Poolside Nutrition

Crisps, chocolate, ice cream and fizzy drinks are prohibited by swimmers on poolside at galas. These types of food and drink give the swimmer ‘false’ energy due to their high fat and sugar content. Fat is a slowly releasing energy as it takes the body longer breakdown fat into suitable energy source. Quick recover and instant availability of glucose is essential for athletes to continue to train well after hard training sessions and races.

A GOOD GUIDE TO NUTRITIONAL RECOVERY

An easy way to know if what an athlete is eating is good for their recovery is to give them food that has less than 30% fat. To calculate this information you will need to know the number of Calories (Kcal) for protein, carbohydrates and fats. All mobile phones have calculators on them these days.

Protein 1g = 4Kcal

Carbs 1g = 4 kcal

Fat 1g = 9 kcal

With this info you can know work out the fat percentage per 100g.

Find the nutrition info on the food packet and see how many calories are in each 100g. Work out 30% of total number of calories per 100g

e.g. – one pot of super noodles has 102kcal per 100g (On the product the company claim that there is only 5% fat per pot)

30% of 102kcal – 30.6kcal

Now we need to know how many grams of fat per 100g are in the food

E.g. one pot noodle

4.2g per 100g

Now multiple 4.2 by 9 (Kcal per 1g of fat)

4.2 X 9 = 37.8g per 100g

So as you can now see the actual fat content of a pot of super noodles is actually nearly 40%. The way that companies market there fat content is not by calories but by the number of grams of fat per 100g, so always check the label.

THE GOLDEN HOUR

After an athlete finishes training they have what is known as the golden hour to get energy back into their body. The body can absorb and convert food into useable energy quicker during the 1^st hour after training than it can after the 1^st hour. For athletes training 14+ hours a week this golden hour is need for the athlete to continue to train well as the body doesn’t have the required time to fully recover before the athlete is training again.

So if possible please have your child to pack some food in their bag that has less than 30% fat and a high carbohydrate content that they can eat during training. After training a high carbohydrate and high protein content is required, this can either be chocolate milk or a recovery drink from Science in Sport available from Tesco’s or Swimshop.

Sports Drinks

Sports drinks like Lucozade and Powerade are designed to give athletes extra energy during prolonged intense exercise i.e. 2 hour training session. These drinks are not effective for swimming galas where the majority of swimming events are less than 5 minutes in duration. Sports drinks are great for training but inferior for racing.

To allow sports drink to be effective the athlete must ensure they drink the product at the correct time due to the effects of insulin converting the glucose into glycogen and most swimmers being young do not have the required knowledge to implement an effective time management plan while at a gala.

Sports drinks are effective for recovery after a swimming gala when taken with protein but there are easier solutions than mixing sports drink with protein. Chocolate milk is a very effective recovery drink with the milk acting as the protein and the chocolate powder in the milk acting as the carbohydrates. Also you can buy recover drinks from Science in Sport (SIS) which can be obtained from Tesco’s or Swimshop.