In the last week I have been at two very good presentations about nutrition for athletes which addressed fuelling /refuelling and suitable body mass for cyclists. There were a few very interesting points and this is a good time of year for riders to begin addressing nutrition which is a very important part of sports preparation..


SOME POINTS FROM THE PRESENTATIONS.

- The importance of your basic healthy diet for all round health
- The importance and benefits of fuelling properly before training or races
- The importance and benefits of carbohydrate intake during long and or intensive training sessions
- Benefits of carbohydrate intake immediately after exercise for refuelling muscles.
- The importance of understanding how much calories each individual needs for training or racing and the importance of eating enough calories to fuel you're training and racing.
- Percentage body fats that cyclist's achieve
- The negative effects of losing too much weight too quickly
- The negative effects of not getting enough calories to fuel your training/races

Its quite clear from the presentations that you can get great performance benefits and consistently good performances from following the best nutrition practises. It's also clear that you can create a lot of problems and destroy your ability to perform well by following poor nutritional practises.



SO HOW TO GET BEST NUTRITION ADVICE

The gold standard: Have an assessment from an Accredited Sports Nutritionist. This is not so expensive and the benefits to your health and performance will more than repay whatever it costs. You could also invite sports Nutritionists to give a presentation to your club


WHERE TO FIND AN ACCREDITED NUTRITIONIST

To source a Sports nutritionist in your area contact The Irish Nutrition & Dietetic Institute (INDI) is the national organisation for clinical nutritionists/dieticians in Ireland.

Check out the coaching Ireland / lucozade sport initiative and factsheets

Buy a good sports Nutrition book and refer to it when you need to address various issues.

Get basic advice from a coach

Be very careful taking advice from people who are not qualified to give nutritional advice.