Body Shape

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.

The subject of sports nutrition has become unquestionably important nowadays now that the whole concept of sports has become evolved and has been receiving immense media attention. Athletes and spectators alike are now comprehending the weight of the status that professional sportsmen now carries.

This realization has pushed lots of initiatives to produce the latest and most effective in sports nutrition and training, not excluding those for extreme sports. During the old days, athletes have relied steadily on the carefree formula of fastfood fare and energy drinks.

Now that competition is growing more and more intense each day, athletes are now acquiring the expertise of sports science experts to make sure that they can maximize their physical and mental potentials to its outmost limits.
Continue reading ‘Extreme Sports Nutrition for the Motorcyle Rider’

They say that great artists are made, not born. The same could also be said for athletes. Of course, genetics plays a large part in differentiating a mere athlete from a sports champion, but to be able to attain that legendary status in the Hall of Fame, an aspiring sportsman must go through the strictest of diets that will help shape and strengthen the physique.

By drinking sufficient amounts of water and consuming a balanced diet, the body can generate a lot of energy which will greatly help in boosting for top athletic performance.

What are the factors to be considered in designing a complete and healthy natural sports nutrition program?
Continue reading ‘Natural Sports Nutrition: Diet for Champions’

One of the most complicated things to do is getting started with a valuable project such as attaining a healthy body. This is often the basic nature of humans. There is always a tendency to set aside important things today and instead prefer to do it some other day.

To become successful in such undertakings, you need to set goals that are more realistic. It is easy to follow besides minimizing your pressure. For example, losing forty pounds as well as keeping it as realistic as possible to become an attainable goal. But never fear because there are several tips that can integrate your mind, body, and spirit to stay in the right track.

1. Follow a healthy nutrition and diet. Experts on health care advise people to provide their body with quality fuel to function properly. Eat food that are healthy, high in important nutrients, and free from chemicals. Also take vitamin and herbal supplements to support good health.

2. Get enough rest. If possible, get the right amount of sleep without interruptions for engaging your REM (rapid eye movement) patterns. This is the way of your nervous system to heal and refuel your body. If you feel overly sluggish, then rest, sits, or takes a nap shortly. You must report sluggishness and chronic sleep problems to your doctor. You cannot do your exercises properly if you are in this situation.
Continue reading ‘Tips Associated to Diet and Fitness for Keeping Your Body Healthy’

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.
Continue reading ‘All About Endurance Sports Nutrition’

Believe it or not, sports nutrition and exercise have been part of man’s life and his culture since the earliest time. Of course, sports during this time was known as athletics. Earliest forms of athletics, however, were part of man’s basic need for survival, either to gather food or protect his family from physical harm.

To a simple cave man who knows nothing about martial arts, a sturdy bone from his last dinner may serve as a weapon against wild animals. This bone remnant, coupled with some sharpened stone chips from his cave, is used for hunting. Eventually, his regular hunting activities had developed into some form of physical acts, without so much need to hunt.

Athletics was thus born. Athletics eventually developed into a contest of strength, speed, and other skills. Sports would later developed out of this, with the simple contest developing into a more complicated form of physical activity, and with it the need for sustenance, completing the equation of sports nutrition and exercise.
Continue reading ‘Sports Nutrition and Exercise in the Ancient Times’

The United States of America is considered to have one of the best penal systems in the world where it is enforced by people who work with the law. The US government tries really hard in order to enforce their laws against drugs and make an example of drug dealers and users by putting them away in prison. Perhaps, the US government tries too hard.

Today, there is a great book that you should read that states how people can be wrongfully incarcerated by the US system against drugs. This book is called the I Chong: Meditations from the Joint. Authored by Tommy Chong, a well known comedian who acts as Chong in Cheech & Chong, this book is a must read if you want a little humor on your reading. This book has been reviewed by book critics as entertaining and must be read by everyone who likes a little comedy.
Continue reading ‘The I Chong: Mediations from the Joint’

The kind of sports nutrition supplements a certain athlete is supposed to take would depend strongly on what is appropriate for the athlete’s health status. However, some of these supplements are very hard to find or are very expensive or just too expensive for an average athlete.

Here are some of the sports nutrition supplements that you can get, with the same amount of nutrients that you need but for extremely low prices!

Steel Edge, which you usually purchase for forty seven dollars and ninety five cents ($47.95), you can now avail for only thirty nine dollars and ninety five cents ($35.95).
Continue reading ‘Understanding Sports Nutrition Supplements’

The continuing development of sports nutrition is not only rampant in the United States but also in other parts of the world. Sports nutrition in also of great importance is Japan.

Here are some developments related to Japanese sports nutrition, specifically on heat stroke prevention, from the web site of Otsuka Pharmaceutical.

1. Pocari Sweat Junior Sports Clinic

The Japan Amateur Sports Association hosted the said sports clinic for the promotion of sports nutrition to children in the country. The sports clinic was held in 11 venues, and Otsuka invited star athletes as guest instructors. Seminars are provided for the attendees, with topics such as the importance of fluid intake and ways for the prevention of heat stroke.
Continue reading ‘Heat stroke prevention: An important factor in Japanese sports nutrition’

Meditation in its truest sense does not only help people in developing tranquility, calmness, and inner peace but also to grow as a true person. However, some people have misconceptions about meditation as being a hippy act or something associated with marijuana smoking. They did not realize that meditation is done so that the mind can think better to improve the condition of life.

Guided meditation is a form of meditation wherein someone guides you throughout the meditation process and helps you to obtain the result of some descriptions. Many people associate meditation with just sitting cross legged on the floor, eyes closed and repeatedly go humming. This is not the result that most people want because the essence is totally absent.
Continue reading ‘Guided Meditation: Let Someone Guides You in the Right Path’