Sports L3, Nutrition assignment 2

Proteins

Carbs

Fats

Alot of athletes ignore the fact that it is improtant to consume healthy fats, fats come from foods such as: Fish, almond, olives, avocados and etc. Fat is the 2nd energy source for the body, it is usually burned when performing long workouts, so this is one of the main reasons why martial arts athletes should consume fats, because in their training programmes they have to go for long runs in the morning or at night, so consuming fats can be very benefitial for them to stay energised during long steady workouts

Fat Loss

Fat loss

In order to an athlete to lose fat, they have to go through a tough routine, athletes first of all need to count their calorie intake, after finding out how much calories they take, athletes need to gradually decrease their calorie intake, this is necessary because if athletes suddendly decrease a huge amount of calories, there would be a great chance that they wouldn't have enough energy levels to keep training, this would also lead to muscle loss. Athletes would need to train more than their carbohydrate intake as well.

Lean weight gain

Athletes who want to increase lean muscle mass need to know how many carbohydrates, fats and proteins they consume, after this, athletes will have to increase their protein intake and keep fats and carbohydrates neutral, also athletes will need to perform more mass and strength training programmes (like for example weight lifting), reason why they need to keep the carb intake neutral is because they still need that energy but if they take too much this can lead to weight gaining with some fat. If athlete seems to not gain enough weight, then increasing the carbs slightly more can still be benefitial.

Lean weight gain

Maintaining weight

How to maintain weight

In order for an athlete to maintain their weight (or even an average person), they need to compensate the same amount of calories they take with their training, they can't train more than they eat and they can't eat more than they train, carbohydrates, proteins and fats need to be just enough for them.

Negative

Negative energy balance is when an individual spends more energy (performs more activities that burn calories) than consuming enough calories, in other words, it is when someone eats less than their energy expendure, this leads to weight loss, so if you are someone looking to lose weight you would have to eat less than you exercise

Positive energy

This is the total opposite rule of the negative energy balance, this is when a individual consumes more calories than they can burn. This can lead to weight gaining, if you looking to gain weight then eating more than you exercise is the way.

Positive

kilokalories

In nutrition, there is many ways of measuring energy received from foods such as: kilocalories, kilojoules. However we usually use kilocalories to measure energy taken from foods, it is important to measure calories in order to know whether a athlete is consuming enough foods or if they are eating too much, this can allow them to get the right amount of energy for their training.

Kcal

Body fat percentage and its measurements

It is very important for trainers to measure body fat percentage on martial arts athletes, this helps keeping track of whether the athlete is staying lean and fit for the upcoming fight, not only that, this helps weight control, like for example if a fighter wishes to gain weight, then usually their goal is to gain lean muscle weight to keep their fitness levels high. There is ways to measure body fat percentage:

One of the ways for example would be skin calippers, this is a device that you use to pinch off the skin, then measure how much of the skin is out, if there is barely anything to grab then surely it means there is a low body fat percentage, however if a lot of the skin you pinched comes out and its quite thick, there may be too much fat. usually best places to pinch and make measurements are: your arms, back and belly.