Daily Nutrition and Eating for Training
Preparation for training is not just what you do an hour before training. Everything you do during the day and across the whole week, is assisting your training sessions. Adequate preparation before training can also be part of your recovery plan. If you prepare well, not only will you get more from your session, but you will finish sessions less depleted, making the job of recovery easier.
Well will explore this in the activity for this topic a little later however, when you can answer “YES”, to the following questions, click here to see the questions:
You are well on your way towards the optimal training first to maximise your overall health and well-being, and importantly, your softball performance.
One common theme for many school ages athletes in particular, is not eating adequately or “priming” before training sessions.
Let’s consider your afternoon/evening training session. Assume you have lunch at school between 12-1pm, then commence training between 4-5pm. If you don’t eat an afternoon tea/pre training snack before your session, by the time you are mid-way through, it could be close to 5-6 hours since you’ve consumed any food.
This makes it difficult for both your muscles and brain to perform. So your skill development in that training session will be affected. In many softball training sessions, it is often towards the end of the training sessions when the most complex and important elements of your training take place.
So what should we do?
Both your muscles and brain work at their best when there is available blood glucose to fuel them. Your brain can only use blood glucose and without it, cognitive function (and ability to make good and quick decisions) drops. Ensuring a small supply of blood glucose (coming from carbohydrate foods) before you start training can enhance performance by ensuring your brain and muscles can easily access blood glucose. The muscles can then go onto use your stored carbohydrate afterwards.