Eating to Win

I’m wanting to row the best I can at the Head of the Charles.

Any nutrition tips to help me reach my goal?

How do Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady eat to perform at such high levels?

I once heard someone say the best athletes have the junkiest diets. Is that true?

These are just some of the questions I get from athletes who want to eat to win. My answer: What and when you eat matters. While many very good athletes seem to do well with random fueling plans, the question arises: How much better could they be?

While wise fueling plans certainly can enhance athletic performance, many other factors determine whether or not you will get to the podium. Physiological factors include muscle damage/soreness, lactic-acid buildup, depleted muscle glycogen, low blood glucose, inability to concentrate/poor brain function, under-hydration, high body temperature, gut distress, and injury. Now add the environmental factors you can’t control: heat, humidity, wind, floods, and altitude, as well as the regatta’s start time, time between events, jet lag, and travel fatigue. No wonder eager-to-win rowers want to rule out making any food mistakes. So here are nutrition strategies you can control to benefit your performance.

• Whole-grain breads, pasta, sweet potato, quinoa and other starchy carbs—plus fruits and veggies—should be the foundation of each and every meal. Stop thinking carbs are bad, fattening, a waste of calories. False! The body prefers carbs to replenish muscle-glycogen stores that get depleted during hard exercise. Training or competing with “dead muscles” hurts performance.

• All athletes need a well-fueled brain. If you haven’t eaten a meal three to four hours before exercise, at least eat about 200 calories of carbs within an hour before you row to keep your brain sharp so you can focus and stay motivated to work at a hard pace. For a personalized fueling plan that maintains your blood sugar (and feeds the brain), consult with a registered dietitian and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics. (To find one locally, visit the referral networks at eatright.org or healthprofs.com.

• Implement your fueling plan during training so you have time to tweak it. During a regatta, you don’t want to be guessing whether a new gel will digest well.

• Commercial sports foods (sports drinks, gels, chomps, jelly beans, etc.) are pre-wrapped and convenient but not magical. “Real foods” (dried pineapple, crystalized ginger, peppermints, granola bars, diluted grape juice) also work just as well, if not better, before and during extended training sessions.

• During extended training that lasts longer than 60 to 90 minutes, plan to consume a variety of sport foods and fluids. Each type uses different gut transporters and can reduce the risk of GI distress. A variety of tastes also minimizes flavor fatigue (when you can’t tolerate one more sip of Gatorade). You can compete at your best only if you can train at your best. That means fueling well every day.

• Learn in advance what foods and fluids will be available at the event. (Check website and sponsors.) You’ll be better off bringing plenty of tried-and-true foods that you know will settle well and be available readily—and make sure to bring enough to share!

• Maintain adequate hydration during repeated days of hard training. Your goal is to void a significant volume of light-colored urine first thing in the morning. That indicates you’re beginning the day adequately hydrated.

• Whether programmed drinking (according to a plan) is preferable to drinking to thirst (as desired) depends somewhat on the sport. Endurance rowers can develop a big mismatch between sweat losses and fluid intake, so programmed drinking can be a good plan for them. Rowers who exercise for a shorter time are less likely to become dehydrated, so drinking to thirst is acceptable.

• In laboratory-based research, a loss of body weight of more than three percent is linked to reduced performance. In real life, many athletes perform well at higher levels of dehydration. Their motivation to win overrides the effects of being under-hydrated and lessens its negative impact. But the question remains unanswered: Could under-hydrated athletes have performed even better if they were better hydrated?

• If you think a sports supplement will take you to the winner’s circle, think again. So-called ergogenic aids are only for athletes who first have optimized their daily sports diet. No amount of supplementation will compensate for a poor sports diet.

• That said, some supplements might enhance performance. These include:

—Creatine monohydrate supplements have been shown to increase muscle creatine stores by around 20 percent and can help you do more repeated sprints or lifts. Creatine supplements can be helpful for vegetarians, given that dietary creatine is found primarily in meat.

NOTE: Sporting organizations discourage the use of creatine in younger athletes, not because it will harm them, but because they have yet to learn what their bodies can do naturally. Young athletes should focus on improving skills rather than taking supplements.

—Caffeine can reduce the perception of pain, effort, and fatigue—even in rowers who drink coffee regularly. You can consume caffeine via gels, caffeinated energy bars, pre-workout supplements, tablets, and of course, coffee. The problem with coffee is the caffeine content is highly variable, making it hard to define a specific dose. The “best” dose varies from athlete to athlete.

• Simply rinsing your mouth with a sugar solution, then spitting it out, stimulates reward centers in the brain, allowing you to work harder and perform better. Sugar doesn’t need to be absorbed into the body to offer benefits.

• Menthol-containing mouth rinses every five to 10 minutes during prolonged exercise in the heat can allow athletes to feel cooler, work harder, and run faster. But be careful. If you feel cooler—but actually aren’t—you might overexert yourself and end up hurting your performance in the long run.

• Anti-cramping agents such as pickle juice, capsaicin, cinnamon, ginger, or hot or spicy tastes may “distract” the nerves involved with the cramping muscle and reduce the risk and severity of the cramp, but more research is needed.

The bottom line:

Wise fueling strategies can help get you to the podium. If you’re struggling to find an effective fueling plan that supports your rowing goals, consult with a certified sports dietition. We can help you win!