Periodised Sports Nutrition by NooMinds

What is Periodised Sports Nutrition?

Periodised sports nutrition is a sophisticated approach to fueling your body that goes beyond general dietary guidelines. Instead of a one-size-fits-all plan, it's a dynamic strategy where your nutritional intake is meticulously adjusted to align with the varying demands of your training and competition cycles.

Think of it like this: your training isn't static; it has phases of high intensity, lower volume, recovery, and competition. Periodised nutrition ensures your fuel matches those changing demands. It leverages principles like progressive overload, specificity, variation, recovery, and individualization to optimize adaptations and performance.

It differs significantly from general sports nutrition because it actively manipulates macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, fat) and their timing to achieve specific physiological outcomes at precise times, rather than just meeting daily needs consistently.

The Science Behind It: Why It Works

Periodised nutrition isn't just about eating right; it's about eating smart to influence your body's adaptations. Key strategies include:

• "Training Low" (Carbohydrate Availability): This involves strategically performing some training sessions with low carbohydrate availability. The goal is to stimulate specific metabolic adaptations, such as enhancing fat oxidation, which can benefit endurance.

• "Training High" (Carbohydrate Availability): Conversely, this means ensuring high carbohydrate availability, especially before and during high-intensity or high-volume sessions, and rapid replenishment afterward. This is crucial for maximizing performance, delaying fatigue, and ensuring quality training.

• "Training the Gut": This strategy focuses on improving your gut's ability to tolerate and absorb fluids and carbohydrates during prolonged exercise, preventing gastrointestinal distress, and optimizing nutrient delivery during events.

These strategies allow nutrition to act as a powerful signaling mechanism, influencing how your body adapts to the stress of training.

The Benefits of Periodised Sports Nutrition

Implementing a well-designed periodised nutrition plan offers a multitude of advantages for athletes:

• Optimized Physiological Adaptations:

  • Muscle Strength and Hypertrophy: Strategic protein (e.g., 1.6-2.2 g/kg/day during growth phases) and energy intake directly support muscle growth and strength gains.

  • Enhanced Fueling and Glycogen Management: Ensures ample carbohydrates are available for high-intensity efforts, optimizing muscle glycogen stores.

  • Optimal Body Composition: Allows for targeted fat loss or lean mass gain depending on the training phase and athlete's goals (e.g., an elite swimmer strategically reduced fat mass while increasing lean mass).

  • Prevents Overtraining and Injury: Adequate and timely nutrient intake supports recovery and repair, reducing the risk of overtraining syndrome and associated injuries.

• Enhanced Athletic Performance:

  • Targeted Fueling: By matching nutrient intake to specific training demands, athletes can perform better in each session.

  • Improved Recovery: Strategic intake of carbohydrates and protein post-exercise (e.g., 0.6-1.0 g/kg carbohydrates and 20-40g protein) accelerates muscle repair and glycogen replenishment.

  • Better Gut Health: "Training the gut" improves tolerance to race-day nutrition, minimizing gastrointestinal issues during competition.

• Overall Health and Longevity:

  • Prevents Nutrient Deficiencies: A dynamic plan helps avoid chronic imbalances and deficiencies that can arise from rigid or insufficient diets during demanding training.

  • Supports Immune Function: Crucial nutrients bolster the immune system, particularly important during intense training blocks that can suppress immunity.

  • Fosters Sustainable Habits: Encourages a flexible and responsive approach to eating, promoting long-term healthy habits.

  • Individualized Care: Addresses unique metabolic, physiological, and lifestyle needs, mitigating risks like Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), especially critical for female athletes.

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How to Include It in Your Daily Routine

Incorporating periodised nutrition involves understanding your training cycles and making daily adjustments:

1. Understand Training Cycles:

   • Macrocycle (Year/Season): Defines your overarching nutritional goals (e.g., off-season for building muscle, competitive season for peak performance).

   • Mesocycle (Weeks/Months): Breaks the macrocycle into specific training blocks (e.g., hypertrophy, strength, endurance, taper). Your nutrition adapts to the specific demands of each block.

