By 2010, global consumer spending on sports nutrition will reach €5.4 billion – is it all a waste of money? asks MICHAEL KELLY.
SPORTS NUTRITION can be a complex matter for young men involved in team sports.
On top of trying to figure out the optimal balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins in their diets, young athletes are being bombarded by the sports nutrition industry with a range of products that claim to boost performance, improve endurance and aid recovery.
The market for dietary supplements and ergogenic aids such as sports drinks and bars, protein powders, weight-gainers, fat burners, meal replacements and caffeine tablets is simply enormous.
Bord Bia estimates that by 2010, global consumer spending on sports nutrition will reach €5.4 billion, with sales in Europe rising to €1.6 billion.
Type the words “sports nutrition” into your internet search engine and you will find an array of online retailers offering a bewildering mix of chews, powders, sachets, drinks and tablets, mainly aimed at young men. One site advises that three square meals a day is a “nutritional concept of the past”.
Prof Niall Moyna, a lecturer in exercise physiology at DCU, believes that young men involved in team sports should stick with the basics. “If you have a well-balanced diet, there is absolutely no need for supplements. I get lots of questions from parents on this and my advice is always the same – there is no evidence that these things increase performance and the whole thing is highly unregulated, so why would you even tempt fate?”
Moyna also believes that many of the lofty claims made by sports drink manufacturers are spurious. “I’m a total cynic on these things. They are pushed heavily by the food industry, but 95 per cent of the recommendations are based on people cycling on bikes in laboratory conditions for three hours and have no relevance whatsoever for team sports.
“The reality is that we don’t have the research to tell us what happens to a player’s body in Gaelic games. Is a defender different to a midfielder? And what about the goalkeeper? Every individual is different and every individual needs tailored nutrition advice.”
Many nutritionists worry that the focus on using nutrition to improve performance diverts attention from the most important benefit of good nutrition – overall health.
“A lot of the focus is on trying to get performance kicks from various drinks and supplements,” says Crionna Tobin, a consultant sports nutritionist who has worked with inter-county GAA teams.
“The emphasis should be on a well-balanced diet and taking in clean protein, clean carbohydrates and clean fat. There’s no point in focusing on nutrition a week before a game. They should be practising good nutrition all the time.”
Tobin believes there is considerable confusion among young male athletes about what constitutes optimal nutrition. “I have come across teams where you have guys who will do absolutely everything right for you. They want to get the best possible performance and they are very conscious of their health,” she says.
“But I have also come across guys whose level of knowledge about nutrition is surprisingly low, where you are just trying to get them to do the basics like increasing their fruit intake, not eating three Mars bars a day or cutting out the breakfast rolls.
“Inter-county teams in GAA bring in well-respected nutritionists who hand out manuals of stuff for the players to read. Maybe 10 per cent will read them and the rest will throw them in their gear bag.”
The impact of poor nutrition on sports performance is considerable, according to Tobin. “The first thing that’s affected is their match performance. But their training is impacted too. Instead of coming off the pitch feeling they’ve had a good session, they are coming off absolutely wrecked.
“The other impact is with their general health. Their immune system is vulnerable and they are more likely to get colds and coughs.”
Confusion among young men about sports nutrition is not helped, she says, by the number of mixed messages coming to players from dieticians and nutritionists.
“There is such a difference in views between different sports nutritionists about what works and, as a result, we have a huge amount of conflicting information out there. Every athlete is different and what works for one just won’t work for others.
“Every sport is different too – the advice that is relevant for rugby training won’t be relevant for GAA. You see a lot of recommendations around protein supplements but, in my opinion, men playing an intermittent sport like football are getting enough dietary protein if they are eating meat, fish, eggs and dairy.”
According to Tobin, the most sensible approach is a long-term well-balanced diet, rich in carbohydrates, protein and the right mix of fats with plenty of water and, of course, fruit and vegetables.
Meals should consist of carbohydrates such as pasta, rice or potatoes and a protein such as lean meat, chicken or fish. Between five and 10 portions of fruit and vegetables should be consumed each day to bring in vitamins and minerals that allow the body to make the best use of the carbohydrate and proteins ingested.
The problem with this approach is that it requires a long-term commitment compared with the quick-fix promised by supplements, drinks and bars. “It takes a lot of work and preparation to have your nutrition right,” Tobin says. “No supplement has all the nutritional benefit of food. If you compare a vitamin tablet, for example, with a bowl of vegetables – the bowl of vegetables is dense in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that react so uniquely with each other. We cannot replicate that in a tablet.”
During and after training or a game, replacing lost fluids and fuel is the most important aspect of nutrition. Water, according to Tobin is the optimal fluid for hydration. “If sports drinks have a place, it is after training to refuel as well as re-hydrate since the majority contain carbohydrates. But a good intake of water is the most important thing.
“A lot of these guys are running from work to training and are arriving at the pitch in a dehydrated state so they will never reach optimal performance. The question of how much water you need is highly individual. The most reliable way to measure it is by looking at the colour of your pee – it should be clear, but not completely colourless.”
Moyna believes that an aspect of sports nutrition which is often missed is what happens to a man’s health when he stops training.
“If you link their nutrition to playing sport, then what happens when they stop playing? We often see former players putting on excessive weight when they stop playing because they continue to take on excessive carbs but they are not burning them off.”
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Kieran Gavin is a first-year environmental science student at DCU and full-back for the Westmeath senior football team. He travels back to the county from Dublin for training two nights a week and has matches most weekends.
Nutrition, he says, is very high on the agenda this year within the team. “It’s a huge part of our training now,” he says.
“We had a nutritionist in to talk to us about a month ago and she gave us some good ideas. I’ve seen an unbelievable increase in performance levels at training.”
Gavin has a huge calorie intake on training days. He has cereal for breakfast, a ham and cheese roll at lunchtime and then a pasta dish at about 4pm. The players are provided with a hot dinner after training, usually curry or lasagne at about 8pm.
He has a bottle of water to hand during the day and though he admits to not being great on fruit and vegetables, he does try to eat an apple and banana most days. The focus within the team is on a well-balanced diet – there is little or no attention paid to dietary supplements.
“I don’t know enough about them to be honest so I wouldn’t think about it. I know a few lads who might be in to it but the only thing I would take is a protein shake after training sometimes and I drink sports drinks at half-time.”
Sligo corner-forward and sports science student David Kelly typically eats three dinners on days when he has training.
“I usually get a dinner in the canteen in college at about 12.30. Then I cook for myself at 3 or 4pm and we get a dinner after training too. I would have pastas, lasagne, chicken curry, fish and steak. I don’t take any supplements. I know guys who do at the gym. Mainly they would be lads that are working and don’t have time to cook properly for themselves.
“We drink a lot of Lucozade Sport during and after training. We go through crates of that.”
The Sligo squad has had two meetings with a nutritionist. “We had one before Christmas and a second before the league campaign started. Her feeling on it was that if you are eating enough good food you don’t need supplements.”
mkelly@irishtimes.com