Turn your kit-bag into a nutritional power house and give your football performance a promotion
It doesn't matter if you play 5-a-side, Sunday league or are a semi-pro or professional footballer, fuelling your body with the right nutrition can take your game to another level. Go hard for the full ninety, score more goals and sustain your power in the tackle.
Fuel-up to play
Football is an extremely high intensity game - we've all been there praying for the full-time whistle, sapped of energy and ready to drop. Players can easily cover 8km per game - comprised of sprints, jumps and sustained high intensity runs.
Because football is a high intensity game, energy production is reliant on the metabolism of carbohydrates stored in your muscles (muscle glycogen). Unfortunately, glycogen storage is limited (around six seconds of max-power sprinting can drain muscle glycogen by 10-20%).
By half-time your muscle energy is already significantly reduced, and by full time glycogen can be 80-90% depleted – reducing speed, stamina and power. Footballers also typically lose around four litres of fluid and essential sodium during a game, causing a performance decline of around 5%, including a loss of focus and slower reaction times.
Fortunately, with a sensible nutrition plan and proven sports fuel like Maxifuel - you can fight back and transform the intensity of your game. Follow a similar strategy to a Premier League team like Fulham FC and England Footballer Jermaine Jenas:
Maintain football energy and hydration:
- Eat regularly and eat a serving of complex carbohydrates with every meal (such as oatmeal, pasta, rice, fruit or wholemeal bread).
- Eat a carbohydrate and protein rich meal two-three hours before a match or training (for example, chicken and tomato pasta).
- Drink 250ml of Viper Active or Viper Boost sports drink/bar/gel twenty minutes before a match, supplying high-energy carbohydrates, fluid and electrolytes.
- Drink 250ml of Viper Active sports drink/bar/gel at half-time. Viper-active even includes branched chain amino acids to aid concentration and help combat the muscle damage sustained by footballers.
Football recovery – or off for a pint?
Professional footballers used to hit the bar after a match, but today's pro's now opt for recovery nutrition and alcohol is strictly off-limits. After training and games, your body isn't the high-octane machine it was before the action started. It's low on muscle fuel, your muscles are weak and damaged, and you're low in important nutrients like glycogen, protein, creatine, vitamins and minerals.
Sports scientists have proven that fast-acting whey protein and carbohydrate immediately after games and training helps players replenish energy, strength and power much more quickly. Recover like a Premier League pro:
- Drink a high quality recovery drink like Recovermax within thirty minutes of the final whistle
- Eat a whole-food meal containing lean protein and complex carbohydrates about ninety minutes later.
Even if you do socialise after a game – kick-start your recovery first and you'll feel the difference next time you play.
Boosting football energy like a pro
Consuming a high-quality energy drink/gel and a recovery shake will rapidly boost your football performance. However, if you want to go another step further, then add creatine (Creatamax caps) to your kit-bag. Creatine is naturally found in foods like salmon and is stored in small amounts in muscles, where it's used to create explosive energy. It's research proven to aid repeated sprint performance, like those performed in football. As one of the world's most researched sports fuel nutrients, creatine is used by most Premier League Football Clubs.
Muscle mass for footballers?
Professional football clubs have become serious about strength training and making sure their players perform weight training to ensure they are muscular enough for the demands of the modern game. If you want to give your football physique added torque, perform two weight training sessions per week, and make sure you consume around 1.8g of protein, per kg of body mass, every day (Protrient shakes are ideal to boost your protein intake). For rapid growth, visit maximuscle.com and power your growth with Cyclone, the UK's best-selling all-in-one muscle growth shake.
The convenience of Maxifuel makes football nutrition easy – just throw the products in your kit bag and give your game a promotion.
