Nutrition for performance
By Laura Kealy, Performance Nutritionist, Bridge Nutrition
When playing sport, you need to ensure you are fit, strong, and, match ready. Prioritising your nutrition will be a key part in successfully doing so. With each training session you have main aims and outcomes, linking your nutrition protocol in with is will help you get the very best out of your sessions.
The main goal of training is to promote positive physiological adaption.
We aim to make ourselves stronger by developing our muscles, faster by improving our ability to recover, and fitter by increasing our work capacity. Before every session you need to consider:
What is the main aim for the session? Is it to get faster? Fitter? Stronger?
You need to plan your nutrition around the type of training you are doing. Ask yourself the right questions. How tough will it be? How long will it last? How much energy do I need? Adequate nutrient intake is vital to optimise performance in female rugby players. With players covering up to 7km in a match it is imperative that they properly fuel and recover for health, performance, and injury prevention.
Let's break down the nutritional requirements of a female rugby player:
1. Energy (calorie) intake:
Body size and composition are important determinants of energy expenditure and therefore energy requirements. The heavier you are, the more energy you will need to perform at your best. Previous studies have reported that there are high work rates for players and that on average, approx. 7km is covered during a match. It is vital that adequate energy is consumed to effectively cover these kinds of distances and perform to the highest level.
Research has shown that female team sports athletes often under eat and are therefore insufficiently fueled for training and matches. Prolonged underfueling and inadequate intake of calories to match energy demands may lead to something called ‘Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports’ (Red-s). This means there is not only to insufficient energy for optimal training and match performance, but also to insufficient energy to maintain optimal health, with a range of body functions being affected.
If you don't know how many calories you need to be eating daily, please use the below guide to work out an estimate for training and rest days.
Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories required to keep your body functioning at rest. There are a few different equations to work this out, below is the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation:
BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age in years) – 161
Once you have your BMR worked out you multiply your BMR calories by you Physical Activity Level (PAL)
PAL factors have been developed to determine how much activity will play a role in your energy requirements. The more active you are the more energy your body will require.
Sedentary or light activities:
Sedentary occupation and lifestyle - Eating, Sleeping, Working, Cooking, Sitting
- multiply BMR x 1.2-1.4
Light or moderately active:
Sedentary occupations but do regular physical activity approx. 1 hour
- multiply BMR x 1.5-1.7
Heavy/very heavy lifestyles:
Regular strenuous work or leisure activity for several hours
- multiply BMR x 1.8-2.0
2. Carbohydrates:
Depletion of energy levels during a match can be detrimental to players performance as it disrupts skill level, fine motor coordination, concentration, and increases time to fatigue. Rugby is an intermittent high intensity, collision sport. It requires a heavy reliance on the carbs you eat beforehand to maintain and replenish glycogen (carbohydrate) stores. For team sport athletes it's recommended that players aim for 5-7g per kg of body weight per day*. Most female players won't be currently hitting that amount. If you are consuming much less than this then work to increase your carbohydrate intake, especially on training/match days. On lighter or recovery days aim for about 3g/kg of BW.
The average weight of a female rugby player is 70kg (79kg for forwards and 63kg for backs) this means that an 70kg player should be aiming for:
Approx. 350g-490g of carbohydrates on training days
Approx. 210g of carbohydrates on rest days
You should aim to tailor your carbohydrate consumption to your training type, duration, frequency. On days where you have a double session, or training is after a long physical commute, or a physically strenuous day at work, then you should aim to have the higher end of the carb target. On days where you are focusing on mobility and recovery, you can aim for the lower amount of carbs.
3. Protein:
To ensure that progress being made from resistance training and players are recovering from muscle and tissue damage, nutritional strategies focusing on protein timing & quantity must be implemented after training sessions and matches. In order to build and maintain muscle mass through a positive muscle protein balance, an overall daily protein intake in the range of 1.6–2.0g protein per kg of body weight per day is sufficient for most team sport athletes
For our average player of 70kg that would be 112g (70x1.6) to 140g (70x2) per day. Try to aim for the higher end on recovery days.
You can get all the protein you need from protein rich foods including eggs, milk, yogurt, fish and seafood, chicken and turkey, soya, beans and pulses, lean beef, quinoa, nuts and seeds, oats, corn.
4. Fats:
Although not necessary for performance it is important to ensure you consume plenty of healthy fats for optimal health. As they do not directly impact performance fats may be overlooked but you must ensure you eat daily sources of unsaturated fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated). Omega-3 fatty acids (found in oily fish) have been shown to be beneficial for the nervous and cardiovascular systems, with anti-inflammatory effects that counteract exercise-induced muscle damage. Aim for 25-35% of your total energy intake.
Focus on healthy fats, unsaturated fats including vegetable oils (such as olive, canola, sunflower, soy, and corn), avocado, most nuts, most seeds, and fish.
5. Vitamin D and Iron:
Recent studies have highlighted that female team sport athletes are prone to low levels of both vitamin D and Iron. If you are suffering from fatigue, paleness, prolonged or repeated injuries then I recommend you go to your doctor for a blood test to investigate your vitamin D and iron status.
Supplements
Health Supplements:
With a well-balanced diet there is no need to take supplements for your health. Focus on a food first approach to hit your vitamin and mineral needs. Health supplements can be expensive and in the vast majority of times, unnecessary and virtually useless. There are two supplements that are recommend, the first being Vitamin D. Due to a lack sunshine during the Winter months it has been shown that the UK population have low levels of vitamin D. Also, due to low intake of oily fish an omega-3 supplement is also recommended. However, if you are confident that you get 2 portions of oily fish a week then this may not be necessary.
Performance Supplements:
Once all other nutrition recommendations are met you can look to ergogenic aids to improve performance. If you do not hydrate, fuel, and recovery correctly there is little use in depending on a supplement to help you perform in a training session or match. There are hundreds of performance nutrition supplements out there, but please don’t be fooled – if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Although there are some supplements, such as caffeine, creatine, beta alanine and protein powder, that have been shown to enhance performance and/or recovery in team sports athletes, I recommend you focus on getting your health and performance nutrition right first before you consider a supplement.