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Nutrition
At the heart of performance is nutrition, a crucial component to reaching the top.
A suitable diet constitutes the foundation of sporting performance:
it provides not only the fuel necessary for muscular and cerebral work, but also the essential elements for the synthesis and repair of muscles and joint tissues.
Food plan
A balanced diet plan for elite athletes should be designed to meet the specific nutritional needs of the athlete, taking into account training intensity, type of sport practiced and individual goals.
Balanced diet
Energy needs of athletes
The main element to optimizing training and performance through nutrition is to consume enough calories to meet your entire energy expenditure. This allows you to be in energy balance, or in energy balance.
Energy needs are not the same from one sport to another, and vary depending on weight, gender, volume and intensity of training:
Occasional athletes (30 to 45 minutes of sport, 3 to 5 times per week) can meet their needs by following a classic balanced diet (25 to 35 kcal/kg/day).
High-level athletes, with repeated intense or long training sessions (1h30 to 5 hours of sport per day), need many more calories (40 to 70 cal/kg/d).
Adolescent athletes need around 3000 calories per day for boys, and 2500 calories per day for girls.
The quantity of carbohydrates varies depending on the sport practiced and its intensity (3 to 12 g/kg/day of carbohydrates).
Protein needs also depend on the sport practiced (bodybuilding or endurance), and the number of training sessions (1.2 to 2 g/kg/day).
Therefore, it is often recommended to eat 4 to 5 meals per day when doing intensive sport, i.e. 3 main meals, and 1 to 2 snacks. This provides energy regularly throughout the day, facilitates good digestion, and distributes protein intake optimally.