Stress Management and Relaxation Techniques

Archive for November, 2009

Due to the increasing interest in sports nutrition and a growing number of athletes and health buffs becoming more conscious of the nutrition they take in to power their performance, a lot of books have already been released to disseminate more information and further heighten people’s awareness.  This is, in fact, very beneficial as awareness is most of the time the springboard of concrete actions. 

One of these books on sports nutrition is that of Nancy Clark entitled, Sports Nutrition Guidebook.  This book is a collection of solutions suggested by different sports nutritionists. 

Nancy Clark, a renowned sports nutritionist herself, shows how one can identify well what to eat to get more energy, cope well with stress, control weight, improve overall health, and improve the quality of workouts in the midst of a stressful lifestyle. 

She also gives suggestions on how to lose excess body fat in the body while maintaining the energy for further exercise.  She also provides several tips on maximizing the benefits of what one person eats.  This book is rich with practical tips on sports nutrition that are easy to follow and apply in day to day living. 

Moreover, Susan Kleiner’s book on sports nutrition entitled, High-Performance Nutrition: The Total Eating Plan to Maximum Your Workout, presents what one needs to eat in line with a workout plan to achieve optimum results. 

She advocates the importance of a good partnership between diet and exercise in performing excellently in sports.  She shows how one can bring out the best in any type of workout or exercise, be it aerobics, strength training, endurance training, cross training, and other recreational sports. 

Another sports nutrition book is Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes written by Monique Ryan.  The author’s two-decade experience in counselling athletes about their nutritional needs and intake brought about this book. 

She explains both the general principles which are applicable to endurance athletes of any sport and specific guidelines which are for those engaged in more specific sports like swimming, triathlons, cycling, mountain biking, distance running, and many others. 

She likewise covers the basics of nutrition as well as how to train and make that training persist.  Overall, this sports nutrition book is a detailed, updated, but practical guide to nutrition.

Still adding up to the list of sports nutrition books is the one entitled Eating for Endurance. 

The author is a registered dietician who specializes in sports nutrition as well as an elite endurance athlete.  Strategies on improving one’s diet, maintaining a healthy and ideal weight, successfully handling extreme environments, using sports nutrition supplements, and many other helpful information on sports nutrition are included in the book. 

This is indeed a very credible book as the author speaks from first-hand experience.

One must indeed take the initiative to equip himself with the necessary knowledge and information if he really wants to do well in this aspect.  Besides, putting an effort on sports nutrition will benefit no one else but himself. 

These books are there not to give false promises or misleading information.  Instead, their purpose is to show that achieving goals and targets had already happened in the past and is therefore totally feasible in the present if only one will commit to it.  

There are still many other sports nutrition books out in the market that aim to help in information dissemination and proper education of people.  Sports nutrition is indeed something that is not supposed to be taken for granted.

Mere exercise is not enough as it has to be coupled with the right and balanced diet as well as the right attitude towards one’s health in general.

Believe it or not, sports nutrition and exercise have been part of man’s life and his culture since the earliest time. Of course, sports during this time was known as athletics. Earliest forms of athletics, however, were part of man’s basic need for survival, either to gather food or protect his family from physical harm.

To a simple cave man who knows nothing about martial arts, a sturdy bone from his last dinner may serve as a weapon against wild animals. This bone remnant, coupled with some sharpened stone chips from his cave, is used for hunting. Eventually, his regular hunting activities had developed into some form of physical acts, without so much need to hunt.

Athletics was thus born. Athletics eventually developed into a contest of strength, speed, and other skills. Sports would later developed out of this, with the simple contest developing into a more complicated form of physical activity, and with it the need for sustenance, completing the equation of sports nutrition and exercise.

But even during the earliest time, athletics or sports was never a monopoly of the male sex. In the Heraen Games for instance, women raced in honor of the goddess Hera. The Egyptians had their acrobatic gymnastics for their temple related activities. And, of course, the sports dance had evolved from religious related dance performed in every major temple in antiquity.

To the early Greeks however, belongs the honor of elevating the sports into an art form.  The Olympic Games is the strongest argument for this. Also, the Greeks, apparently knows that sports nutrition and exercise are two important factors in any physical exercise. Even during this time, the Greeks had special set of  foods for their athletes.

Nutrition patterns of the early Greeks

In the Mediterranean world, Greeks particularly, goats is the most common source of meat, and occasionally, beef from sacrificed cattle. Just like in the modern day, milk was also considered as a must for a good meal, especially for the athletes. Sports nutrition and exercise among the early Greeks meant also the inclusion of other source of protein, fish for instance, which the seas of Mediterranean is known for in the ancient times. Poultry was also part of the early Greeks’ diet.

Vegetables and carbohydrates were also considered as important element of sports nutrition and exercise among the ancient people. Even among the soldiers of the Roman Empire, a balance diet is important to maintain their strength, both in the battlefield and during exercise.

Alexander the Great was known to have discovered the nutritional value of onions that from Egypt, he brought some specimens and had these planted and later cultivated in other parts of his empire. The Romans, just like the Greeks, used cabbage not only as food, but also as antidote for their drunken soldiers. Beets, turnips, artichokes, and radishes also form the long list of edible vegetables cultivated and used during this period.

The ancient athlete’s diet

Just like today’s coaches, trainers during the ancient times occupied an exalted place among their people, and also among the athletes themselves. They not only provide exercise regimen for their athletes but also directly involve in the preparation of foods for their charges. Sports nutrition and exercise apparently, is a concept not lost to the early coaches and athletes.

From the foods that consisted the regular diet of the ancient athletes, such as cheese, figs, and meal cakes, the attempt of the ancient trainers to developed special meal for their athletes were apparent.

Though meat was not consumed in large quantities by the athletes during originally, it was observed later that athletes who are given regular dosage of meat for protein source, had more long lasting strength. It was in the fifth century BC, when meat became a craze among the ancient athletes.

During this time, Slymphalos, an Olympic champion in the in the long-distance race, introduced the meat diet to help athletes in their exercises. It was the earliest attempt of a professional athlete to come up with a systematized sports nutrition and exercise. Milo of Croton, won five Olympic awards from 536 to 520 B.C., was reputed to have consumed 9 kilogram of meat during his training period.