Health & Wellbeing
What Athletes Need To Know About Sports Nutrition
Having a well-rounded, healthy nutrition plan is just as important as staying consistent with your exercise routine
When you’re an athlete racking up miles and muscle, your body needs extra fuel to keep up with the amount of exercise you’re doing and help speed up recovery. That’s what makes sports nutrition so important — it offers you a path to making sure you’re getting all the nutrients you need, even as you sweat.
For the most part, athletes will eat higher quantities of food more often than non-athletes because food is equivalent to energy. But that isn’t always the case, and some meal plans may work better for you than for someone else.
“Everyone’s body is very different, so it’s really important that we specialize individualized nutrition plans,” says registered dietitian Carly Sedlacek, RD, LD.
Bringing your physical fitness goals to a dietitian can help provide you with a holistic, balanced and personalized approach to eating healthy beyond simply counting calories. If you’re trying to build muscle, for example, your goals for nutrition will likely be different from someone who’s trying to lose weight.
Overall, when sports nutrition is combined with consistent exercise, it can boost your performance and help you feel great, even on rest days. Regardless of your goals, the following areas of sports nutrition can help.
When you exercise, you lose a lot of water and electrolytes through sweating. Drinking enough water before a training session and throughout a workout can help replenish what’s lost.
At minimum, you should drink about 16 ounces of water two to three hours before exercise, and about 4 ounces every 15 to 20 minutes while exercising. It’s also important to make sure you’re drinking plenty of water throughout the entire day.
Sometimes, athletes prefer to use sports drinks after exercising because they’re packed with electrolytes to replace what was lost in sweat. “Electrolyte beverages should be used during activities lasting longer than 60 minutes,” says Sedlacek. “If you have a history of chronic disease or conditions, check with your doctor before including higher sodium beverages.”
Carbohydrates are your body’s main source of energy. While carbs are not the only food you should focus on, they should be something you consider as part of every meal, especially in the hours leading up to a workout or training session.
“Before exercising, you want to stick with foods that tend to digest easily, including some carbohydrate sources like fruits (bananas, apples or oranges), oatmeal or rice,” advises Sedlacek. “If you’re doing a longer workout routine that’s more than an hour long, you’ll want carbohydrates during that time to get that boost of quick-acting energy.”
Protein is the building block for your muscles. Without it, muscle recovery slows, along with your ability to build muscle mass. In general, you should try and get most of your protein from whole food sources like:
But when you’re short on time, you can turn to protein powders or protein shakes between meals, in addition to having some protein at every meal.
“Protein helps with muscle recovery,” shares Sedlacek. “Getting at least 25 to 35 grams of protein right after exercise is helpful because that’s when your body prefers to use it.”
In general, having a healthy, well-rounded diet that incorporates an abundance of fruits, vegetables and plant- or animal-based sources of protein is key. That means healthy fats (like olive oil, avocado and fatty fish) also play a role as a secondary source of energy. Not only do they fill you up faster, but they also help your body better process other micronutrients, like fat-soluble vitamins.
When it comes to supplements (like protein powders or pre-workout beverages), you want to use them sparingly. As you’re consuming more than the general population to keep up with your level of athleticism, supplements should be used to fill in a gap and not as a meal replacement.
“We want to try and stick to a food-first approach the best we can because the body is able to utilize those sources a little bit better than supplements,” explains Sedlacek.
When it comes to meals and snacks, timing is everything. You should try to aim for three spaced-out meals a day with snacks in between each meal. When it comes to exercise, you’ll want to have something small to eat (usually carbs or protein) at least an hour or two before exercising and immediately after a workout.
“It’s important to be consistent,” states Sedlacek. “If we’re going into an exercise and we don’t have enough energy to pull from, our body can end up pulling energy from our muscles. So, it’s important to have something small to eat before working out.”
Sports nutrition can require a lot of fine-tuning, especially when you’re just getting started. Working with a dietitian and a physical fitness trainer can help get you the support you need for your specific situation.
And if at any point you feel lightheaded, dizzy or even experience hunger pangs, it might be a result of not eating enough or having enough water to keep up with the physical demands of exercise. In those cases, trying to level out your blood sugars and electrolytes is important, as well as seeing a healthcare provider if issues continue.
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What Is Passive Stretching?
Relax into this form of stretching while a prop or partner assists you
When you think of stretching, you might picture someone sitting on the floor, legs extended, reaching for their toes. But passive stretching takes a different approach. Instead of relying on your own flexibility, you use something (or someone) else to help.
Licensed massage therapist and registered nurse DeBorah Hill, RN, LMT, explains passive stretching and how it can benefit your health.
