Sport Nutrition

Having a few days without a blog entry tends to create a backlog of topics if you have been in the daily routine of writing about coaching. I am working on three specific topic areas motivated by this past weekends MWPA clinics which covered shooting and, to a much lesser extent, nutrition.

Two of these revolve around the techniques being taught by national coaches and being "expected" from athletes coming out of Canadian clubs. One blog will outline the shooting technique favoured in Canada today and hopefully show video and give a simple biomechanical description of the old method and the newer "Serbian" method. The other blog will talk about why this is a symptom of a huge disconnect between the national teams and the clubs developing 100% of the athletes for those teams. This modified shooting is the way Mike G. has been shooting since Darko began working with him as a Cadet 3 years ago.

Today, the topic is nutrition and that jumps ahead of the shooting dialogue thanks to Mike Reid, or club strength and nutrition guru who now advises us electronically from Sweden. Mike has a blog himself (http://michaelreid.typepad.com/) and this weekend it has a wonderful entry about artificial sweeteners. Mike and I see eye-to-eye on so much nutrition and lifestyle information that I am not going to repost his blog entry, I'll just direct you to it.

I love that he has located research about something that supports what I have known intuitively for some time but not been able to articulate due to a limited background in the science of nutrition (and limited hours to research that myself). Here is the conclusion from the research Mike has written about;
"... products containing artificial sweeteners may lead to increased body weight and obesity by interfering with fundamental homeostatic, physiological processes."

It is appropriate to post that link today since so many young club athletes had a great sport nutrition introduction from Jorie Janzen on Saturday. Jorie took a practical approach to this topic with our athletes by dealing with the big picture, avoiding preaching, and giving athletes specific examples of things they could relate to. I particularly liked how she made a differentiation between water and sports drinks and then talked about a sport nutrition plan. These are things the coaches can follow up when planning with the athletes of each team. The follow up will be easy since Jorie has added to our portfolio of support literature that will now be delivered to athletes over a period of time to reinforce the regular inclusion of nutrition planning in their sport lives.

This is the month, March, when all our youngest athletes (Atoms and Bantams) get their first comprehensive introduction to nutrition. We always use the Alberta Open as the test event to give young teams the chance to connect what they learn about nutrition to how they live while on the road. It's so easy when we have them in a hotel and on the bus for 5 days to exercise influence on what they eat and what thoughts they form in that regard. I am also working on a strategy to help bring athlete hydration to the bench during games in a way that is shared between staff and athletes.