Many factors determine how your training is going to go. Some foods can sabotage the many hours you spend training at the pool and the gym. This article is going to run through which foods you should avoid while training.
1- Spicy and fatty foods
Stay away from anything that causes stomach discomfort from gastrointestinal issues like bloating, cramps, and indigestion. This means foods that are heavy in spices that your body isn’t used to and fatty, fried foods. Of course, a little fat in your diet is good, but aim to get those from nuts, avocados, and fatty fish instead of from a piece of pepperoni pizza.
2 – High fiber foods
These take a little longer to digest, so it’s best not to eat them right before jumping in the pool. Eating them too soon before training, and you’ll end up with indigestion and nausea. Although high fiber foods help prevent heart disease and diabetes, it’s best to save these foods like wheat pasta, beans, and broccoli for a meal after you’ve finished working out and have enough time to digest.
3 – Sugary foods
Besides the typical culprits of donuts and candy, there’s lots of foods that are high in sugar without you even knowing it. Take a look at labels before popping a breakfast goodie in your mouth, since you might end up crashing from that sugar in the middle of practice.. Sports drinks, fruit juices, and other food snacks typically have more simple sugar than an athlete needs, so be careful on what you’re eating and drinking.
4 – Cereals and Granola bars
These sound healthy, right? But these popular snacks sometimes pack more sugar than a candy bar. Infact a recent study showed that Children’s cereal contained an average of 40 percent more sugar per “serving” than adult cereals and eating a bowl of kids’ cereal every day would add up to eating 10 pounds of sugar a year. Always make sure you read the label and try to keep the sugar content as low as possible.
5 – Caffeine
Caffeine made this list mainly due to students getting into hot water with the NCAA. For those of you who are unaware, for NCAA student-athletes, urinary caffeine levels exceeding 15 mcg/mL could result in a banned substances test.2
We also do not recommend it to those in school mainly because, apart from the lack of studies on kids, it could get you into the wrong training habits once you get in college.
However for anyone out of college take a look at it. There have been studies to show it helps with Aerobic exercise as well as Power Output3 . Please however take into that it is hard to come up with any conclusive statements about caffeine outside of non-applied biochemistry simply because of it’s immense social usage as well as creeping biases.
Keep this handy checklist with you while you’re doing your shopping so you know what foods to avoid. And of course, be careful what you munch on in between trainings!
About P2Life
P2Life is family owned, performance-based, nutritional supplement company that was designed for swimmers, by swimmers, to protect health and promote performance. P2Life takes great care in ensuring that every batch of their performance line is tested to be free of banned and illegal substances. Even though P2Life products were the preferred choice for over 40% of the USA Men’s Olympic Swim team during the London Olympics, it is not just for Olympians. It is also the preferred choice for the top high school, collegiate and masters swimmers across the globe.
P2Life was founded by Tim Shead, a Masters Swimming Hall of Fame Inductee and 42x World Record Holder, and co-founded by Michael Shead, who was a national water polo player. Tim’s expertise in swimming and years of experience and knowledge working with nutritional products, combined with Michael’s love of innovation and technical background, has enabled the P2Life team to create a technologically savvy company that is dedicated to furthering athletic potential. P2Life has a strong e-commerce platform, which allows them to spend less time and funds on retail stores, and dedicate more time to the swimming community.
A Proven Track Record:
- Over 40% of the USA Men’s Olympic Swim Team were taking P2Life products during the London Olympics. The athletes brought back 12 medals, seven of which were gold.
- P2Life Masters Swimmers have over 700 World Records to their name.
- Michael Andrew, age group phenomenon, has been taking P2Life products since 2012. He now has over 75 NAG’s to his name.
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Sources
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1 – Children’s Cereals: Sugar by the Pound: ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP [http://static.ewg.org/reports/2014/cereals/pdf/2014-EWG-Cereals-Report.pdf?_ga=1.175415778.1762627612.1446161165] : [May, 2014]
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2 – 2013-14 NCAA banned drugs l. Indianapolis, IN: National Collegiate Athletic Association; 2013. http://www.ncaa.org/health-and-safety/policy/2014-15-ncaa-banned-drugs.
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3 – Tarnopolsky M, Cupido C Caffeine potentiates low frequency skeletal muscle force in habitual and nonhabitual caffeine consumers . J Appl Physiol. (2000)
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4 – Glaister M, et al Caffeine supplementation and multiple sprint running performance . Med Sci Sports Exerc. (2008)
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5 – http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-eat-heavy-training-day
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6 – http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition/factsheets/competition_and_training/eating_before_exercise
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7 – (http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/this-is-your-brain-on-sugar-ucla-233992)
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8 – http://www.livestrong.com/article/79971-foods-athletes-should-avoid/
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9 – http://swimswam.com/7-biggest-mistakes-swimmers-make-before-a-championship-meet/
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10 – http://www.ncaa.org/health-and-safety/policy/2014-15-ncaa-banned-drugs
Swim Training provided by P2 Life, a SwimSwam ad partner.
how often are you aloud to have unhealthy or sugary food
I’ve recently seen a bunch of articles saying how caffeine (in moderation of course) is good for training. I feel like anything could be harmful if you overdue it.
There are a bunch of studies which are showing this. However you need to look at who funds those studies.
There are a bunch which show the positives of taking caffeine as well as a bunch which show the harm. You hit it on the head though, everythign in moderation.
Caffeine shouldn’t be on the list. In order to fail a drug test for those level, you’d basically have to powerchug a pot of coffee and then be tested within the hour. Ever actually see anyone fail a drug test due to caffeine? Never.
I agree, assuming there are a 100 mg caffeine in a cup of coffee, you’d approximately register 1.5 mcg/mL. so you’d have to consume 10 cups of coffee for your body to register about a 15mcg/mL reading. Caffeine may be in hot water, but it shouldn’t be a huge concern. (pun intended)
Hi,
This was put on the list mainly to just inform those in highschool about the potential downside of caffeine re the NCAA. Here was my concern. With the research I did, I found out that if about 500-700 mg or more of caffeine is ingested within a few hours of the drug test in a average-sized, healthy man, he could get into hot water. If you are not aware, 1x five hour energy has roughly 200mg of caffeine, a tall starbucks brewed cofffee has around 260mg. So 2-4 of these within a couple hours could have some negative effects.
Are most swimmers going to consume those amounts? I doubt it. But there will be a few who do… Read more »
This is a good article. Being health is more about what you avoid rather than what you eat. A lot of people get caught up into thinking that “super foods” will make them really healthy. The soil that most of the food comes from is totally depleted of minerals. Plants don’t need minerals to grow. Supplementation is absolutely necessary because that myth that we get everything we need from a balanced diet is total nonsense. It still blows my mind why people pretend like supplementation of vitamins and minerals is bad.
I disagree with avoiding fatty foods. You give pizza as an example which I agree isn’t healthy but fat itself isn’t bad. You should avoid all oil, gluten,… Read more »
What is a good before workout breakfast? I’ve tried everything it seems but I can’t find anything that’s healthy enoughor benefit me, won’t get my stomach upset and will fill me up enough. Any suggestions?