Sports Nutrition starts with Healthy Nutrition

Sports Nutrition for MMA
Disclaimer – never follow my advice, the consequences may be fatal

Sports Nutrition in a nutshell:

1. Drink a sports drink during training, this is especially important during longer training sessions of 1 hour or longer
Your immune system starts to wane and all sorts of crazy stress hormones start seeping out from a whole host of glands, when you train intensely for over an hour. You need a sports drink to help prevent overtraining.
I’d recommend making your own – branded ones are usually quite acidic and full of artificial colours etc.

You can make you own with:
– Half a scoop of maltodextrin – (get pure maltodextrin from gonutrition.com, or theproteinworks.com or bulkpowders.co.uk)
– a pinch of salt
– A small amount of glutamine (or BCAA). Again don’t get ripped off with branded stuff. Get from bulkpowders.co.uk or somewhere similar. Add about 5g to your drink
– Whack everything in your protein shaker with 600ml of water, and Bob’s your proverbial uncle

2. Supplements
– Consider (research yourself to make an opinion, check out examine.com for example) taking:
– Creatine
– Beta Alanine
– Taurine (before grappling, stops forearms pumping up like a brother)
– Alpha Lipoic Acid
– BCAA – Not 100% sure this is necessary, but may increase protein synthesis. Could possibly be bollocks though.
– Glutamine – supports immune function, also touted as being good for your gut
– whey protein – post workout, also consider taking in the morning and a small amount pre-workout

– Your insulin levels are highest post-workout, so get some carbs (like maltodextrin) and protein down your pipe. Creatine is a good shout too.

That’s about it, I’ve missed out all the theory

Healthy Nutrition
Could talk for hours about this.
Well, I couldn’t, but a hollistic nutritionist who knows all the theory could.
If you’re diet in general is rubbish, then you will not have energy to train, your body will be much more prone to inflammation, your mind will be ‘foggy’ and you’re recovery will be poor.
I’m only just starting to scratch the surface on this stuff, here’s some useful stuff I’ve learnt so far:

Omega 3/Omega 6 Ratio
Our diets are full of Omega 6 fats, and highly processed, heated fats, that just aren’t good for us. All the Omega 6 causes inflammation, which is the enemy for recovery (and general health).

Easiest way to adjust this balance is to supplement with fish oil. But you’ll literally need about 10g a day from regular fish oil. Krill oil is more expensive, but more more effective.
It’s all about the DHA and EPA the oil contains. Whatever that might be – edit – fish oil is just as good as krill oil, appears I was duped by the marketing hype. Krill oil apparently has more antioxidants etc, but EPA is what really prevents inflammation, and it is not superior in it’s EPA content

Probiotics aren’t sh!t
Well the stuff that comes out of those tiny pots in the fridge might be, but we should still proactively look to get probiotics in our diet.

Back in the day, we had dairy from one cow, it was raw, untreated etc. and full of goodness.
Nowadays the milk (and most other products) come from about 1,000 cows, mass milked, full of drugs to make them produce more milk and anti-bioitcs to stop them getting infections, the milk has to be heated to 97 degrees so it doesn’t kill us…what you end up with, is a product that is on a different level (a lower one) to what our great, great grandparents and their mates drank.
If the balance of bacteria in our gut isn’t right, we’ll feel slugish and generally less awesome.
Look to get some of these in your diet:
Raw Honey
Miso Soup (recommended)
Kefir
Dark Chocolate
sauerkraut
Kombucha Tea (might be a bit on the yeasty side for some people)
Pickles
Olives

– There are some half decent probiotic tablets knocking about, but they are very expensive

Use nuts for calories, not simple Carbs
Sugary/simple carbs are bad generally. They’re fine during and straight after training, but generally speaking the Mass Gainers etc. about are full of crap carbs that’ll make you feel rubbish.

Consider getting a good portion of your calories from nuts and seeds instead

Consider cutting out Milk, possibly gluten too
Clinical nutritionists may frown, even breakdown in arrogance when you suggest cutting out a whole food group. But it was literally life-changing for me.

I constantly had a blocked nose, bad sinus headache, and IBS but cutting out dairy and cutting down on gluten made everything loads better.
If you suffer with digestive problems, headaches, bloating etc. it’s worth looking into.

Don’t go over the top with acidic foods
Apparently, cancer cells and a load of other nasty things can thrive in an acidic environment. It also makes a mess of your teeth.

Get plenty of Kale, Cucumber, Avacado, Broccoli, Peppers, Celery, Spinach etc and don’t drink rubbish like coke

Get these in your diet as often as possible
Garlic
Tumeric
Ginger
Green tea
And consider wheatgrass and cooking with coconut oil.

All these foods are generally really good for you and should help you feel all around awesome/epic/ace…which in turn can only help to enhance your sporting performance.