NEWS & EVENTS
  I hope you and your families had a great weekend. Last week's post followed up on a nutrition talk I gave a group of high school athletes. Because almost every athlete wants to succeed, and most claim they'll do whatever it takes to do so, I thought it would be helpful for those athletes to get an idea of EXACTLY what "doing whatever it takes" means. Last week's post highlighted those points. If you missed it, check it out at the link below: I wanted to continue with the nutrition topic by discussing a somewhat simple concept that has profound implications on our everyday health, performance and recovery. My nutrition talk from a couple weeks back started by describing the relationship between glucose, insulin, and other markers of fuel and performance. Without going into excessive detail, the generally ideas can be summarized as:
I’ll come back to this latter point, but this relationship between glucose, insulin, and fat burning is one of the major reasons I’m such a big proponent of Generation UCAN’s SuperStarch products. Simply, unlike most sports drinks, UCAN’s SuperStarch has a less drastic and more prolonged delivery of carbohydrates (think time-release), which significantly diminishes the insulin response AND allows the body to use fat as a fuel source to a greater degree. This means athletes will avoid the spike-and-crash effect of excess sugar consumption that is typical from the sports drinks they consume most frequently.
Check out this data from the University of Oklahoma comparing UCAN to maltodextrin (a carbohydrate source found in most sports drinks).
Note the drastically higher spike in insulin for the maltodextrin drink both pre- and post-training compared to UCAN’s SuperStarch
Note the increased availability of fat for SuperStarch, both pre- and post-training, compared to maltodextrin Teaching the body to use fat as a fuel source is extremely important, as fat stores are so plentiful that they can basically be thought of as an unlimited source of energy for athletic purposes. Carbohydrates are broken down and used for fuel quicker than fat, meaning it’s a more effective source of energy for high intensity activities (such as during a hockey shift). While we rely on a combination of fuel sources (ATP, PCr, Glycogen/Carbohydrates, Triglycerides/Fat, etc), given that ATP, PCr, and Glycogen best fuel high intensity/short-duration efforts and are in limited supply within the body, it’s reasonable to take steps to conserve these sources for when they’re absolutely necessary. Many players will describe “hitting a wall” or “not having any legs”, which can be related to excessive depletion of carbohydrate stores. The players I’ve worked with that complain of these “symptoms” feel incredible when they switch over to using UCAN before/during games. Consuming a drink (or meal) high in sugar will ensure that the body relies more heavily on carbohydrates for energy on a short-term scale; consuming excessive carbohydrates in the diet will do the same over a long-term scale. The more we can keep our body OUT of high-intensity mode, or, in other words, limit excessive stressors on the body (think sympathetic nervous system activity), the faster we’ll recover and the longer we can sustain high-level performance. I’m not suggesting that players shouldn’t work hard, only that there are strategies players can take to ensure that they get into high-intensity mode (sympathetic state) when they need to be, and then out of it when they don’t (parasympathetic state). In a couple days, I’ll follow up on this post with how this idea influences training programs. In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about Generation UCAN’s products, check out these posts, which I wrote about a year ago: If, after reading through those posts and some of the material on their site, you decide you want to pick some up for yourself, you can save 10% by purchasing through this site that we set up for our Endeavor clients: Generation UCAN To your success,
Kevin Neeld, MS, CSCS, USAW
P.S. Please forward this to your friends, family, and teammates that you think will benefit from the information. If they're interested, they can sign up for our weekly newsletter here: Endeavor Sports Performance Newsletter
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It's a great thing when an athlete recognizes the performance and injury prevention benefits of training and decides to put in the time at the gym to make progress. Unfortunately, as with all unguided ventures, it is rare that these athletes are able to self-prepare a high quality training program. Because training requires balancing specific stresses with purposeful recovery methods, it's important that certain guidelines are followed. Last week's post discussed three common training mistakes I see self-training athletes make. If you missed it, you can check it out at the link below!
