just add two scoops of Recovery beverage powder to a sports bottle full of water, and shake. In seconds your athletes will have the carbs, protein, sodium, and fluids to start reloading, repairing, and rehydrating. Have a bottle ready for each athlete once the day’s activities have ended. Other foods and beverages that can help promote rapid recovery include:
- Bagel with low-fat cream cheese
- Peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches
- Slice of thick-crust veggie pizza
- Whole wheat salted pretzels dipped in peanut butter
- Fruit and yogurt parfait topped with granola
- String cheese and crackers
- Low-fat yogurt or pudding
- Low-fat chocolate milk
- PowerBar® Recovery bar
- PowerBar ProteinPlus® bar
- PowerBar ProteinPlus® Bites
- PowerBar® Nut Naturals Energy bar
- Performance Energy bar
PowerBar Promotes Performance
Whether it’s preparing before competition, hydrating and fueling during exercise, or promoting rapid recovery afterwards, with PowerBar® products in your travel bag and ice chest you can be sure that you’re giving your athletes the sports nutrition they’ll need to be ready for the next round.
References
American College of Sports Medicine; American Dietetic Association; Dietitians of Canada. Joint Position Statement: Nutrition and Athletic Performance. American College of Sports Medicine, American Dietetic Association, and Dietitians of Canada. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2009; 41: 709–731.
American College of Sports Medicine, Sawka MN, Burke LM, Eichner ER, Maughan RJ, Montain SJ, Stachenfeld NS. American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Exercise and Fluid Replacement. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2007; 39: 377–390.
Burke L. Nutrition for Recovery After Training and Competing. In: Burke L, Deakin V. Clinical Sports Nutrition. 3rd ed. McGraw-Hill, 2006: 415–453.
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