Sports Nutrition for Tennis

The Basic Principles: Food, Fuel and Fluids

Becky StevensonLTA Sports Nutrition Service Manager

Performance Nutritionist

Back to Basics• Good nutritional practices

should be part of any tennis player’s normal routine.

• It is one factor that every athlete can control.

• Good nutrition is essential to support training adaptation, injury and illness prevention and optimise performance.

Key messages in sports nutrition

A good varied diet should:

• Meets energy demands of training and competition.

• Provide adequate essential nutrients to optimise health and recovery.

• Help the player stay hydrated to prevent performance declines.

• Help the player achieve ideal physique for performance, plus growth in younger players.

Sports Nutrition and Healthy Eating

• Sports nutrition focuses on what athletes need to consume to be fuelled and hydrated during exercise and to promote rapid recovery after exercise.

• Healthy eating underpins ‘cutting edge’ sport nutrition.

Tips for Healthy Eating

Aim for well balanced diet• Carbohydrate: from a

variety of whole grains,

vegetables, beans and fruit.• Protein from fish, poultry,

leans meats, low fat dairy,

eggs, beans, pulses and tofu.• Fats from healthy sources

such as olive and rapeseed oil,

pumpkin and walnut oil, nuts, seeds

and avocado.

Tips for carbohydrates

• Healthy sources: wholegrain cereals and breads, pasta, fruit, vegetables, beans and pulses.

• Nutritional benefit: energy source, vitamins, minerals and fibre.

• Performance benefits: carbohydrates are the major muscle fuel for high intensity exercise, essential to

tennis performance.

Tips for protein

• Healthy sources: fish, lean meat, turkey and chicken, beans, pulses, tofu, low fat dairy.

• Nutritional benefit: provides amino acids the building blocks for making protein. Important in digestion, metabolism and the immune system.

• Performance benefit: repair and resynthesis of muscle

proteins.

Tips for fats

• Healthy fats: olive oil, rapeseed, walnut and pumpkin oil, olive oil spreads, nuts and seeds and oily fish.

• Nutritional benefits: major source of fat soluble vitamins, ADEK, omega 3 fatty acids.

• Performance benefits: important muscle fuel, need to limit saturated and trans fatty acids and processed foods with high fat content.

Healthy Eating for Athletes• Essential nutrients: from the

diet support growth, repair tissue, carry oxygen around the body, support the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein and immune system.

• B vitamins – energy metabolism.

• Vitamin C – immunity.• Antioxidants – protect cell

membrane.• Calcium and vitamin D for

healthy bones.• Iron for transports of oxygen to

exercising muscles.

Athlete Performance needs to focus on both

Healthy Eating

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to make sure that the athlete is healthy over the long term.

Sports Nutrition

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to help athletes fuel their training and competition, stay hydrated and promote rapid recovery post exercise.

Principles of Sport Nutrition

1. Hydration: to prevent dehydration related declines in performance.

2. Fuelling: to provide energy for training and competition.

3. Recovery: to support rapid recovery post exercise.

Hydration • During exercise you lose

fluid and salts through sweating.

• If you don’t replace you can become dehydrated.

• Losing >2% body weight during exercise can reduce aerobic performance (~20%).

• Thirst is not a good indicator of hydration.

• Drinking too much is also not desirable.

Hydration logs•To individualise your hydration strategy you need to measure sweat loses during exercise.

• Use a hydration log in different environments.

• Weigh yourself before and after training or a match, try to minimise sweat loses less than 2% body weight.

• For every 1kg lost = 1000mls Replace 1.5 x fluid losses.

How can I minimise fluid loses?

1. Make sure your are well hydrated before exercising

2. Make sure you don’t suffer from mild dehydration day to day

3. Symptoms of dehydration are fatigue, headaches, loss of appetite, feeling excessively hot, light headed and nausea

4. Check urine colour each day

Drinking•Always carry a drink and be aware of your daily hydration status

•Drink well right up to 30 minutes before training or a match, take few sips before you start exercise

•Start drinking early in training or competition, take a few small sips at change of ends

Water or a sports drink?

Water is ok when exercising for less than 60 minutes in moderate temperate conditions.

Sports drink is ok when exercising for over 1 hour or longer, or any time in conditions that are hot or humid.

Fuel your game

• Carbohydrates are the main fuel for exercising muscles.

• 60-90 minutes of high intensity exercise can deplete your glycogen store.

• Start training with good stores to delay fatigue and train or compete effectively.

Carbohydrate requirements

• Tennis player will need approximately

5-7g per kg body weight.

• Low intake will lead to fatigue, poor levels of concentration which can impact performance.

• Inadequate carbohydrate intake can reduce immunity.

• Eat pre-match meal 2-3 hours before playing.

• Go for foods that is easy to digest, low in fat, high in carbohydrate.

• Take a snack 45 minutes before a match.

• Carry foods/drinks in luggage be prepared.

• Keep drinking.

Fuelling Pre-match meal/snack

Protein requirements

• Athletes need slightly more protein than sedentary individuals.

• About 1.5g per kg body weight e.g 70kg x1.5 = 105g protein per day.

• 2g per kg body weight if still growing.

• To gain lean mass you need extra total daily calories.

• Every athlete needs to start refuelling and rehydrating as soon as possible after exercise to be able to recover optimally.

• Fuel stores need to be refuelled and muscles repaired and regenerated.

• Fluid and salt losses need to be replaced.

Recovery Nutrition

Recovery Nutrition • Poor recovery nutrition

can lead to fatigue, low energy stores and poor training adaptation.

• Poor recovery may lead to an increased risk of injury, or infection.

• Research shows carbohydrate based snack or drink should provide about 10-20 g protein – ‘recovery window’.

Recovery• Important to refuel and rehydrate

straight after exercise especially if competing or training again in 24 hours.

• Start eating and drinking within 30 minutes after exercise or as soon as possible.

• Try a sports recovery drink, or a low fat sandwich with your sports drink, or a low fat milk drink.

• Aim to eat high carbohydrate meal within 1 hour.

Summary

Looking after all aspects of nutrition and hydration isfundamental to performanceand long term health.

Remember:

1. Hydration2. Fuelling3. Recovery