When is the best time for an athlete to make major nutritional changes.
At some point in your college career, you might be inspired to make major changes in how you eat or train. In fact, by spending time in the Yin Yang University, you probably will. Just like in real estate where everything is “location, location, location,” everything in training to be an successful athlete is “timing, timing, timing.”
If you don’t have enough time in between workouts, you do not recover fully and your performance begins to degrade and eventually leads to mental and/or physical burnout. (The two are closely linked, but that’s a post for another day.) On the opposite end of the timing spectrum, if you have too much time in between workouts, you will never get stronger, faster or better.
Your body is habituated to your lifestyle. It’s used to eating at certain times, sleeping X hours, studying for Y hours. When you change your routine, the body has to go through an adjustment phase. That’s why no matter how much you prepare, you are sore when practices first get going at the beginning of the season. The greater the change, the more time the body needs to recalibrate. Major changes in diet are especially hard on the body.
It can take 30-90 days for your liver to adapt to manufacturing different enzymes when you change your diet. The same can hold true for cutting back on carbs or eliminating gluten from your diet. It can take 30 days for your body to switch from carb burning mode to fat burning mode. So you can see why the off season is the right time to make any significant changes in diet or training.
The England World Cup made headlines when they hired a big name chef/nutritionist to prepare food for the team. Instead of giving the players what they were used to eating, he prepared a “perfect recipe for success” specialized diet that was going to propel Team England to victory. The only problem was it backfired.
England had it’s worst World Cup performance in years. The British tabloids blamed in-fighting and team chemistry, but if any of you have quit drinking coffee or cut carbs out of your diet, you know how grumpy you can get! By adding the metabolic stresses of adapting to a new diet along with the already enormous pressure of performing in the biggest sporting event in the world, the English coaches screwed the pooch.
TAKE ACTION! First off don’t use this information to justify by habits that rob you of your performance. Eating crap, drinking too much and sleeping too little are not habits you want to keep.
If you have to make changes during the season, make the changes incrementally. For example, if you decide to stop drinking coffee because it’s interfering with your sleep, don’t go cold turkey. Reduce the amount you are drinking slowly over a week and finally stop a day or two before you have your day off. That way you can use your rest day to recover.
Ideally you will save the big changes and experimentation for the off-season or summer. Give your body at least 30 days to adapt. You will feel more confident in your body knowing that you have had time to adapt.
If you don’t have enough time in between workouts, you do not recover fully and your performance begins to degrade and eventually leads to mental and/or physical burnout. (The two are closely linked, but that’s a post for another day.) On the opposite end of the timing spectrum, if you have too much time in between workouts, you will never get stronger, faster or better.
Your body is habituated to your lifestyle. It’s used to eating at certain times, sleeping X hours, studying for Y hours. When you change your routine, the body has to go through an adjustment phase. That’s why no matter how much you prepare, you are sore when practices first get going at the beginning of the season. The greater the change, the more time the body needs to recalibrate. Major changes in diet are especially hard on the body.
It can take 30-90 days for your liver to adapt to manufacturing different enzymes when you change your diet. The same can hold true for cutting back on carbs or eliminating gluten from your diet. It can take 30 days for your body to switch from carb burning mode to fat burning mode. So you can see why the off season is the right time to make any significant changes in diet or training.
The England World Cup made headlines when they hired a big name chef/nutritionist to prepare food for the team. Instead of giving the players what they were used to eating, he prepared a “perfect recipe for success” specialized diet that was going to propel Team England to victory. The only problem was it backfired.
England had it’s worst World Cup performance in years. The British tabloids blamed in-fighting and team chemistry, but if any of you have quit drinking coffee or cut carbs out of your diet, you know how grumpy you can get! By adding the metabolic stresses of adapting to a new diet along with the already enormous pressure of performing in the biggest sporting event in the world, the English coaches screwed the pooch.
TAKE ACTION! First off don’t use this information to justify by habits that rob you of your performance. Eating crap, drinking too much and sleeping too little are not habits you want to keep.
If you have to make changes during the season, make the changes incrementally. For example, if you decide to stop drinking coffee because it’s interfering with your sleep, don’t go cold turkey. Reduce the amount you are drinking slowly over a week and finally stop a day or two before you have your day off. That way you can use your rest day to recover.
Ideally you will save the big changes and experimentation for the off-season or summer. Give your body at least 30 days to adapt. You will feel more confident in your body knowing that you have had time to adapt.
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