Sports Nutrition Tips As with self-guided training, self-guided nutrition is rarely ideal. The scientist in me would like to say that athletes (and their parents and coaches!) need to pay less attention to what they "like", and be more in tune with the physiological function of the macro- and micro-nutrients and chemicals/preservatives that various foods contain. Of course, as someone that loves chocolate and all things pizza, that would make me a raging hypocrite. If you dedicated your life to working with nutrition coaches and studying under nutrition experts, you'd find that there are some common recommendations about the theory/purpose behind their recommendations (at least the ones that actually know what they're talking about), but notable differences in their approach to implementing the information. In truth, the overwhelming majority of people KNOW ways to improve their diet (eat vegetables and lean meats, eat more often and less at each meal, etc.), but they don't do it. The largest challenge in modern nutrition is not scientific barriers to understanding; it lies in psychological warfare. How is it that we can convince people that what they know they should be doing is, in fact, worth doing? This is an incredibly complex problem; one that I will not pretend to have the solution to. However, I feel strongly that a good first step is in making higher quality nutritional habits easy to implement. With ease of implementation comes improved compliance. That is the motivation for today's newsletter. What are three incredibly EASY things that athletes can do to significantly improve the quality of their diet. 1. Drink a smoothie for breakfast Most of the athletes I talk to either don't eat breakfast or they eat cereal. While something is always better than nothing, cereal is pretty low quality. A bowl of cereal provides very few calories, almost no protein or quality fats, and the carbohydrates are all simple. Don't let the "multi-grain" INSERT CEREAL NAME HERE versions fool you. My #1 nutrition rule is to eat REAL food, things that can be grown or hunted (or at least things that are a minimal number of steps away from their grown or hunted forms). To keep things simple, cereal provides insufficient calories, insufficient protein and fat, and insufficient vitamins and minerals. In contrast, a well-constructed breakfast smoothie can fill all of those voids, take a comparable amount of time to make, and still taste good. Check out the smoothie recipes at the link below if you don't already have them! And "I don't have time" is not an acceptable excuse here. They take less than 5 minutes to make. Wake up 5 minutes early to make them in the morning and drink it out of a portable cup on the bus or way to school. Make it the night before and grab it out of the refridgerator on your way to school. Focus on solutions, not problems. Ask "how" instead of "if"? 2. Drink a post-training/practice/game recovery shake Most athletes have heard of "post-workout" nutrition. The general idea is that your body is primed to make good use of nutrients immediately after you finish exercising (which includes training, practices, and games). This window of opportunity diminishes as the time following training prolongs. In other words, the athletes should have something WITH THEM to take in immediately after they finish. Doing this will help replenish depleted energy stores, help stimulate rebuilding of muscle, and improve their overall recovery so that they can get back after it the next day. Given the practice and training demands of athlete's today, facilitating a rapid recovery is extremely important. As you can imagine, this is especially important during tournaments, where athletes are expected to perform at a high level multiple times within the same 24-hour period. While it's possible to make recommendations more specific to the activity, the best choice here is generally something that has carbohydrates, protein, and electrolytes. The higher the intensity of the activity, the greater the needs for carbohydrates afterward. One thing I've noticed at our facility is that a lot of the kids will come in with two Gatorades. Each one of these has no less than 20 g of sugar. I don't mean to bad-mouth Gatorade, but this is really an excessive amount of sugar and carbohydrates for the activity, especially in consideration of the rest of their diet, which is inevitably overly simple-carbohydrate dense. I highly recommend Generation UCAN's "SuperStarch" and their SuperStarch+Protein combo drink, which they market as being "pre" and "post" training options. It's a healthier option than the other sports drinks (go here for a quick look at how they stack up: http://www.generationucan.com/ 3. Drink a "Greens" supplement daily Let's be honest, there aren't many athletes that are taking in the 10+ servings of fruits and vegetables that they need everyday. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that over 95% of the athletes in the U.S. don't take in half of this on more than 2 days per week. The argument over whether supplements of this nature are necessary or whether we can get sufficient nutrients from food is a moot point; no one eats the right foods in sufficient quantities anyway! Greens+ (Berry Flavor) (You can get a great deal on these on Amazon: Greens+ Berry Blast) and Biotest's Superfood (http://tmuscle.com) are two great choices here. These aren't the best tasting supplements, but they aren't meant to be milkshakes. Mix them in with 3-4oz of water and take it down quickly. It's not so bad, and the health benefits are well worth the 1.5s of daily discomfort. Wrap Up In my mind, the best way to make CONSISTENT improvement's in an athlete's diet is to focus on ease of implementation and on ADDING things, not REMOVING them. In other words, if I said don't eat cereal or don't drink Gatorade and didn't provide an alternative solution, it's unlikely the advice would be followed. The three tips above aren't difficult to implement, but will have a profound impact on an athlete's performance and overall well-being. Give them a shot for yourself! To your success,
