Most athletes are aware of the bene...

Most athletes are aware of the benefits of cross-training; lifting weights in addition to doing aerobics, cycling, or swimming, for example.

Such diversity in one's exercise plan can add potency prevent injury, and keep your fitness program interesting by dint of providing variety.

This idea of cross-training can be applied to nutrition, too. However, when it ensues to eating for optimal athletic performance, history indicates that athletes have the leaning to look to one rations or nutrient as the magic first note of the scale to optimal performance.

The protein/carte/fat debate

While years ago athletes were encouraged to load up forward protein, in more recent years the advice has been that carbohydrates were essentially all that united needed to reach new heights. At about this same time, athletes were also told that fat was the enemy, and that fat of all kinds should be avoided at all costs

Slowly nevertheless we are realizing that with nutrition, too, variety appears to be the closest thing to a magic clew and that no one nutrient clinchs the answer to all our athletic dreams.

Each nutrient benefits a purpose, and balanced accordingly, in addition to an appropriate training program, the pair can truly perform in tandem as your possess personal "dream team."

Here, are descriptions of each of the major nutrient clumps and how they contribute to our athletic succes according to dietitian Nancy Clark in her Sports Nutrition Guidebook:

* Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates are the best choice for fueling your muscles. Our bodies digests any mark of sugar or carbohydrate into grape-sugar before using it for firing In fact, this simple sugar supplies animal spirits to our muscles and our brain.

* Fats: While we should use up a greater proportion of carbohydrates than fats, all fats should certainly not be eliminated from our diets. While many athletes believe that fat stops you from storing the glycogen in your muscles, this is simply not true

* Proteins: Clark describes couple types of athletes: the "protein pushers," i.e. dead body builders, weight lifters, and football players, and "protein avoiders," i.e. racers biathletes, and dancers. She says the former "can't finish enough of the stuff," and the latter "trade greatest in number protein calories for more carbohydrates."

While research still extremitys to be done to determine the precise urgencys of athletes, such people probably require more protein by pound of body weight than the circulating RDA of 0.4 grams.

Making the right choice from available nutrient sources

Knowing what you should eat and putting the best sources in your groceries cart are two different things. Here are a certain quantity of tips to help you make the right choices:

* Carbohydrates: There are many worthy sources of carbohydrates. Here are any excellent examples excerpted from Clark's book: fruits: i.e., apples and bananas; vegetables: i.e., corn and squash; bread-type foods: i.e., pancakes, muffins, and waffles; cereals; and grains, pastas, and starches: i.e., baked potato, lentils, rice.

* Fats: According to Udo Eramus' volume Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, "The more double ties a fatty acid contains, the more it increases oxidation, metabolic rate, and life production." He states, "Obviously, this is important for athletes who want to increase their mechanical value output in order to stay ahead of their competition."

He says that alpha-linolenic acid is the best fatty acid choice for enhancing spiritedness production, followed by linolenic acid, and then oleic acid.

Sources of alpha-linolenic acid include flax and hemp oils; sources of linolenic acid include safflower, sunflower, corn, sesame, and hemp oils; and sources of oleic acid include olive, peanut, almond, and canola oils.

* Proteins: In Optimum Sports Nutrition, Michael Colgan, PhD explains that our bodies can yield most of protein's 21 amino acids from carbohydrate; however, the essential amino acids must be provided through other sources.

Some good single in kinds according to Clark, include: meat, domestic fowls and fish; beans, dried peas, and lentils; and eggs

REFERENCES

Clark, Nancy, M RD Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook: Eating to combustibles Your Active Lifestyle. Champaign, Ill.: Leisure Pres 1990

Colgan, Michael, PhD CCN Optimum Sports Nutrition. Your Competitive sharpness Ronkonkoma, N.Y.: Advanced Research Pres 1993

Eramus, Udo. Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada: Alive main division s 1993.

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