3 ways Coaches can enhance student athlete fuelling without adding costs and dealing with pushback.
Diane Johnson
Empowering youth athletes with simple and strategic nutrition & wellness support.
An easy 4 minute read.
“No one wants to be lectured about eating their vegetables.”
“There’s too much that we can’t control with nutrition, so we just let them do their thing.”
“They feel like it’s just one more thing they have to worry about.”
These are just a few examples of how nutrition is often perceived by student athletes, their coaches and even sometimes, their parents.?
And it’s really a shame that it is perceived as being so boring, limiting, and restrictive.?
Because when it comes right down to it, we are products of the food we eat. As is our performance.?
Now I tend to look at nutrition in sport differently and if you follow any of what I talk about, you probably already know that.
PS - If you don’t regularly follow, you can do that easily at Diane Johnson.
In the sport world, families spend thousands of dollars each year doing all the things to ensure that their young athletes become highly skilled, strong and resilient performing machines. What few understand however, is that the fuel most student athletes consume on a regular basis, does anything but assist performance or long term health. It actually hurts both.
But no one is talking about this. And growing student athletes are suffering because of it.?
Don’t believe me? Just watch the headlines.?
Houston, we have a problem.?
But we can fix it. Like we did here.?
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“In two years, injury rates decreased by over 80%, the overall mental and emotional health of my athletes increased and their nutritional decisions made an impact on performance.”
If you want to know more about how we helped this University women’s volleyball team experience this shift, email me at [email protected]
Everyone talks about making changes slowly, which makes sense. We can’t change everything all at once and expect it to stick. BUT there are some things that we must change quickly when it comes to student athlete nutrition!?
And WHEN we do, student athletes will have a better overall and healthier experience in sport.
1) Start talking about food.?
It would be brilliant if every team, from grassroots youth sport up to the most elite post secondary programs had their own nutritionist. But this is not the case.?
For most programs, if there is any funding available, it's enough to bring a nutritionist in for one session. While the intention here is admirable, much of the valuable content in these presentations is lost in translation or forgotten once the athletes leave the room. It really isn’t the most effective strategy when you consider how deeply food and eating are woven into our everyday lives.?
On the flip side, Coaches see athletes daily.?
They KNOW them.?
They know their strengths and weaknesses and they COACH them.?
They may not be experts in nutrition, but Coaches can absolutely talk to athletes about nutrition. It doesn’t have to be complex, especially for young athletes. It just needs to be consistent and empowering.?
Like this.??
We help Coach’s talk to athletes about nutrition in a way that sparks athletes' curiosity and helps them enjoy the process.?
Check out our process here.
Or get our Coach's Easy Nutrition Playbook: Resources and lessons to improve athlete understanding and use of nutrition without increased costs and athlete pushback.?
Email me at diane@gutsathletenutrition to get your copy.?
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2) Understand the real impacts of fast and processed foods.
A large majority of student athletes simply do not understand the difference between whole and processed foods. They don’t understand what consuming processed foods every day is doing to their bodies and to their performance.???
Really, this is understandable. It’s super challenging to navigate the grocery store these days. The aisles are full of eye-catching, tasty and addictive processed and packaged foods that all claim to be ‘healthy.’ There’s also a continual barrage of ads and social media posts promoting this or that food product. It’s hard to know what is true and what is simply marketing.
Which is why we have to help them!
You can see how we are helping them here.
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The high energy demands of student athletes can leave many athletes and parents feeling like “I/They just need to eat something!” The result is then grabbing any and all easy, processed food options they can find in order to achieve this goal.?
What we have to help athletes and parents understand is that while these processed and fast foods are easy and provide calories and some macronutrients,?they provide little else (while promoting inflammation). The hundreds of vitamins, minerals and enzymes that are required by the body in order for it to function optimally are missing.?
Without these key nutrients, malnutrition and dis-ease follow.?
Student athletes who are ailing…
Dealing with pesky symptoms, acne, digestive upset, migraines, lacking energy, suffering from mental and emotional disturbances…
and whose performance is suffering...
MUST look at food quality.?
If you want to hear more about how nutrition completely transformed my body and helped me to heal from a disease that all my doctors told me, “had nothing to do with my diet”, message me.
3) Help them Unravel Judgement
If there is one thing that causes stress and halts progress it is judgment.?
Student athletes are GREAT at judging themselves.???
They see something that they did or did not do as lacking or wrong and it means something about them as a person...that they are lacking or wrong in some way too.?
These critical and judgmental thoughts?initiate the stress response which shuts down critical body functions like digestion, immunity, reproduction and growth while the body and mind focus on survival.?
Now this is another aspect of nutrition that a coach or parent might look at and think, “I’m not trained in that.”
Fair.?
There are however, some pretty clear indicators of judgment that the average person can pick up on and simple messaging around how to reinforce a more compassionate and growth focussed mindset.
This is definitely something we could all practice. If you want to talk about this, email me at diane@gutsathletenutrition and I will help you.
Coaches can address this in training when they speak with athletes every day!!!
Because if an athlete is judging their performance on court, they are probably also judging their body, their grades, their habits, their relationships and more.
Helping them unravel judgment in one aspect of their life WILL 100% ripple into other areas of their life too.?
Listen for -?
And help them reframe these to:
Language is a powerful indicator of thoughts. When Coaches help athletes notice how they are speaking to themselves and then give them tools to reframe that language, this can help athletes shift their mindset and be more compassionate towards themselves. This will help them in all areas of their life, not just when it comes to eating.?
Big changes are needed when it comes to nutrition in sport. We have to start doing things differently.?
Our student athletes need to understand how to nourish themselves with food.?
So...
If you can find a way to get a nutritionist in to your program, do it.??
Bring them in multiple times to speak with athletes, coaches and parents.?
And in cases where that isn't possible...
Empower Coaches!!!
Because they see and speak with the athletes daily...
And we can give them the resources and tools they require to have positive, supportive, empowering conversations with athletes about food and nourishment.?
This could literally change the game!!
Whenever you are ready, there are a few other ways I can help you.
Until next week.
Diane