Why is it important for an athlete to eat right? What should be included in the athlete's daily diet. Types of sports supplements, their features, purpose and function. Sports nutrition is quite popular today. It includes various substances and concentrates produced according to a specific technology for people who prefer to practice strength sports. Sports nutrition is taken with one desire - to increase strength and performance, as well as build muscle muscle mass.
What types of sports nutrition are there?
During training, athletes will need a huge amount of energy, which ordinary food is not able to replenish. To thrive and thrive, athletes need calories and nutrients that the body uses as building blocks to build muscle.
Most aspiring athletes look at these ingredients with caution, thinking that nutritional supplements are the same pharmacological drugs used by professionals. However, this is not the case.
What is nutrition for athletes? Supplements for athletes are composed of natural ingredients. The only difference from ordinary food is their concentration, due to which they are more quickly and fully absorbed, without having to expend energy on their digestion.
There are several types of sports nutrition that are vital to all athletes, especially beginners:
- Gainer;
- Creatine;
- Protein complexes;
- BCAA.
Let's consider each of these types in more detail.
What does a gainer consist of?
A gainer is a complex of protein-carbohydrate components that help to build mass and compensate for energy costs. Carbohydrates in the composition of the product, as a rule, occupy from 50 to 70%, and high-quality protein from 15 to 50%. Sometimes the composition of the gainer includes a small amount of vitamins, creatine, and other components.
What is Gainer for? The use of a gainer helps athletes, even beginners, to dramatically improve their strength indicators and achieve an increase in body weight. This is due to the high-calorie composition of the product and the presence of building protein in it. Therefore, it is recommended to use a gainer during training or immediately after it.
The gainer supports muscle regeneration by replenishing the body with easily digestible protein, thereby creating an energy reserve for more intense workouts.
Those who start taking a gainer for the first time should note that this supplement is only suitable for athletes with a lean physique. Athletes who are prone to obesity, it is better to refuse to use this product, because all carbohydrates will be collected in the form of excess fat accumulations. In this case, it is better to take protein complexes and consume slow carbohydrates.
How does creatine affect the athlete's body?
Creatine is one of the healthiest supplements used to build lean muscle mass. What is creatine and what is its role? The thing is that creatine monohydrate, entering the body, under the influence of metabolic processes is converted into creatine phosphate. It, in turn, is needed by the body to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which supplies energy to muscle tissue so that they can contract more.
Based on this chain, it follows that creatine is an irreplaceable nitrogen-containing acid that takes part in the energy processes of both muscle and nerve cells. Creatine helps release more energy in a short amount of time for maximum performance. The effect of the use of creatine is also called "explosive energy".
Thus, taking creatine, the athlete feels the strength in himself, gives all the best in training with full dedication. Uses "explosive energy" and thus achieves tremendous results in a short period of time.
The role of protein in the athlete's body
Another important substance for an athlete is protein complexes. What is Protein? Proteins are amino acids linked by a chain. For a better understanding, it should be clarified that protein is the same protein.
Protein is the main building block for building muscle, so it must always be in sufficient quantities in the body of an athlete who wants to build muscle tissue in order to further obtain the desired results such as an increase in strength, speed, or simply an increase in the size of skeletal muscle (hypertrophy).
In fact, protein is a versatile supplement that works for both weight gain and weight loss. It all depends on how you take it. In the first case, add it to high-calorie foods, but if your goal is to reduce fat, you need to use protein supplements instead of regular meals. With such a diet, you do not get carbohydrates and fats, thereby creating conditions for burning fat.
For people who are just starting out in weightlifting, it will be beneficial to take whey protein compounds (casein) - this is the highest concentration of protein made from whey. These proteins have a high absorption rate in the gastrointestinal tract. Due to this, a huge concentration of independent amino acids is created in the blood, and, accordingly, in muscle tissue. Thus, increasing productivity and duration of training.
BCAA amino acid complex
Amino acids are the constituent parts of proteins, so they, like protein, are necessary for weight gain. However, what exactly is BCAA? The BCAA complex consists of the three most important amino acids:
- Leucine;
- Valine;
- Isoleucine.
The importance of this supplement lies in the fact that these amino acids are not synthesized by the human body. These three amino acids complement each other, so they are combined into a single complex.
The use of BCAAs will help:
- Increase the muscles (conditions are created for the appearance of new cells);
- Replenish energy reserves;
- Increase glutamine levels;
- Burn excess fat;
- Protect your muscles from destruction.
Scientists have proven that about 35% of the muscle group consists of the BCAA complex of amino acids. This is a fairly large figure, since 25% of the energy is released from these amino acids during exercise.
Nobody argues that in sports, in order to achieve results, you can do without additives. However, it will take much more time. Try to choose the right nutrition for yourself, and you will be surprised how your body will react to training, how it will transform more and more every time.
Video review of American and European sports supplements (proteins, gainers):