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This is the easiest way to improve mental and physical performance in young athletes... The Experiment A couple months back we added a short 5-question pre-training questionnaire to the bottom of our athletes' training programs. The questionnaire asks the athletes to rank things like muscle soreness, sleep quality the night before, and the quality of their pre-workout meal. With this information, we're able to track and explain both outstanding and uncharacteristically disappointing training sessions and the associated factors. For example, one of the exercises we use as a main marker of lower body strength is the reverse lunge. In many cases, we've had young high school females work up to doing sets of 6 on each leg with 40 lb dumbbells and high school males working up to using 70 lb dumbbells for the same reps, within the first few months of training. Typically, once someone reaches a threshold like that, there's no turning back. In other words, while it may have been a difficult journey to reach that level of strength, the athlete quickly adapts both physically and mentally. However, from time to time an athlete will come in and just lay an egg. Movement patterns crumble, they look slow and unexplosive, all their weights go down, and they generally appear unmotivated. Having monitored both the performances and questionnaire repsonses of our athletes over the last couple months, one thing jumped out at me more than anything: Pre-workout meals were terrible. As I've written before, pre-workout meals (like all meals) need to pass the real food test. If it can't be grown or hunted, it's not real food. This means that snacks and "food products" (this includes hot pockets and lean cuisines!) are out. It's important to note that not eating ANYTHING is just as bad, if not worse than eating a bad meal as it fails to provide the body with the fuel it needs to perform optimally (e.g. work hard!) during the training session.  Not real food. Improving Youth Athlete Nutrition The realization that most of our athletes were clueless about what they should be eating and taking in before, during, and after their training sessions led me to sit down with fellow Endeavor Coach David Lasnier and put together a Training Nutrition Guidelines sheet for our athletes, which is available for free at our front desk. This realization also stimulated conversations with our athletes about what they eat the rest of the day, which didn't appear to be much better. In general, the only meal that consists of any quality nutrients seems to be dinner. This is understandable, as the other meals throughout the day are usually rushed and require focused planning ahead of time. I don't buy the "I don't have time" excuse I hear so often. The truth is that we all have 24 hour days. What we do with those hours is a result of how we prioritize things. With that said, I'm a bit more sympathetic to young athletes who have the overwhelming majority of their day pre-planned for them without any personal input. While I still think it's worth spending a few minutes to pack a decent lunch for school the next day (e.g. Tuna sandwich on sprouted grain bread with lettuce, a small bag of cashews or almonds, an apple, and a bag of carrots. Total prep time: 5 minutes), I recognize that breakfast needs to fit in a small time window as most athletes tend to maximize their sleeping time. Breakfast of Champions In talking to parents about how to get their kids away from the habit of eating cereal for breakfast every morning, which tends to be lacking in both quality nutrients and sufficient calories to provide any sustainable source of energy, I come back time and again to the same recommendation: Make a smoothie.  High powered breakfast for high powered athletes! A smoothie is the ultimate compromise. Parents want their kids to eat quality nutrients. Kids want something that taste good. Neither want to spend an extraordinary amount of time preparing anything. Smoothies can easily be jammed with a diverse mixed of quality ingredients, can be adjusted based on the taste preferences of the athlete, and never take longer than 3 minutes to make. Try one of these smoothie recipes from world-reknowned sports nutritionist Brian St. Pierre for breakfast this week. You'll be surprised at how good it is and how much energy you have leading up until your next quality meal. Vanilla & Berries Smoothie -8 oz unsweetened vanilla almond milk -1 scoop vanilla protein -1/2 cup wild frozen blueberries -1/2 cup frozen raspberries -1 tbsp chia seeds -2 tbsp chopped walnuts Nutrition Information: 350 calories, 25.5 g protein, 16g fat, 29.5 g carbs, 12.5 g fiber Chocolate Peanut Butter & Banana Smoothie (My favorite) -8 oz unsweetened chocolate almond milk -1 scoop chocolate protein -1 banana -1 tbsp milled flax seeds -1 tbsp cacao nibs -1 tbsp natural peanut butter -ice cubes Nutrition Information: 435 calories, 29 g protein, 18 g fat, 42.5 g carbs, 10 g fiber Nutrition is an integral part of both athletic and mental performance (e.g. school!). Neglecting proper nutrition is like running a mile on one leg. You can do it, but you'll work twice as hard to get an inferior result, and you'll likely get hurt in the process. Add the smoothies above to your athletes' breakfast routines, and help move their nturition in the right direction - toward higher performance. To your success,
Kevin Neeld, MS, CSCS
P.S. Please forward this to your friends, family, and teammates that you think will benefit from the information. If they're interested, they can sign up for our weekly newsletter here: Endeavor Sports Performance Newsletter
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The importance of adequate nutrition in sports performance cannot be denied. In fact, nutrition is largely responsible for:
This is truly just the tip of the iceberg. On a less obvious level, nutrition drives every function in your body, from maintaining the integrity of your cells, to allowing for proper blood flow and oxygen delivery, to improving eyesight.
Nutrition information is readily available. Indeed, it’s quite difficult to anywhere, watch TV, or listen to the radio without being bombarded by some sort of nutrition-related message. Unfortunately, finding QUALITY nutrition information is a different story. There are more commonly believed myths about nutrition than any other aspect of athletic development. Last week I listened to an audio interview with my mentor Michael Boyle, where he referenced a nutrition axiom:
“Eat food. Mostly plants and animals. Not too much.”
Nutrition, at the most surface level, is really THAT simple. Think about all the food you eat. How much of it is actually food? In other words, how much of it is NOT a “food product”, or something that has been manufactured by mankind? My friend Brian St. Pierre refers to “food” as things that can be grown or hunted.