Most people are familiar with dynamic and static stretching. Static stretching focuses on holding a pose that stretches your muscle as far as you can. Dynamic stretching uses movements, like walking lunges or hip circles, to warm up your muscles before an activity.
Dynamic and static stretches are limited to how far you can physically move. Think of toe touches: Some people can touch their toes and beyond, while others can’t reach their knees.
Passive stretching uses other forces to stretch your muscles, rather than your own ability. “During passive stretching, your body is loose and relaxed,” says Hill. “You let an external force — like a partner, towel or fitness strap — do the work.”
For example, instead of touching your toes, you can perform a passive hamstring stretch. During this stretch, you lie on your back and use a rolled-up towel or strap to help you stretch the back of your thigh.
If you’re new to passive stretching, use care. You could accidentally stretch a muscle too much and cause injury.
“Listen to your body as you stretch,” advises Hill. “Passive stretching should not hurt, and many people overestimate how flexible they are. It’s helpful to talk with a licensed physical therapist or massage therapist before you start.”
Consider adding passive stretching to your routine to:
Unlike static or dynamic stretching, passive stretching requires your muscles to be relaxed for it to work. This release of physical tension can benefit your mental health.
“When you fully relax for a passive stretch, you tell your brain to shift out of fight-or-flight mode,” explains Hill. “Passive stretching can take you out of survival mode so you feel relaxed.”
One study found passive stretching to be better than dynamic stretching at increasing hamstring flexibility.
“Passive stretching can increase your range of motion when other stretches don’t work for you,” says Hill. “Your prop or partner can help you gently stretch beyond what you can normally do yourself.”
If you have mobility issues or chronic pain, other forms of stretching can be difficult. Passive stretching works for people of all ages and fitness levels. Can’t bend over or move your body a certain way? Passive stretches can work around these limitations.
Passive stretches can work many different muscles. Try these stretches to get started:
This stretch focuses on your chest and shoulders:
This passive stretch focuses on your quadriceps, or the muscles on the front of your thighs:
The backs of your legs, or hamstrings, get a stretch here — no toe-touching required:
Taking a few minutes a day to stretch has big benefits, from preventing injuries to reducing joint pain. And if other forms of stretching haven’t worked for you, passive stretching is worth a try.
“The beauty of passive stretching is that it works for so many people,” states Hill. “Whether you’re just starting out or you’re an elite athlete, passive stretching can help you feel great physically and mentally.”
Running can do wonders for your strength, fitness, mental wellbeing and lifespan – and there’s no better time to start running than now
By Andy Dixon and Rachel BoswellUpdated: 05 June 2024
Occasions like Global Running Day and the London Marathon put a brilliant spotlight on the activity of running – but running isn’t just about single days. Instead, running is a sport, a hobby and a mental and physical release that everyone can enjoy and improve at. In other words, running can become a welcome, important and extremely beneficial part of your life.
If you’ve never run a step, here are 10 benefits of running that will inspire you to lace up those running shoes and get going today…
When you run, your whole physiology reaps the rewards of your movement. Here are just some parts of the body that feel the positive effects of those accumulated running steps.
Among other things, regular running helps to improve your respiratory function, lower your cholesterol, reduce your risk of diabetes and improve your heart health. In fact, according to leading cardiologist Dr Dan Augustine, ‘if you could put exercise into a pill, it would be better than most drugs that a doctor could give you’. That, in itself, is one mighty selling point for running.
The heart is like an engine. As you run, or do any form of endurance exercise, your heart must pump out more blood so it can deliver more oxygen to other muscles and organs in the body to keep them working effectively. In return, more blood must return to the heart so the cycle can continue. The more you run, the bigger and stronger your heart becomes, which means it can pump out more blood with each heartbeat. This, in turn, means that your heart can deliver the same amount of oxygen with fewer heartbeats, lowering your heart rate – and a lower heart rate is linked with more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness.
The legs
Unsurprisingly, running is a lower limb-centric exercise that variously employs the four main leg muscle groups – quadriceps, calves, glutes and hamstrings – among other big muscles such as your hip flexors. As you run and repeatedly use these lower body muscles, you’ll gradually increase your muscle strength, build your speed and balance, reduce your risk of injury and improve your running economy. That amounts to many wins.
Sorry, naysayers! Despite popular legend, running won’t wreck your knees. Instead, it can actually strengthen your knees and other joints, with research from Stanford University in California finding that recreational runners showed less wear and tear on their joints than non-runners.
Various studies add evidence to the pile that running works wonders for your lifespan.
