Sports Nutrition Case Study Assessment
Introduction
Obtaining healthy nutritious food is the main goal of every person who is living in society. The athletes like football players had great concern for acquiring healthy nutrition because their unhealthy practices for obtaining the desired level of nutrition can affect their overall performance. The sportspersons and other athletes like the football players had the greater need of obtaining calories from their diet in comparison of an average person. This increase in calorie consumption varies among different sports specialists. The needs of acquiring calories in the diet can be ranges from 2000 to 5000 calories per day. The bodybuilders who had to be trained hard for acquiring they are building of the body (Shriver, Betts, and Wollenberg, 2013. pp.10-16) first only linked the acquisition of the healthy nutrients.
Different athletes of many other sports practices had now understood the importance of good nutrition. The obtaining of a good diet that includes different nutrition can easily affect the health of a person. At the point where this good nutrition practice is combined with any other physical activity like running or playing football then it can help the sportspersons in delivering the maximum output. Further, the practices of good nutrition consumption while combined with good physical training can also help the sportspersons in fighting with chronic diseases like cancer, heart attack, etc. (Potgieter, 2013. pp.6-16).
Further, irrespective of the gender, when the sportspersons perform the accurate level of hydration practices then their overall performance is up to the mark. Therefore, sportspersons must remain hydrant while performing their regular tasks. Irrespective of the place, the female football players must have a good diet plan that can help them in performing their activities in a perfect manner. In the chosen case study, a female footballer has to play a three-day tournament of football in the country of the United States of America (USA). The diet plan on the regular days other than the game days is very much different from the diet plan for the game day. For a female football player, the dietary plan for non-playing or the training days is shared in the table format below (Robinson, et al., 2014).
When it comes to the matchday diet for the female football players, the dietary plan mentioned above can be altered for facilitating the players. Many dietitians that the football players had to eat good nutritious food on their matchday, as they are all of the energy will consume during the match time had discussed it. Therefore, it is very much important for the football player to eat right on the match day (Dogan, Tasmektepligil, and Cankaya, 2015. pp.355-359). This type of healthy eating will start from the first thing in the morning that can be breakfast, which is also recognised as the important meal of the day. For day 5 in the schedule and the second day after the first match that had taken place yesterday in the evening can have the major impact on the breakfast meals of the football player. Therefore, it is advised to the female football player that she must consider the breakfast as the starting point of the day that can give her the required amount of energy in the morning that can effectively help the person in performing their desired training (Holway, and Spriet, 2011. pp.S115-S125).
Day dietary plan
For the football player, the breakfast can be in accordance with the body requirement that can be helpful for the team in attaining their target. Therefore, porridge eating can be decided as the best eating choice for breakfast as it is the low gelatine cereal. The selected porridge should be increased in terms of fibre and grains so that it can deliver the required level of carbohydrates. Further, the flavour of porridge can be changed for avoiding the bore factor of its regularity on an everyday basis for a series of matches. Further, the bowl of porridge must be accompanied with whole or skimmed milk that will help the football player in acquiring the desired level of body calcium (Mohr, et al., 2016. pp.179-193).
If the football player does not want to eat porridge in the breakfast then the only thing that can substitute the porridge is the whisked eggs with different whole wheat bread or rye bread. This option of breakfast is also very nutrient for the players as it had a high level of protein in it. This type of breakfast will help the players in getting prepared for the match. The football player like must avoid one thing while selecting their breakfast on the match day. That is, they must not be taking heavy breakfast that can be resulted in been overstuffed at the start of the match and can harm their overall performance. The football players must always opt for eating something healthy in their breakfast so that they can perform better in the game (Holway, and Spriet, 2011. pp.S115-S125).
As the match for the football player on the 6th day of her team schedule is around 01:00 pm, which is right after the mid-day time; so she can only drink lots of water before the match starts so that she cannot be dehydrated during the session. Drinking water before the match time can help the football player in reducing the risk of getting thirsty during the match, as it had been discussed earlier. During the game time, the player can get thirsty as they had to play ball in the field that requires lots of running. Lots of running results in an increase in sweating; and with an increase in sweating, the body water level decreases that also affect the players’ performance (Buchheit, et al., 2013. pp.550-555).
Right after the game period of 90 minutes is over, she must look out for her muscles as an insurance policy for future training. She must also drink such liquids that have carbohydrates and increased number of proteins so that they can attain normal training before the next match. The last meal of the day will be the dinner that will be served to the footballers after the match ends. The dinner is of great importance for the players after the match. In the dinner, the players had different meal options after the match that can fulfil their hunger of food. However, the dietitians highly encourage the football players to eat high-quality food that is enriched with Vitamin D, Omega 3 and other important proteins. The dinner items that can provide such type protein can be turkey based chilli minced meat and kidney beans (Bradley, et al., 2015. pp.469-479).