Gatorade? Not food. The typical school lunch of chicken nuggets and tater tots. Not food. All chips, pretzels, dunkaroos and other enticing snacks. Not food. 
Nuts aside, there is NO real food here.
Looked at this way, it’s amazing how much of the typical American diet is lacking in real food. This is true of both athletes and non-athletes. The next time you’re about to prepare a meal, ask yourself how much of what you’re about to make is real food, and how you can increase the proportion of real food in the meal. Another interesting thing regarding your diet is that the overwhelming majority of the calories you take in are used simply to sustain the vital functions within your body. In other words, if you take in 2,000 calories in a day, that doesn’t mean you need to burn 2,000 calories during a workout or through playing sports to maintain your current body composition. In physically active people, calories are burned in the following proportions:
This means that 70% of your daily energy expenditure comes from things that are just a normal process of everyday life (eating, maintaining vital functions). Of course, these factors are specific to the individual. One pretty reliable equation to determine your Resting Metabolic Rate (similar to the basal metabolic rate, but encompasses food intake and minor movements) is the Mifflin Equation:
Men: Resting Metabolic Rate (Calories/Day) =
10 x (weight in kg) + 6.25 x (height in cm) – 5 x (age in years) + 5
Women: Resting Metabolic Rate (Calories/Day) =
10 x (weight in kg) + 6.25 x (height in cm) – 5 x (age in years) -161
Using this equation will give you an estimate of the amount of calories you burn everyday without accounting for physical activity. In other words, this will give you an estimate of the “70%” from above. Low Calorie Diets for Fat Loss? With few exceptions (football linemen, sumo wrestlers, etc.), maintaining relatively low levels of body fat is essential for athletes in all sports. The most commonly held belief in this regard is that the best way to lose fat is to eat less. This may be a decent start for those that eat excessively (not as many as you’d think), but weight loss/gain isn’t as simple as calories in vs calories out. In The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, authors John Berardi, PhD, and Ryan Andrew, MS, MA, RD present a case study whereby a female cross-country skier was looking to drop body fat. She was currently 5’6”, 165 lbs and 23% body fat. She was initially counseled (by someone else) to eat a high carbohydrate, low calorie diet, which caused her to lose both fat and muscle, dropping to a mere 160 lbs and 22% body fat. Discouraged, she then consulted with Dr. Berardi’s team, and made the following changes:
Nutrition Coaching is the perfect compliment to a well-designed athletic development training program. At Endeavor, we're actively developing a Nutrition Coaching Service, so that our athletes have the information, guidance, and support they need to be successful in every aspect of performance. I should have more information for you on this in the next couple weeks.
To your continued success,
Kevin Neeld, MS, CSCS
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A great post on quinoa from my friend Brian St. Pierre: Quinoa is considered by many to be the greatest grain on earth. Though botanically it is a seed, it is much more similar to a grain, and so is placed into that category along with better known wheat and rice. Pronounced keenwa, it was known as “chisiya mama”, or the mother of grains by the Incas, who greatly treasured this tremendous food. There are legends of Incan armies marching for days eating nothing but “war balls”, quinoa packed with fat. One of the greatest aspects of quinoa is the fact that it is rarest of all creatures, a grain or seed that contains all of the essential amino acids, making it a complete high-quality protein. Most grains and plant foods in general lack an amino acid called lysine, which quinoa is naturally high in. High-quality protein is especially important for hard-training athletes for recovery and growth. Quinoa is also incredibly nutrient dense. It is high in fiber, with roughly 5 grams per serving, and it boasts a very low glycemic index score, meaning it has a minimal impact on blood sugar levels. Compared to other grains like wheat and corn (yes corn is really more grain than vegetable) it is higher in many minerals including calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and iron, of which it is a good source. It is also a good source of zinc, copper and folate along with several B vitamins. Another benefit of quinoa is that though it is used much the same as rice, it cooks in about the same time as pasta, taking roughly 12-15 minutes. It is a versatile and easily prepared food that can be used in a variety of recipes. Since quinoa is technically a leafy seed, and not a grassy grain, it does not contain any of the allergens common to wheat, rye, barley, oats or corn. It is gluten free and so can be enjoyed by those with gluten sensitivies (such as celiac’s disease). Quinoa is an amazing little food that is incredibly nutritionally dense, is a complete protein, is hypo-allergenic, is high in fiber and has minimal impact on blood sugar. Nothing more could be asked of a grain. Quinoa & Coconut Chicken Ingredients
Directions Whip eggs together in a large bowl. Mix quinoa flakes and shredded coconut into a separate large bowl. Dip each piece of chicken into the eggs, then take the lightly egg-covered chicken and press into the bowl of quinoa and coconut, thoroughly covering each piece. Bake chicken in a large pyrex dish at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, or until done. Serves 4.
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