Question

Pick a sport and "position" if necessary. Detail the carbohydrate needed for this athlete before, during, or after practices and competition. Pick a hypothetical weight in kilograms for your athlete (e.g. 80 kg) in order to appropriately calculate recommendations.

1. What is the daily grams of carbohydrate that you will recommend for your athlete? Justify your answer with reasoning.

2. What is the timing of the athletes' last big carbohydrate meal before practice/training sessions? What is the timing of final carbohydrate before competition? Consider the time of day that the training or competition will be held. Is it practical to take in carbohydrate at the time that you detail?

Answer 1

1.Let's consider a sprint runner .

He will need high amounts of carbohydrate for the practice .Carbohydrates gets converted into glucose and thus provides short bursts of energy for a small amount of time . Which is ideal for a sprint runner .

Normally an athlete requires 8-10 g of carbohydrates per day .

So if we consider an athlete of weight 80 kgs , the amount of carbohydrate required will be 640 - 1000 g of carbohydrates .

2. Providing an athelete a high carbohydrate diet before an event is called carbohydrate loading .

In long standing events , it should be started one week before the event .This is because the person will have enough sugar stored to keep up with the endurance .

In events that doesn't require that much amount of energy carbohydrate loading should be started 3-4 days before the event.

We should note that in both the cases the carbohydrate should be 8-10 g per kg of body weight.

Yes it is practical to take such amount of carbohydrates, because most of it is used when the athlete practices or performs in the main event .