I have been training athletes since 1978 and have discussed good nutrition, hydration, and sleep with them as long as I can remember. I would like to see athletes and their parents informed on nutrition, hydration, and sleep to help improve health and sports performance.
Ask your athletes about their diet, hydration, training hours, sleep quality, etc. Spend 30 days improving on all of these factors. Thirty days later ask if their performance and energy levels have improved with improved nutrition, hydration, and sleep. (I bet it will.) Keep in mind that the parents must learn how to raise their child athlete so the parents should be involved. It takes an enormous amount of work to raise a child, and even more work and planning to raise a healthy and highly competitive athlete.
Ask your athletes about their diet, hydration, training hours, sleep quality, etc. Spend 30 days improving on all of these factors. Thirty days later ask if their performance and energy levels have improved with improved nutrition, hydration, and sleep. (I bet it will.) Keep in mind that the parents must learn how to raise their child athlete so the parents should be involved. It takes an enormous amount of work to raise a child, and even more work and planning to raise a healthy and highly competitive athlete.
My athletes and I discuss all of the factors that go into performance and health, but many athletes do not take nutrition, hydration, and sleep quality seriously enough to make the changes at home. They just do not see the direct relation of these factors with their performance and health.
Back to school is around the corner and many sports teams are about to begin their season. It is a great time to remind the athletes and their parents that nutrition, hydration, and sleep effect their ability to focus, progress, and perform. These factors effect the athlete's safety too. Without the ability to focus there is an increased risk of injury.
So please help me remind the athletes and parents throughout the USA that they MUST take care of their health. If they expect their body to perform more skills, drills, and other movements than the non-athlete, they must feed, hydrate, and rest it better than the non-athlete...
Karen Goeller, CSCS
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