   • Microcycle (Days/Weeks): This is where daily and weekly adjustments happen, based on the intensity, duration, and type of individual workouts.

2. Adjust Macronutrients Strategically:

   • Carbohydrates (3-12 g/kg body weight/day): This is the most flexible macronutrient. You'll consume higher amounts on high-intensity or long-duration training days to fuel performance and replenish glycogen. On lower intensity or recovery days, carbohydrate intake will be reduced. For a 70kg athlete, this could mean 560-700g of carbohydrates on a high day versus 210-350g on a recovery day.

   • Protein (1.2-2.5 g/kg body weight/day): Remains consistently high across most phases to support muscle repair, growth, and immune function, though it might be at the higher end during hypertrophy or energy deficit phases.

   • Fats (0.8-1.5 g/kg body weight/day): Typically remains moderate, providing essential fatty acids and supporting hormone health.

3. Implement Nutrient Timing:

   • Pre-Workout (1-4 hours before): Focus on easily digestible carbohydrates to top off glycogen stores, with some moderate protein.

   • Intra-Workout (during exercise >60 minutes): Consume carbohydrates (30-60g/hour or more for ultra-endurance) and fluids/electrolytes to maintain energy and hydration.

   • Post-Workout (within 30 minutes to 2 hours): Critical for recovery. Prioritize rapid carbohydrate intake to replenish glycogen and adequate protein (20-40g) for muscle repair and synthesis.

4. Meal Planning:

   • This is where the principles translate to action. On a high-intensity day, your meals might be rich in whole grains, fruits, starchy vegetables, and lean proteins, with frequent carbohydrate fueling. On a recovery day, portions of carbohydrates would be smaller, with a focus on nutrient-dense vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats.

   • Challenges: Adherence can be difficult due to individual preferences, busy schedules, and the complexity of calculating needs. There's also a risk of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) if energy intake is too low for prolonged periods, especially in female athletes. Professional guidance from a qualified sports dietitian is highly recommended.

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How to Measure Results

Measuring the effectiveness of your periodised nutrition plan involves a multi-faceted approach, combining objective data with subjective feedback:

1. Performance Metrics:

   • Strength: Track your 1-Repetition Max (1RM) for key lifts, or performance in bodyweight exercises like push-ups.

   • Power: Monitor vertical jump height, broad jump distance, or medicine ball throw velocity.

   • Endurance: Assess VO2max, lactate threshold, timed trials (e.g., 5k run time), or repeated sprint tests.

   • Training Load: Monitor how you respond to training using tools like Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) or GPS data.

2. Body Composition:

   • Regularly assess changes in body weight, fat mass, and lean mass using methods like skinfold measurements or, for more precision, DXA scans. The goal isn't always weight loss, but optimizing body composition for your sport (e.g., an elite swimmer might aim for specific body fat percentages to maximize power-to-weight ratio).

3. Subjective Feedback:

   • Wellness Questionnaires: Use validated tools like the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ-Sport) to track your overall well-being.

   • Daily Monitoring: Pay attention to and log your fatigue levels, sleep quality (e.g., Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale), muscle soreness, mood, and perceived recovery. These subjective feelings are crucial indicators of nutritional adequacy and recovery.

4. Biochemical Markers:

   • Regular blood tests can provide insights into your nutritional status and physiological stress. Examples include:

     • Iron Status: Monitoring ferritin levels (optimal for athletes typically >35 µg/L) to prevent iron deficiency.

     • Vitamin D and B12: Essential for overall health and performance.

     • Hormone Health: For concerns like RED-S, monitoring hormones like estradiol, testosterone, and thyroid (T3) can be vital.

     • Muscle Damage Markers: Enzymes like Creatine Kinase (CK) and Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) can indicate muscle breakdown and recovery status.

   • It's important to interpret these markers with the guidance of a medical professional or sports dietitian.

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By integrating these strategies and consistently monitoring your progress, you can harness the full power of periodised sports nutrition to achieve your athletic goals and maintain long-term health.

For further details on achieving your periodisation nutrition goals contact me directly for a free 15 minute consultation.

Craig Elliott

Certified Advanced Sports Nutritionist

07736 477531

www.noominds.com