FINA Swimming Coaches Golden Clinic 2014, Doha (QAT)
30/11/2015
Dr. Margo Mountjoy (CAN) – FINA-Yakult Nutrition:
Many factors contribute to success in sport, including talent, training, motivation and resistance to injury. When highly talented, motivated and well-trained athletes gather for competition, the margin between victory and defeat is usually small. Attention to every detail can make that vital difference, and nutrition is a key element of the serious athlete’s preparation.
Diet affects performance in all events, and the foods that we choose in training and competition will affect how well we train and compete. Athletes need to be aware of their nutritional goals and of how they can select an eating strategy to meet those goals.
Diet may have its biggest impact on training, and a good diet will help support consistent intensive training while reducing the risk of illness or injury. Good food choices can also promote adaptations in muscle and other tissues in response to the training stimulus.
Athletes are all different, and there is no single diet that meets the needs of all athletes at all times. Individual needs also change across the season and athletes must be flexible to accommodate this.
This symposium will present practical advice for coaches on nutritional recommendations for the aquatic athlete based on the outcomes of the world’s leading experts in sports nutrition which were gathered in London in 2012 on the occasion of the FINA-Yakult consensus meeting.
Food is an important part of life, and athletes should enjoy the foods that they eat, confident in the knowledge that they have made wise choices.
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