Endurance Sports Nutrition: Keeping Yourself Hydrated And Fueled

What keeps a triathlon athlete going in spite of the heat and long hours of vigorous physical activity is a properly hydrated and fueled body. In endurance sports, nutrition is equivalent to keeping oneself hydrated at all times, especially during the game. If you don’t give yourself the proper nutrition it needs, your game performance will suffer.

Sports that require special attention to endurance nutrition (and thus help you level up your performance) are: running, swimming, triathlon, cycling, rowing, mountain biking, adventure racing, cross-country skiing, mountaineering and trekking.

Let us say that you have prepared yourself for an endurance sport. Your nutrition focuses on giving you enough fuel to last you a day of vigorous physical activity. You eat foods rich in protein to keep your muscles fit for the game and carbohydrates to give you enough energy and fuel your muscles to run fast, steady, and consistently. What else can you do to perform much better in endurance sports?

Here are some endurance sports nutrition suggested by athletes and trainers:

Endurance Sports Nutrition Tip – Hydrate Yourself

1. Start the day with a full tank of water.

Athletes don’t eat during a game. But they do drink water. Studies show, of which common people now know, that humans can last a month without eating but will die immediately without water for 3 days to one week. That is how important water is to our body.

Many people die of diarrhea because of dehydration. Hydration is an important nutrition component to humans, most especially to athletes involved in endurance sports. So the endurance sports nutrition tip from athletes and trainers: drink lots of water before the game.

Hydration is the key to winning endurance sports competition. And drinking water before the game starts puts you in a great headstart.

2. Hydrate yourself regularly during the game.

Drink often during the game. Most endurance sports nutrition guide books will tell you the same thing. Athletes in endurance sports sweat off two quarts of water per hour especially in hot and humid weather. So, you must drink at least four up to eight ounces of water every fifteen to twenty minutes. Sports drink may also replace water.

Here’s some tip that endurance sports nutrition guide books may not have told you: to know when it is time to gulp on your water or sports drink bottle, set your timer to alarm every 15 or 20 minutes within 24 hours.

Freeze your drinking bottles and then pack them up in insulated foams to keep it cool. Even if you don’t sweat still do gulp down the liquid in your drinking bottle. You may not know it and may not notice it but you may have sweat more than you think of.

3. Pack up extra bottles.

Carry more drinking bottles if you can. Don’t be afraid to look like a camel with extra hump at your back. You need all those liquids in your endurance sport. It will keep you going and in shape.

Besides, you will drain these drinking bottles one at a time every 15 or 20 minutes. At that rate, you may not even know that your endurance sports drinks have been drained down your esophageal pipes.

Endurance sport nutrition question: Water or sports drink?

In endurance sports nutrition, it has debated whether water or sports drink should be consumed by an athlete competing in endurance sports.

Researches have shown that endurance sports athletes (competing under the sweltering heat of the sun) who were provided with water as a means of hydrating themselves replace only one and half to two thirds of fluid loss, while those who were given with sports drink have shown hydration nearly to a hundred percent.

The reason for this is that sports drink contains electrolytes (sodium, potassium and magnesium) which help retain fluid in the body and balance the presence of these minerals that are vital in normal bodily function.

We lose electrolytes when we sweat. Dizziness, muscle cramps, extreme exhaustion, and irregular heartbeat are the symptoms of electrolytes loss in the body.

According to endurance nutrition experts, many athletes lose endurance due to low level of electrolytes. In fact, according to endurance sports nutrition magazines, some athletes even die due to electrolytes loss.

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All About Endurance Sports Nutrition

Endurance sports nutrition gives you a nutrition advice that is just jampacked with very useful details, together with sets of customized eating plans specifically regarding sports, to ensure that the food that you choose will keep you going on before, during and after various competitions.

A remarkable and very well-known author, Suzanne Girard Eberle, MS, RD, tells those who are concerned of her background as a registered dietician who has her specialty on sports nutrition. She also admits that she knows much and much about endurance sports nutrition because she, herself, is an elite endurance athlete. So she can tell you how endurance sports nutrtion works, or what is not supposed to be done regarding endurance sports nutrition, in actual training and situations that involve racing.

The resource that is said to be the most comprehensive of its kind, is the prescriptive book that the said endurance athlete, slash dietician, wrote. It includes tried and true advice and suggestions from different endurance athletes who are at the top of their sports.

But if you would really like to know from the best persons to talk to when it comes to endurance sports nutrition, there are various websites that you could log on to to be able to contact, or if not contact, at least ask a few questions to world-class athletes.

You can avail Karen Smyers’s, a triathlete, assistance about endurance sports nutrition. She is a triathlete, so she knows things about endurance thrice more than what others do.

Another is the marathon runner Keith Brantly. Running is not as easy as it sounds, but running is, in fact, the easy part. It is the enduring the pain that grows in your legs that is not.

You can also try to have your questions answered by the world-known marathon swimmer Tobie Smith. Endurance sports nutrition in swimming is very very difficult because there are two kinds of pressures that you face, pressure under the water and atmospheric pressure.

