Performance Nutrition E-Book

Kevin Currell

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Performance Nutrition provides an overview of how nutrition can be used to maximize human performance. Starting with the end in mind, each chapter takes the reader from the science through to the practical application, making the science of sports nutrition accessible. The book shows how nutrition can be used to: reduce the risk of injury and illness for athletes; maximize strength gains in the gym; adapt effectively to endurance training; minimise the negative effects of concurrent training; improve competition performance (whether for football or for the Tour de France), and finally, lose weight safely and effectively to maximize performance. Packed full of information, each chapter takes the reader from the science through to the practical application. Illustrated with 40 diagrams and 18 tables.

Leseprobe

Performance Nutrition

Kevin Currell

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2016 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2016

© Kevin Currell 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 223 6

Frontispiece: Ewan Munro/Wikimedia

CONTENTS

Introduction

  1     Preventing Illness

  2     Nutrition for Injury

  3     Using Nutrition to Maximize Adaptation to Strength Training

  4     Concurrent Training and Buffer Capacity

  5     Maximizing the Adaptations to Endurance Training

  6     Nutrition and the Brain

  7     Endurance Events Lasting More Than One Hour

  8     Events Lasting Less Than One Hour and with Multiple Rounds

  9     Improving Team Sport Performance

10     Weight Management

Index

INTRODUCTION

As an athlete, wouldn’t it be incredible if you could do something that would give you more time to train, allow the training that you do to be more effective, and enable you to maximize your athletic potential come competition day? Well, there is something that does all of this and more – food.

This book aims to provide an overview of the many areas where food can impact on the performance of an athlete. The approach will be to take an area of performance and explore the role food has.

In Chapters 1 and 2 the focus will be on how what you eat and when you eat influences your health. Chapter 1 will aim to stop you getting ill, while Chapter 2 will try to use food to stop you getting injured. If the worst does happen, it will guide you through how to use food to heal quickly.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 will explain how to use food to either amplify or dampen the effect of training. Chapter 3 will focus on using food to maximize strength gains, Chapter 4 on how to use food to maximize the effects of concurrent training, and finally Chapter 5 will show you how to use food to obtain gains from endurance training.

Chapters 6 through 9 will focus on pure performance. How food influences the brain and cognitive performance will be the aim of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 will take you through the area of sports nutrition we know most about – endurance performance. Chapter 8 will look at events lasting less than one hour and where recovery is key with multiple rounds. Finally Chapter 9 will look at team sports.

To finish, Chapter 10 will look at weight management in athletes. This is the area where nutrition is commonly regarded as having the most impact, but I hope that reading the preceding nine chapters will have convinced you that food influences much more than just body weight.

Each chapter will start with a tour of the evidence and science on each topic, which makes up the bulk of the text. At the end of each chapter is a simple summary of the potential interventions broken down into the levels of evidence for each intervention, where the categories mean:

Gold: Very strong evidence from multiple trials showing a positive outcome.

Silver: Good or emerging evidence that the intervention will influence the outcome.

Bronze: Weak, but promising evidence that the intervention can influence the outcome.

Following this is an example diet plan for each chapter. If you follow each through you can track the subtle changes that can be made to your diet to influence performance. We will start below with the average intake of our average 70kg male who is not very active. For a female athlete things won’t change too much; you are just likely to weigh less so reduce the serving sizes slightly.

Areas of impact of nutrition on sporting performance.

Meal

Food

Breakfast

Bowl of cornflakes with semi-skimmed milk 1 apple Glass of orange juice Cup of tea with milk

Snack

Packet of crisps and glass of water

Lunch

Egg mayonnaise sandwich on white bread Fruit corner yogurt 1 can of cola

Snack

1 bar of chocolate 1 medium latte

Dinner

Oven-roast chicken breast with oven chips, a green salad with salad cream dressing Ice cream for dessert

Carbohydrate (g/kg body weight) 4.2

Protein (g/kg body weight) 1.2

Fat (g/kg body weight) 1.2

CHAPTER 1

PREVENTING ILLNESS

The barriers were starting to give as the intensity increased. Holes sprung open, allowing easy access for the invading force. Behind the barriers stood the infantry, warriors each of them, waiting, champing at the bit to fight the invading force. Their numbers were increasing as the stress increased and time passed. However, with every passing second and with increasing intensity the defenders were becoming weary, less effective. Behind the infantry, anticipating, prowling, lay the Special Forces – each of them trained to target a particular section of the invading force. Highly trained and specific in what they do, they too were increasing in number, they too were feeling the effects of intensity and time.

No, this is not an action novel. It is a book on performance nutrition. The opening paragraph could also be read as the description of what happens to your immune system when you exercise, whether it is for a long period of time or as intensity increases. Let me introduce you to our characters, the heroes and firstly villains of the story. The invading force is all the bacteria, viruses and parasites that are around us in our day-to-day lives. We never know when we will come into contact with one of these nasties, each of which wants to do us harm. As you read this you are being attacked from all angles. Even the book you are holding will contain some sort of bug that is looking to invade your nice, warm, nutritious body.

Have no fear, though. Your body has developed layers of defence to protect itself from harm. These attacking forces first come up against physical barriers, which must be passed before they can enter the body. These physical barriers include your skin, saliva, nose, stomach and intestine. They are mighty walls of defence. However, each has access pathways and doors through it, otherwise the nutrients you consume in food and the air you breathe would not be able to get into your body. So while there are mighty walls of defence, there are ways through for the invading forces.