A recent study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health has found that running for 75 minutes per week can add a solid 12 years to your life. Looking at 4,400 subjects, it compared those who ran at least 75 minutes a week with those who ran less than 10 minutes a week, showing that big rewards can come from a small, manageable amount of running.
Meanwhile, another study of 55,000 people concluded that running three times a week for an average of just 17 minutes at a time reduced the risk of fatal heart attack or stroke by 55%.
While running doesn’t cure cancer, plenty of research suggests that it can help to prevent it. A recent study published in Cancers (Basel) found that those who engaged in exercise had, for example, a 70% lower risk of developing colon cancer, around 30 to 40% less chance of developing breast cancer and an overall prostate cancer risk reduction ranging from 5% to 65%. It also concluded that exercise can also be used as ‘a complementary part of the medical treatment of cancer patients’.
Another study performed a genetic analysis of nearly 131,000 women from around the world, including nearly 70,000 who had been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. It found that people who were likely to engage in ‘greater overall physical activity, greater vigorous activity, and lower sedentary time’ – based on their DNA – had a 41% lower risk of invasive breast cancer than those who were inactive. This means that physical activity such as running could help to safeguard your body against diseases such as this.
While the physical benefits of running are enormous, let’s not overlook the psychological ones.
Research in the Psychonomic Bulletin and Review posited ‘insurmountable’ evidence that regular exercise helps to curb age-related mental decline, with Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience also finding that adults over the age of 50 who take up aerobic exercise benefit from better cognitive function and improved blood flow in the brain.
What’s more, a separate study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease found that those who ran 15.3 miles per week had a 40% lower risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease than non-runners.
As such, the cognitive benefits of running are worth keeping in mind.
Ever felt more relaxed and energised after a run? If so, you aren’t alone, as running is repeatedly cited as an activity that helps to lift mental loads and reduce feelings of stress and anxiety.
A small study conducted by Asics measured the brain waves of participants before and after a 20-minute run, and found that even this relatively short bout of exercise led to a 58% reduction in levels of cognitive stress.
We all have different budgets and priorities when it comes to running, just like anything else.
While we can spend money on more premium running goods such as carbon plate running shoes, GPS running watches and compression boots for recovery should we want or be able to, it’s important to remember that running needn’t cost the earth. Strip things back to basics and all you really need to get started and feel the benefits of running is a pair of comfortable, supportive running shoes and good-fitting running kit that works with you as you move. As far as sports go, running is one of the most affordable you can choose to do.
Running is a great way to give yourself permission to do something just for you. As you log the miles you can listen to music, catch up on an audiobook or tune into your favourite podcast. Or, you could leave your phone at home, unplug yourself altogether and be mindful of your breathing and the sights and sounds around you.
Whether it’s to escape the kids or your inbox, or to simply catch some fresh air while you can, carving out time for a run helps to keep the balance of your life in check.
Talking of fresh air, going for a run really is an ideal reason to get outside and enjoy the therapeutic benefits of nature. One study published in Environmental Science & Technology found that people who exercised outdoors experienced increased energy levels and decreased feelings of depression, and were more likely to repeat their workouts.
Running in a natural environment is also good for boosting your levels of vitamin D – an all-important vitamin in which many Britons are deficient – so there’s no better reason to hit the trails or your local park for your next run.
Adaptable and flexible, running is the ultimate pursuit for personalisation – you can choose precisely how and when you want to approach it.
You can run solo or with others; purely for fun or to prepare for goal races; for 10 minutes or for two hours; first thing in the morning or as the final activity to wrap up your day. A special benefit of running is that it’s not a one-size-fits-all activity – instead, it’s one that you can slot into your life according to your own targets, preferences and schedule. It’s up to you.
When you go for a run, you can leave negativity at the door – studies have proven that running can enhance your mood and general sense of wellbeing.
One study, conducted by Glasgow Caledonian University, quizzed more than 8,000 parkrun regulars on their health and wellbeing. On average, they scored 4.4 out of 6 on the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, which is above the average of score of 4 for the general population. Plus, 89% of parkrun participants said that running regularly made them feel happier and had a positive impact on their mental health – and that’s perhaps one of the best benefits of running you can get.
| Skinny jeans are creeping back into the fashion cycle—but before you panic, Kendall Jenner’s latest look proves they can be sleek, modern, and nothing like the skintight pairs of yore. Meanwhile, if your end-of-summer plans involve travel, a naturopath shares five simple, anti-inflammatory habits to help you feel your best while on vacation. |
| ANNA CAFOLLA NEWS EDITOR, VOGUE |
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