Nutrition Guidelines for Young Athletes

There are days when my kids have soccer tournaments and swim meets that are just days apart from each other.  The fast-paced schedule can take its toll on me as I bring them from one meet to the other.  What more the exhaustion it can result to in their active bodies. 

I try to take a more active part in their nutrition as I know it helps restore and properly nourish their fatigued body.  I try to follow whatever nutrition tips their coach gives, and do some more research on the Net on my own.  But the operative word is really TRY.  It is a struggle as I take on so many different roles…  

Far be it that proper nutrition can assure you that your young athlete will turn into a champion - No!  For only proper training and self-discipline can do that.  Taking care of your kids' nutritional needs mean, however, that you are raising a healthy child who has the FULL potential to develop into a confident and winning athlete.

With the team's trophy after her team was declared overall champion in the girls category

With some of her team mates

Here are some of the nutrition guidelines that I try to follow for my kids, which might also be useful for you: 

1.  Carbo load one week or least three days before the event. 

Carbohydrates are the starches and sugars that provide the energy our bodies need to function and grow.  There are two types of carbohydrates:  Simple and Complex. 

SIMPLE CARBOHYDRATES are commonly referred to as sugars.  Examples of these include fruits, honey, candies, and other processed sugars.  They are very easy to digest and get into the blood stream very quickly. This enables the body to benefit from a burst of energy as the body breaks down the sugar and pulls the nutrients out of it.  Athletes can benefit from moderate amounts of honey and fruits DURING the event day itself.

COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES are most commonly referred to as starch and fiber.  They are more difficult for the body to break down rapidly, which ensures a longer, more sustained supply of energy to the body.  For the purpose of Carbo-loading before an event, what we need to stock on is the COMPLEX kind. 

Our muscles normally store only small amounts of glycogen, and usually, this isn’t a problem. But if your kids start exercising at high intensity, such as when running or swimming, their muscles run out of glycogen which can result to diminished stamina and performance.

Taking in extra doses of carbo 3-5 days before the tournament will enable your kids to super-maximize the storage of glycogen muscle fuel prior to the competition. Indeed a pasta dinner the night before a competition is still a great idea, but it takes extra carbs for a few days before the tournament to effectively carbo load.

2.  Make them go to bed as early as possible, especially if they are getting up early. 

The night before a meet, my kids always sleep early.  If it means checking up on your kids' room constantly to make sure that they are asleep, then that's what you have to do.  No partying or movies the night before a big event.

3.  Eat well the morning of the event

The general advice for eating breakfast before a competition is to consume a carbohydrate-rich meal about 2–4 hours before the action begins. This will help top off the glycogen stores and ensure a steady supply of blood glucose during competition. 

4.  Recovery between events

After every event, your first priority is your kids’ recovery. Your window of opportunity for recovery starts as soon as their first event is over. Glycogen stores in their bodies need reloading, and fluid and sodium losses need to be replaced.

The waiting time between competitions will vary, so it’s wise to be prepared for any possibility. In addition, tournament and meet venues sometimes have limited access to food and fluids.  What could be worse than knowing that the food concessionares have ran out of food to serve.  So don’t just hope for the best: Plan ahead. That means packing your bag and cooler with the types of fluids and foods your kid will need to keep hydrated and fueled throughout the day.

If the competition happen to extend to lunch, a carbohydrate-rich meal with some lean protein is appropriate. Steer clear of slower-to-digest fried, fatty, or high-fiber foods.  A  few of the good choices are sandwiches, pastas, rice with a viand of lean meat.

If the interval between competitions is just short or uncertain, “grazing” is the best recovery strategy. Grazing involves consuming smaller portions of foods and beverages that are quickly and easily digested. Again, the focus should be mostly on carbs with some lean protein.   Examples are energy bars, sports drinks, yogurts, fruits.

In our case, I usually bring sports drinks, bananas, and honey.  You can experiment and try to come up with a combination on what works for your kids.  It is a general rule however to avoid products that are high in sugar during competition day.  The kids will get the sugar rush, followed by a second half crash! I find that using honey works well if they need that sugar pick me up.

5.  Maintain hydration

It’s also wise to make sure that they are well-hydrated.  I do this by reminding them to drink fluids as soon as they wake up and continuing to drink regularly during the course of the tournament - even if they do not feel thirsty.