And last, but certainly not the least, is the cyclist Kerry Ryan. It is almost the same as running, with the movement of the legs and the endurance of the pain that grow in your legs.

However, you have to be a master of balance to be able to pull cycling off. All of these world-class athletes will happily and obligingly share their knowledge, and with absolute right because of their many years of training and competing against the world’s best.

There are many kinds of sports where endurance sports nutrition can help you maximize your performance. Endurance sports nutrition can help you a great deal in running. As mentioned above, running is the easy part, it is enduring the pain that is constantly present in your lower extremeties that you need to endure.

In triathlons, you have to take note of enduring three stages of sports. So endurance sports nutrition is definetely handy if you want to be able to move on to the next stage and not faint in one of the first stages.

The endurance in swimming is not like any other. Why? It is because, like told before, there are two kinds of pressure that you need to think about. There is, first, the pressure that you experience under the water, plus the atmospheric water. So whether you put your face under water or you turn your head out of the water to breathe in some air, the cramps and the pain caused by the pressure should be endured.

In rowing, it is all about upper body strength. Yes, it also involves coordination with your teammates and most of all mind and arm coordination, but if you are weak with your upper body, then rowing is not the thing for you. Your hands will probably suffer bruises from your firm grips on the oars, but you arms are the ones that should have high endurance. Endurance sports nutrition can definitely help you survive the boat ride.

Cycling, like mentioned, is not that much different from running. Your legs also experience the most pain, and you have to endure the pain that is constant on your lower extremities. But this time, there is also the balance to think of. And for those who have a hard time balancing, enduring cycling is very hard. So this is where endurance sports nutrition comes in.

Endurance sports nutrition can definitely make you a better athlete, if you cannot endure whatever it is that you are doing, how can you perform well? So if you are thinking that sports is all about performance, you are wrong for without endurance, you can never perform a certain sport well.

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The Best Sports Nutrition A Day Or Hours Before An Endurance Sports Competition

What is the best sports nutrition for an athlete? There is no definitive answer to this. No athlete has the same need. It all depends on the physique of an athlete and the kind of sports that he or she is into.

So, if you are contemplating on joining an endurance sports competition, the best sports nutrition for you is the nutritional table fit for an athlete that expects long hours of vigorous physical activity and mental alertness even when tired.

Endurance sports test the physical and mental fortitude of an athlete; if you are not well fed for this kind of competition, it would be better for you if you would back off from the competition.

Best Sports Nutrition for Endurance Sports Athletes

- Best sports nutrition a day before the event

Do not overwork yourself on the day before the event. It would be wise if you would only do stretching and a few kilometers of jogging, eat protein rich food, hydrate yourself (a lot!) and rest for the rest of the evening because you need to get up early, as early as four hours before the game.

The best sports nutrition in endurance sports is hydration. You should be hydrating yourself even a week before the game. This is to keep your body cleansed, fueled and watered for the coming event.

If you only hydrate yourself on the day of the event, you won't hold too much water. Most of the liquid that you intake will only seep out through sweat. So, if you want to go to the game in full tank, drink lots of water beforehand.

Another best sports nutrition tip that you must learn by heart is to eat food rich in protein, to keep your muscles in shape, and carbohydrates so that your glycogen stores would be at their best. You can hydrate yourself well with sports drink that contains minerals to balance your electrolytes level.

- Best sports nutrition hours before the event

Eat a meal before you run. This is the best sports nutrition advice that you should keep in mind. You need glucose to keep your blood sugar in normal levels. Glucose fuels the brain and the muscles during an activity.

If you lack glucose in your body, you cannot think properly because your brain does not have enough fuel that it needs. Worse, you might faint even before the race begins of hypoglycemia.

Having enough stores of glucose in your body will keep you alert and going even for long hours of physical activity. So, don't forget to eat a light to moderate meal before you race.

Long hours of running, swimming and bicycling will definitely deplete your glycogen stores in your liver. So, a carbohydrate rich meal will be your best choice of pre-race meal. It can quickly restore your reserves of glycogen in your liver and put the fulcrum back to normal. You can bring with you carbohydrates bar which you can munch while running, and drain it down with water or sports drink.

According to health experts, best sports nutrition tip to get the carbohydrate you need is to eat food that you know won't make your stomach upset. Stress can induce diarrhea. Add up food that your digestive system hates and you will see yourself sitting on the throne while your competitors have started running after hearing the gun fire.

When to eat your pre-race meal? The sports nutrition experts recommend one to four hours before the assembly time and then nibble 50 grams of carbohydrate every hour before the game starts.

Instant oatmeal, bananas, low fat milk and energy bars are good sources of carbohydrates. Always follow a meal with water or sports drink. Never drink soda or caffeinated beverages because they will work of you as diuretics. According to the best sports nutrition magazines in the country, caffeine drains the body of fluid.

Add up salty foods to your meal. Salt will help you retain more water in your body.

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