Both pre-event and post-event meals are principle elements to sports performance and recovery rates. It is the role of the Sports Science and Medicine team to emphasise about the cruciality of this aspect and make the athletes realise the importance nutritional ergogenic aids.
Let's see through the different stages, considerations and aspects of Pre-event and Post-event nutrition. I am combining these two in the same post because it will be much easier to compare and contrast. Hope this works!!
Pre-Event Eating:
Not only solid foods but also liquids consumed in the last four hours prior to the event, have showed to play a vital role in fine-tuning of the competition preparation and performance. Athletes need to understand the significance of pre-event meals. This helps in topping up the liver glycogen levels. Similarly, the Nutritionist must also consider the role of psychological effects of the likes and dislikes of an athlete while designing a plan. The psychological value in regards with the effects of consuming familiar or "tried and true" foods must never be under-estimated. It is recommended by the nutritional guidelines that, the pre-event meal must be high of carbohydrates and less of proteins and fats for endurance events. Power event athletes should focus on consuming quick energy substrates. A highly preferred alternative is Energy drinks and Sport Drinks. For the endurance events its always advisable to reduce dietary fiber content. Because higher levels of fiber intake can cause GI discomforts.
Hydration plays a vital role in performance. Liquid meal supplements come in handy when an athlete is nervous or unable to eat or tolerate solid-foods. Liquid meal supplements can also be useful as a pre-event meal for athletes with aesthetic requirements and a flat stomach. However, the osmolarity of the liquid supplements must be conserved. Unmonitored liquid supplements can cause bloating effects and can impair cognitive responses and reflexes temporarily. A low glycemic index food is always better for an endurance athlete. It would constantly supply the demand for energy during longer time periods.
The response to eating high glycemic index foods immediately prior to events is highly individualised. Thus it is important that the athlete tries and trains with different pre-event eating choices during his practice/training sessions. The coaches and nutritionists must pay attention for the athletes who are dehydrated or have fluid restrictions. This happens a lot in the instances of events which has weight categories and weight as a factor of qualifying. This scenario can also be addressed as "making weight" or "Athletes with Restricted Energy Budgets". These athletes need to be monitored individually and must design a plan to promote rapid rehydration between weighing in and the commencement of the competition.
Primary goals of Pre-event eating includes:
Continue to fuel muscle glycogen stores if they have not been fully restored or loaded since last exercise/training sessions.
Restore liver glycogen stores, especially with cases of early morning events, as it would have been depleted due to an over night fasting.
Ensure that the athlete is well hydrated.
Prevent hunger, yet avoided the gastro-intestinal discomfort or upset which are often experienced while having random meals before exercise.
Include food and practices that are important to the athlete's psychology or superstitions.
Suggestions include plain cereal breakfast with low fat milk and frays, Jacket potatoes with cream and corn, rolls and sandwiches with banana and honey, baked beans on toast and other similar foods.
Post-Event Eating:
While pre-event meals aim to replenish the depleted glycogen stores and thus promoting performance, the post-event meals help with improvising recovery rates. Post-event meals and fluids must focus on readying the athlete for the next event which is likely to happen soon. With events that provide a recovery period of more than a day, it is advisable to periodise the recovery intake logically. To extract maximal benefits of the post-event meal designing, it is important to calculate few aspects such as fluid losses, fluid intake during event, average heart rate zone throughout the event and the recovery time in hand.
Thirst and voluntary fluid intake are unlikely to keep pace with large sweat loses. The rapid rate of glycogen depletion triggers the body's response to resynthesis glycogen from available sources. This process is called gluconeogenesis. Studies have reported that muscle glycogen resynthesis takes precedence over restoration of liver glycogen. For post-event drinks, Sports drinks are highly recommended than energy drinks. Sports drink has a composition of carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals generally. Energy drinks are predominantly made of caffeine and sugar. So energy drinks facilitates heat rate and improvise the instant energy delivery systems while sports drinks facilitate recovery and supplies the recovery components of food.
Role of fluids in rehydration and recovery is undoubted. They help to facilitate muscle endurance, improve exercise intensity and also for acclimitatization to the external environments. Fluids are a main transport chain for nutrients to the cells. Prolonged exercising and consumption of supplements to improvise performance, puts a task on the body to filter out the unwanted substrates. Fluids play a very essential role to help the body in excreting these wastes. Also there is a war happening inside the body between carbohydrate loadings and hormonal reactions as a result of high intensity or strenuous exercise. There would be fluctuations in the pH and fluid helps to maintain that balance. The Sports Science team must make sure that the player is hydrated throughout the event and should aim to rehydrate as frequently as possible.
"On the note of hydration techniques, it is a card that has to be played very wisely. Dehydration is a relatively less-to-worry problem. But over hydration/hyperhydration can lead to very complicated scenarios. The worst that can happen is hyponatremia which is reduction in the blood sodium levels. You might never want that! "
Alcohol intake is another interfering factor with recovery. The fact is quite understood that alcohol is not an essential component of a diet and is a personal choice of the athlete whether to consume alcohol or not. Sensible intake of alcohol does not impair performance. It is suggested that mean daily alcohol intake should be less than 40-50g for male and 20-30 for female. Binge drinking and intake of about 80-100g at a single sitting must be highly discouraged. Alcohol is an energy dense and nutrient poor fluid and should be restricted when an athlete is attempting to reduce body fat. It is advised that the athlete avoids heavy intake of alcohol on the nights before competitions. Also intake of alcohol prior or during exercise impairs performance and recovery at a steeper rate. High intake of alcohol immediately after the event can also impair recovery and has negative effects on rehydration, glycogen recovery and healing of the soft tissue micro-damages.
No alcohol should be consumed for 24 hours in case of an athlete who has suffered a major soft tissue injury. Drinks such as sport drinks, fruit juices, soft drink or water should be consumed in order to overcome the fluid deficit. Drinks containing greater than 2% alcohol are not recommended as ideal rehydration drinks. Before consuming alcohol after exercise, the athlete should consume a high carbohydrate meal or snack. Athletes who drink heavily after competition should not involve in driving or any other hazardous activities.
"Management, coaches and doctors of the team should reinforce certain rules within their infrastructure and discourage drinking habits under certain premises."
Eg. Alcohol should be banned within the arena including locker rooms."