How important is nutrition to performance?
In this article, Coach Alan writes a piece that provides a generalist approach to nutrition to help provide a spectrum based perspective on how to approach nutrition for performance and, even more importantly, health.
Each layer constitutes a base of support for the next layer. Without the ones beneath the ones at the top are not able to support themselves, they are foundations on which athletes are built.
Like every other performance area, nutrition is one within which the next ‘best thing’ can become appealing. Why? Well, because we want to improve and we are hungry for improvements to come thick and fast. But instead of marginal gains, what are the significant gains and why?
Nutrition Hierarchy
Nutrition can be a complex area of sporting performance if you choose it to be. It can, however, be split into what we eat before, during, and after our training sessions or races.
Regardless of which of these chronological points we focus on, there is a weighting of importance to what we might consider;
Sufficient Calories (+ Sufficient Fluid)
Macronutrients (Fat, Protein, Carbohydrate)
Micronutrients (Vitamins and Minerals)
Food quality
Supplements
1. Without sufficient fluid or calories, whatever form they come in, we won’t survive. Health, or in the extreme, survival, comes before any other aspect of sport or athleticism, and it must come first. For this simple reason, a sufficient supply of what we need, and I mean need, comes first.
2. Secondly comes sufficient proportions of the macronutrients that our body needs—a necessary amount of each of these to meet the daily demands of our existence. Athletes will differ from the general public, athletes from sport to sport may differ, and athletes may vary based on their gender.
3. Micronutrients come next; they help to allow points one and two to occur effectively and efficiently. Again variations will exist. Vitamin D and Iron being two of the most common to have intraindividual variations.
4. The quality of our food can vary dramatically, and before we consider the fine detail of our fuel, we need first to ensure that what we do take in is of a high quality so that it is effective as possible. If you are eating processed food rather than cooking, it is time to upskill.
5. Supplements are only necessary if we can’t take in sufficient amounts via points one to four if our diet can’t meet the demand naturally. This may be because we are intolerant to a particular source of nutrients or because we choose to consume a diet that results in a consequential exclusion of a specific nutrient. Or simply because the demands we or our training environment places on our body are too high for natural intake to meet the demand.
Energy balance is critical, and calories in vs calories out really are the bottom line for this. However, if you start to delve beyond simple appetite things, get more and more complex. With this complexity, it is essential to consider confident accuracy and the balance of risk vs reward.
Why might we differ from one to five, and why?
Distraction and misdirection. Often athletes can jump to looking towards supplements as these are being promoted and sold to athletes. Marketing can create a distraction for athletes (and coaches) at best and confusion, misunderstanding and misinformation at worst. Often nutrition can become narrow, and single point focused rather than being broad and holistic. Looking after your health and gut health is vital, as without this, becoming, remaining, or improving as an athlete is impossible. More and more science is pointing towards the broader effects of nutrition on mental health and overall function.
A desire to perform and succeed combined with uncertainty around how to do it in conjunction with high exposure to ‘marketing’ and other sources of poor information can lead to athletes pursuing shortcuts to performance rather than a holistic approach to health. This is a consequence of the marginal gains era and the modern culture of social media influencers; the two can combine to oversee the main point. Major gains matter, health matters! We must all strive to keep the major plates spinning at all times, and until our experience, environment, or ability and goals demand that we seek smaller and smaller returns, we should focus on those major goals.
If an athlete is clearly carrying 10kg of excess fat mass (which has been accurately measured) but has excellent technical swim, bike and run ability in conjunction with high absolute physiological output (power) with a depth of training and racing experience, then ‘main thing’ is quite obvious. If, on the other hand, we have a novice athlete who has poor technique, a lack of training and racing experience, in conjunction with low force and low physiological output, but is focussing on calories to change to an arbitrarily chosen weight without accurate measurement, then the main point(s) have been missed.
The consequences of any of these can be severe and start with point one. Calorie counting is almost always the first place anybody wishing to make a nutritional change begins to affect something. Still, before doing so, an individual’s overall health and performance profile should be looked at to assess the appropriateness of this action. As with all training, the action taken in training should be in line and balance with the athlete’s health, current individual profile, performance level, commitment level and short term goals.
What can I do?
Maintaining perspective and balance in your approach to nutrition is important. It is only one part of your performance; being healthy and strong both mentally and physically is essential, as is taking time to practice your skills, learning how to do practices correctly, working on your conditioning weaknesses, and getting the training done!
Much like how we may have short blocks of training where we increase swim frequency from 3 to 5 swims a week to learn something and improve, we can do the same with nutrition. A brief one or two-week block of a food diary can highlight areas of possible improvement to you. At first, it is simply best to review this in terms of the quantity of your food. Then, if that is adequate, we can consider the macronutrient breakdown and the then quality of your food, including micronutrients. The biggest significant gain to nutrition that covers the quality of your food in one word may be highlighted from this food diary: it may well be ‘cooking’.
Alan has worked with Tri Training Harder since 2014. During this time working with a wide spectrum of athletes from beginner, to youth and junior elite athletes through to 70.3 and Ironman AG winners and Ironman Kona Qualifiers.
An active Triathlon coach since 2007 Alan has been fortunate enough to work with athletes, peers and support staff who have continutally challenged him to evolve and develop. Building on a solid foundation in swimming teaching, Alan has specifically developed swimming coaching experience having worked in High Performance Swimming environments. Alan's other passion is all things fast on a bicycle!
Since 2015 Alan has worked in conjunction with the other Tri Training Harder Coaches to significantly develop collective coaching practice both on camp and online.
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