Alaska Football Cup at the Ayala Alabang Football Field

here is what we usually have in our snack bag:

For snacking:  sports drink (Blue Bolt by Gatorade, but any brand will do), honey, banana

For Lunch: pasta salad

I will share with you our favorite pasta salad recipe.  My kids love it for the flavor, and I love it because it is nutritious and more importantly VERY EASY to prepare.  This is what I also usually serve them for breakfast on the day of a competition, since it is already a given that I do not favor waking up a minute earlier than necessary, and competitions usually require us to be at the event early in the morning.   I purposely steered clear of tomato-based sauce for fear of food spoilage. 

What you need:

• Fusilli (but you can use any pasta of your choice)
• 1 can of brined tuna chunks, drained
• 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• Several pieces of sliced Italian sausage

Toppings:

• Sour cream or unflavored yogurt *
• Japanese mayo
• chunks of cheese torta (the fusion of tomato and the basil pesto makes ALL the difference in taste.  If you do not have this, fret not, just buy a bottled pesto sauce; it’ll do)

*the addition of sour cream or yogurt is totally optional.  I only put it in mine to make sure the salad stays hydrated without adding of too much of the fattening mayo; it's a PLUS that they get the benefits of the yogurt, too.

Layer all the ingredients in this order:  pasta, tuna, egg, sausage, cheese torta (click here for the recipe).  Bring the yogurt and Japanese mayo in their original container and pour when your child is ready to eat.  Pack everything inside a cooler.

As you can see, it is fuss-free and a complete meal in itself.  Pasta provides the carbo; eggs, tuna, cheese torta and yogurt gives protein; the Italian sausage could weakly pass for protein, I guess, but I added it primarily for flavor; Japanese mayo packs a ton of flavor and comes in a very handy transportable container.

Hope this post helps! 

You can also read up an earlier post with a similar topic, Nutrition and the Young Athlete.


reference materials:
Sports Nutrition For Young Athletes:  Vital to Victory
Fuel Your Young Athlete for Peak Performance
Eating Before & Between Athletic Events
U.S. Youth Soccer:  Athletic Nutrition for Young Athletes





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Soccer, Swim, Run

Last Saturday the girls had their first soccer festival for this school year.    As you can see, the team is complete with de rigueur accessories.

 Soccer bag?  Check.

Umbrella?  Check.

Sadly, what they didn't bring to the tournament is their own soccer ball to use during warm-up.  Hence, instead of doing foot drills.....

The kids went their own way during summer with only a few handful continuing with soccer training.   J herself was immersed with swimming training the whole of summer.  The team only had a few days worth of practice since the start of school and it showed in their performance.  It was funny looking at how they all dodged the ball during penalty kick.

It is also B's first time to join a competition with the school team.  She is excited as can be.  Coach fielded her for a few minutes, but like most of the girls in Team 2003, she stayed at the sidelines most of the time - chit-chatting up a storm.

The day after, J is back doing the Alaska IronKids again.  This time around, she participated with her soccer friends.  All the girls went to the aquathlon tired from the day before because of the back to back timing of the race with the St. Ignatius Soccer Tournament.  Nonetheless, no one minded the body and muscle aches since everyone only felt excitement on doing the race together.  

The are a lot of familiar faces in the pool due to the lack of a swimming competition for the month of July.  You can feel the self-assured vibe these highly-spirited kids were giving off.  The presence of competitive swimmers made J comment that the felt she was in the Nuvali koi pond during feeding time.

Scary?  Yikes!  Everyone wanted to get ahead, with some of the kids swimming on top of the others in the mad scramble to get ahead.  Naturally, the fast swimmers left the rest trailing behind.

Like the previous event, she did a 200m swim and a 1.5k run.  She was the 5th girl out of the water, but she lost her lead in the run split.  Nevertheless, congratulations is in order as she has managed to improve her time by a good two minutes.  She finished 15th out of 36 girls.

Her race statisticss this time around:

swim split: 4:10.7

transition and run split:  10:32.3

total race time:  14:43.0

Just to make sure she doesn't stay longer in the transition any more than necessary, her race bib was attached to her tri-belt.  Clearly, not tying her shoelaces was not one of the things we talked about when we went through how to improve her transition time.  :) 

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Change of {heart} about futbol

B recently had a change of heart about all things sporty and decided that she wanted to join her big sis play soccer. I figured that since she already has all the necessary gears she might as well give the sport another try.

Prior to this, I have enrolled her in two or three modules with Futbol Fanatics. She has always shown more aggression on the field than J; going in and attacking the ball even if at that time, due to her young age, it was not clear to her where the goal actually was. I truly thought then that she would be the one who would stay on longer with the sport. So it came as a shock that she lost interest in next to no time.

In spite of this, her soccer cleats would make an occasional jamboree with mud and dust since I made sure to sign up all three of them with our church-sponsored soccer clinic during the summer breaks.

