Nutrition for the swimming lifecycle
Eating across the Athlete life cycle to maximise performance
Greg Shaw
Senior Sports Dietitian AIS Sport Nutrition
National Nutrition Lead Swimming Australia Limited
Australian Swimming Framework
• Start with the end in mind
• Understand the problem
• Design solutions to meet the challenges at each stage
The End Elite E1-M1
A swimmer capable of manipulating their diet to match the goals of the macro, micro and daily training cycle
• to ensure sufficient energy and substrates are available to perform in key training sessions
• to avoid illness and injury
• to optimise cellular adaptation to training through the addition or withholding of
nutrients
Rollason Training logs 2011 season
What is the goal
26yr old female 200m breaststroker (165cm, 63kg, S7 45mm)
• Sunday (day off)
– 12.1MJ (360g CHO, 168g Pr, 94g Fat)
• Mon (easy am, sprint pm)
– 15.6MJ (563g CHO, 163g Pr, 83g Fat)
• Tues (sprint and gym am, Lactate 4-6 session pm)
– 19.6MJ (679 CHO, 210g Pr, 114g Fat)
• Wed (off am, easy pm)
– 13.4MJ (439g CHO, 151g Pr, 86g Fat)
Barriers to achieving this
• Food Knowledge (literacy)
• Food manipulation/preparation skills
• Planning and organisation skills
• Understanding of requirements for training adaptation
– Performance
– Growth and repair
– Reduce illness and injury
Goal:
Achieve adequate nutrition to ensure a consistent trainer, who rarely gets ill or injured and is capable of absorbing training load allowing for long term
adaptation over multiple years.
Where to start F3-T4
Energy Requirements
• Energy in vs Energy out
= Energy in – Energy cost of exercise
• What is left over for bodily functions after the body prioritises energy for activity.
Melin et al IJSNEM Epub 2014
Energy Availability
Energy Availability
• If energy availability drops below this critical threshold physiological disturbances are seen
– Reduction in metabolism – Hormonal disturbances – Menstrual function
– Immune Function (2 out of 10 LEA got sick) – Bone health
– Training Adaptation (VanHeest et al MSSE 2013)
Melin et al IJSNEM Epub 2014
Nutrition for
Males vs Females
• Males able to match Energy Intake to Expenditure.
• Requirements are often higher due to higher lean body mass.
• Require more carbohydrate than females.
• Often poor quality food choices
• Females typically don’t change their intake to match training
• When corrected for lean body mass requirements similar to males
• Have different metabolism so can use more fat
• Have been found to have
problems with micronutrient intake especially when energy intake is low.
Van Handel et al J Swim Res 1984(1):27-31
Performance Physique Measure it to optimise it
• Technique utilised
– needs to be accurate and repeatable – able to track change over time with little
error
• Body weight is not sufficient.
– High level of variability.
• Skinfolds able to track changes in fat mass well.
– But can be stressful if done in the wrong
• Focus on whole body composition, way.
– muscle mass and body fat
– Use other or combination of techniques
• Measure only at same time as performance tests undertaken
Physique and Performance
• Body composition has a large impact on performance – mainly via impact on drag and buoyancy
• In females, reduction in skinfolds are correlated to performance.
• Lean muscle tissue is important to a point
• Where lean mass and fat mass goes is important
Anderson et al. J Sport Sci (2008) 26; 123-130
Nutrition to help survive training
• Nutrition for growth and repair
• Nutrition for training performance
• Nutrition for training recovery/preparation
The type and timing of food to optimise training performance, recovery, growth and repair.
Nutrition and Nutrient Periodisation
• Matching nutrition intake to the goal of the training session.
• Before, during and after
– Through whole foods
• With support for other convenience supplemental sport foods
Putting it into practice
Day/
Session
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
AM Aerobic Gym/
Speed
Off Gym/
recovery
Aerobic Gym/
Heart rate
Off
PM Heart
Rate
Aerobic/
recovery
Quality
(400 -500m)
Lactate production
Aerobic/
Kick session
Quality
(500-800m)
Lactate tolerance
Off Off
Nutrition for acute training adaptation.
• Focusing nutrient intake around training to maximise adaptation to training.
• Protein intake around resistance exercise.
• Specific Carbohydrate around high intensity swimming sessions.
Day/
Session
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
AM Aerobic Gym/
Speed
Off Gym/
recovery
Aerobic/kick session
Gym/
Heart rate
Off
PM Heart
Rate
Aerobic/
recovery
Quality
(400 -500m)
Lactate production
Aerobic Quality
(500-800m)
Lactate tolerance
Off Off
Easy 48hrs Hard 36 hrs?
Hard Hard
Strength Strength
Easy day Easier 36 hrs
Competition nutrition
Single events – minimal support.
Multiple events – basic support.
Multiple events, multiple days – moderate
support.
Multi-day meets
• Multiple events.
• Multiple heats and finals in one session.
• Important to employ suitable recovery nutrition and hydration practices.
• Shouldn’t be a buffet of sports foods.
• Swimmers not competing should have food to cover hunger.
Issues
Solutions
Nutrition recovery during competition
• Main aim is to reduce glycogen depletion over multiple days and events.
• Individual to competition load.
• Protein inclusion important to reduce muscle damage.
• Aim for carbohydrate between races and more balance at end of each session.
Where to spend your time and effort
Nutrition for the developing Athlete
• Many nutrients are required to have a complete diet.
Dietary supplements
Supplementation
• Swimmers are high users of dietary supplements
• Education for swimmers around risk associated with dietary supplements
• Dietary ergogenics are not recommended for junior swimmers due to highly variable nature of performance
• Formulated sports food may have a place