7th-day dietary plan
The football match on the 7th day is been scheduled to take place at 03:00 pm. For this type of match day, the breakfast is the mandatory part of every player or athlete who is taking part in the football game. The breakfast of the football player like her will be based on some other flavour of porridge or other whisked eggs in some other wheat-meal that can give the required level of protein that could be required for their healthy practices during the training period. As the match is at the usual time of 03:00 pm kick-off, the football team players are entitled to have a light meal or lunch. This light meal of lunch can easily include a low glycaemic load of food like whole-wheat biscuits and whole-wheat pasta. Further, she can also include certain vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, spinach leaves along with carrot or cucumber along with a whole-wheat meal of pasta (Burke, and King, 2012. pp.S21-S31).
After the lunchtime, and before the match starts, the football player like her must take lots of water so that it can help her in reducing the impact of thirstiness in her performance during the first half of the match. After the first 45 minutes had ended in a successful manner, the football player will get 15 minutes of break in which she can eat the energy gels that will help her in overcoming the deficiency of carbohydrates in her body. Further, she will also have to take lots of water as much of her body water had been going out of her body in shape of sweat (Robinson, et al., 2014).
After her second half of the game ends, she must be doing practices for relaxing her body muscles so that she can perform her activities in a most successful manner. For doing that, she must be consuming certain carbohydrate foods and other antioxidant drinks that can help her body in acquiring the desired level of proteins and carbohydrates that can help her in performing her future training in a successful manner. After the match, the other main course of the meal for the match day is the dinner. In dinner, she can have the meal that is enriched with Vitamin D, Omega 3, and other required proteins for her health support. The dinner items that can provide such type of protein, and Omega 3 is the Salmon sushi mixed with boiled red beans (Cunniffe, et al., 2015. pp.78-96).
Such type of dietary plan can easily help her in playing the football matches with good health. She is also the professional player of football so she must know the basics of her health before and after her the football match. The developed dietary plan for 6th and 7th day is been followed by every football/soccer player around the globe during their football matches.
References
- Bradley, W.J., Cavanagh, B., Douglas, W., Donovan, T.F., Twist, C., Morton, J.P. and Close, G.L., 2015. Energy intake and expenditure assessed ‘in-season in an elite European rugby union squad. European journal of sports science, 15(6), pp.469-479.
- Buchheit, M., Racinais, S., Bilsborough, J.C., Bourdon, P.C., Voss, S.C., Hocking, J., Cordy, J., Mendez-Villanueva, A. and Coutts, A.J., 2013. Monitoring fitness, fatigue and running performance during a pre-season training camp in elite football players. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 16(6), pp.550-555.
- Burke, L.M. and King, C., 2012. Ramadan fasting and the goals of sports nutrition around exercise. Journal of sports sciences, 30(sup1), pp.S21-S31.
- Cunniffe, B., Fallan, C., Yau, A., Evans, G.H. and Cardinale, M., 2015. Assessment of physical demands and fluid balance in elite female handball players during a 6-day competitive tournament. International journal of sports nutrition and exercise metabolism, 25(1), pp.78-96.
- Dogan, E., Tasmektepligil, M.Y. and Cankaya, S., 2015. An investigation of the leptin levels of footballers and wrestlers in terms of aerobic capacity. The Anthropologist, 19(2), pp.355-359.
- Mohr, M., Draganidis, D., Chatzinikolaou, A., Barbero-Álvarez, J.C., Castagna, C., Douroudos, I., Avloniti, A., Margeli, A., Papassotiriou, I., Flouris, A.D. and Jamurtas, A.Z., 2016. Muscle damage, inflammatory, immune and performance responses to three football games in 1 week in competitive male players. European journal of applied physiology, 116(1), pp.179-193.
- Morehen, J.C., Bradley, W.J., Clarke, J., Twist, C., Hambly, C., Speakman, J.R., Morton, J.P. and Close, G.L., 2016. The assessment of total energy expenditure during a 14-day in-season period of professional rugby league players using the doubly labelled water method. International journal of sports nutrition and exercise metabolism, 26(5), pp.464-472.
- Potgieter, S., 2013. Sports nutrition: A review of the latest guidelines for exercise and sports nutrition from the American College of Sports Nutrition, the International Olympic Committee and the International Society for Sports Nutrition. South African journal of clinical nutrition, 26(1), pp.6-16.
- Robinson, S.L., Morton, J.P., Close, G.L., Flower, D. and Bannock, L., 2014. Nutrition intervention for an international-standard female football player. Journal of Applied Case Studies in Sport and Exercise Science, 1(1).
- Shriver, L.H., Betts, N.M. and Wollenberg, G., 2013. Dietary intakes and eating habits of college athletes: are female college athletes following the current sports nutrition standards? Journal of American College Health, 61(1), pp.10-16.