Inserting a photo of the 2009 soccer clinic, with B bringing home a trophy for MVP.

I try to encourage active participation in every endeavor they undertake, and I do expose them to as many sports activities as our schedule permits. But I draw the line at intimidation and coercion. I am not one to force them to pursue an activity if their heart is not into it. I do not believe in wasting time and money just to watch them give half-hearted effort; to catch sight of a lackluster and uninspired undertaking is enough to wind me up to the highest degree of infuriation.

And this is what I mean when I say uninspired....

Just kidding, R! :) But he did have a fascination going on that time with mud, worms and collecting pebbles. Anyhow, other than the minor distractions, R played well most of the time - that is, if he can keep his mind off mud, worms and pebbles. :)

Here he is in a deep and serious huddle with his coach.

All business during scrimmage!

So if the interest is not there, I let it go and we move on to the next activity. But, I make sure to let them try it again at a later time, say one year after, just to see if maybe they changed their minds about it.

True enough, after a hiatus from football for about a year, I asked B earlier this year if she wanted to join her sister play football and she immediately replied in the positive. What she did not mention (but I later found out) was that it did not hurt that a cute li’l boy named Monty from the church-organized soccer event also trains in the same football club.

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Nutrition and The Young Athlete

With the kids all engaged in numerous activities and with J playing competitively for two sports, I have took it upon myself to research on the proper nutritional requirement for a young athlete.

Here are some guidelines that I found to be useful before, during and after training:

} Make sure kids arrive to practice well-fed. They should eat a meal that contains sufficient amounts of carbohydrates, 1-2 hours before the practice session or competition.

} During training, kids should be encouraged to take "water breaks" every 20-30 minutes even when the young athletes do not feel thirsty. Research studies have shown that providing a cooled and flavored beverage produces greater fluid consumption among children and helps prevent dehydration.

However, it is in my belief that while sports energy drinks taste good, the best source of hydration is still good old fashioned water. As stated here, kids do not need the additional sugar in their tiny active bodies.

I have found a natural alternative by making my own sports drink. I simply mix a few tablespoons of honey and a pinch of salt in a cup of warm water. Let the mixture dissolve well, and mix it with cold water and a couple handful of ice cubes. You can also follow the recipes here and here.

As you might expect, since honey is sweeter than table sugar, it also has more calories as well -- 22 per teaspoon compared to granulated sugar's 16 per teaspoon. However, it is healthier in that it is a natural form of sweetener; thus there are trivial amounts of minerals and vitamins in the bee product while white sugar has none.

} Let the kids eat carbohydrate and protein within the first 30 minutes after practice. Replacing carbohydrates that were used during training within 30 minutes is essential for repairing muscle tissue and preparing for the next athletic training period. This is perhaps the most important time to eat to maximize body recovery!

Just the other week, I made granola bars for my kids to enjoy.

It is relatively easy to make and is also nutritionally great just about any time of the day. The rolled oats provide an excellent source of fiber and are a good source of complex carbohydrates. The raisins, dried blueberries and dried cherries are a good energy source, and the almond, sunflower nuts, and wheatgerm provide protein. The flax seeds are a good source of omega3.

High-carbohydrate, moderate-protein, low-fat, and moderate-fiber. Granola offers more bang for the buck, so to speak.

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J has got game

J has surprised me by loving soccer. She started with the sport early this summer. I wanted the kids to try out different sports so they can decide for themselves what they enjoyed to do and wanted to pursue. After the soccer clinic has ended, she enrolled in a weekend football program, where she is registered upto now.

She is gentle and non-confrontational, so the aggressiveness needed by the sport was something she just could not turn on when she is on the field. I remember watching her during her first few sessions, she would run after the ball but would hesitate to get it from an opponent. I had to explain to her that in this sport, getting the ball from the opponent is not "grabbing", it is simply how the game is played. But being who she is, she is not one to charge at the ball, dribble it from across the field to score a goal. It's not in her character to be the hard-hitting striker. She has found a position she is good at, where her heart is comfortable playing. She is a solid and reliable defender. Strikers from opposing teams have a difficult time getting the ball past her and her team's goalie has found fewer balls to watch over.
In a recent mixed group tournament, she found herself in a group of ten kids from ages six to eight, of which, three of them are girls. She was the only girl in her group to play in all five qualifying games. She has surely come a long way from where she started in the sport.
Their team went on to win 2nd runner-up in their age category. She went home at the end of the day exhausted from playing (she slept the whole ride home), her skin a shade darker (even with re-applying sunblock every 2 hours), but with pride in herself and exhilaration in her heart.

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