Swimming - Training tips - Nutrition - Page 2

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What to eat and drink
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What to Eat and Drink

Training

Food

Follow general advice about healthy eating and keep to a balanced varied diet but don't forget that the more you train the more calories you need. Swimmers who fail to consume enough carbohydrate don't recover enough between training sessions and this may result in tiredness, loss of body weight, poor performance and illness. It is also good to have nutritious carbohydrate-rich snacks on hand to eat straight after training to start the refuelling process. This is especially important if you have to travel a long distance from the pool to school or home. Breakfast is an important meal and you must have some carbohydrate before morning training even if this is not your "proper" breakfast. Cereals to try include wholegrain varieties such as Branflakes, Shredded Wheat, Weetabix and muesli. Don't stick to the same one every day and add fruit, nuts or seeds for a change. Use skimmed or semi-skimmed milk or yoghurt with your cereal or perhaps you could have some porridge sweetened with honey and/or dried fruit. If you have toast or bread for breakfast why not try muffins or bagels but remember that you should not be slap on thick layers of butter or margarine, instead use low fat alternatives such as honey or jam.

Snack ideas include sandwiches, fresh fruit, muffins, scotch pancakes, dried fruit, cereal bars, fruit juice, nuts and dried fruit, rice cakes and breakfast cereals.

Drink

Drink before you train and bring a full large drink bottle to the pool and drink during rest periods or between sets. Water or diluted squash is fine or sports drinks provide an additional fuel supply for long training sessions. Drink again when you have finished training you lose a lot of water through sweating even if you can't see it.

Competitions

Before

Before the competition, stay within your normal eating habits. Don't get talked into trying anything unusual right before your event. Eat a meal 2-4 hours before the race. This meal should not be too large but high in carbohydrate and low in protein, fat with not too much fibre eg. cooked rice or baked potato, banana, sports drink - about 500 calories in total is about right.

During

You need plenty of fluids, especially if you are spending a lot of time in the pool environment and foods to provide quick energy release(high glycaemic index) such as

• Fruit, dried fruit, juices

• Bagels, bread, low-fat muffins

• Sport drinks, low-fat energy bars

If there are more than 2 hours between races take some dairy items such as yoghurt, low fat cheese and crackers.

After

What you eat afterwards is probably as important as what you eat before so don't neglect your post competition meal. This should be high carbohydrate and easily digested to help your body recover.

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