MysoreNet - Health Tips - NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENS OF SPORTS PERSON

The nutritional requirements of athletes are quite different from those of sedentary individuals. These special dietary needs arise during training as well as immediately before and during competition. The main requirements consists in providing sufficient food to meet the high levels of energy expenditure. For example, the energy requirement of cyclists was estimated to be about three times the engy requirement for a sedentary lifestyle.
    in 1991, a group of researchers of sports nutrition recommended that starchy foods should form the bulk, i.e., about 70% of the total food intake of athletes. Athletes need extra energy, most of which must be in the form of cardohydrate and do not generally need extra protein, vitamins or minerals. a balanced diet is all that is needed. A well-balanced diet that should be consumed daily is based on cereals, legumes, milk or other flesh foods, vegetables, fruits, along with fat or oil and sugar or jaggery.
    Athletes may train twice a day, with each training session lasting 1-2 hours. Most athletes find it impossible to train hard for atleast two hours after a meal and is often difficult to eat for some time after hard training. Carbohydrate-rich meals have the advantage that they digested faster than meals high in fat and protein, thus reducing the interval before the next training session. Athletes during endurance activities (such as cycling, walking, running, swimming, rowing) eat a low fat, low protein, almost vegetarian diet.
     Athletes are generally advised to take no food upto an hour before an event and eat again only after starting. The pre-event meal should provide 100-200 grams of carbohydrate. Fat should be limited, because it delays stomach emptying time and takes longer to digest. A low-protein meal minimizes the load of protein-breakdown products that must be exceted by the kidney urination. Fluid intake should be generous to ensure that the body is well hydrated. Appropriate pre-event meals might be toast with jelly, baked potato, spaghatti with tomato sauce, cereal with skim milk, or low-fat yofurt with fruit-sugar flavourings. Within 15 minutes prior to a long event, the athlete should drink 400-600ml of water. This prehydration allows for maximal absorption of fluid and will not necessiate urination. after the excercise begins, the kidney slows down the production of urine to compensate for water loss.
     Sometimes the ideal pre-compensation preparation may not be possinble. athletea may have heats, semifinals and finals on consecutive days. Players in a tournment may have one or two games per day for several days. Hence there is a need for additional carbohydrate intake during the event itself. In cycling stage races, some riders consume as much as 1/3 of the day's total carbohydrate intake while they are on the road. In most sports, solid foods are not popular because they tend to cause discomfort and carbohydrat-containing drinks are preffred, especially as they provide as they provide water to replace that lost in sweat.
     Depletion of muscle glycogen storesi\ is a major cause of fatigue and dehydration also impairs performance. Sports drinks supply energy in the form of carbohydrate and water and contain sodium to stimulate water absorption and to help to retain fluid in the circulation. The present opinion is that an athlete should inject circulation. The present opinion is that an athlete should inject betwen 300 and 800ml of fluid per hour. The high value(800ml) is for heavy athletes excercisig at fast speeds; the low value(300ml) is for light athletes excercising slowly. Since sodium is lost through chloride at conccentration around 5g per liter. A carbohydrate such as glucose or sugar should also be added to the solution at a concentration between 6-8%.
     Nutrition intake follwing the event should be focussed on rehydration, repletion of glycogen stores and restoration of electrolyte balance. The meal should be high in carbohydrtes primarily starches. Sodium can b replaced by salting food liberally. Fruits and vegetables are good sources of potassium. rehydration is very important, especially if sweat losses have been great and competition is again anticipated the next day.