No matter what your level of physical fitness or activity, you need to feed your body properly. For those that are physically active whether through sports or workout routines, it's even more important to understand sports nutrition basics as increased levels of physical activity mean that you're burning more calories and are depleting more levels of important elements in your body as well. You don't need to be a nutritionist or dietician to understand this; just a few sports nutrition basics are all that's needed to keep yourself healthy while working out and when active.
One of the most important aspects of sports nutrition basics has to do with the amount of water and hydration you get when you're active. Most people are dehydrated no matter how active or inactive they are, because today we rely on sugary sodas and coffee for our beverages rather than water. Both sugar and caffeine are a mild diuretic causing the body to lose fluid, so we're actually doing damage rather than hydrating ourselves.
People often forget about water when they think about sports nutrition basics but without adequate hydration the muscles become starved and stiff and ligaments also suffer, all of which are serious problems when trying to exercise or be active. We also need quite a bit of water for the brain, eyes, skin, and everything else in our system, but when we're active that means we're just leeching this hydration from our system. There's probably nothing else as important to sports nutrition basics as the amount of water you drink.
You can loose up to two percent of your body weight due to sweating. With this loss of fluids the blood becomes thicker causing the heart to work harder. The lack of oxygen being delivered to the body can cause cramps, dizziness and fatigue. In extreme cases the decreased delivery of blood can even cause heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
Carbs and protein are also important parts of sports nutrition basics. The low- Carbohydrates diet craze has helped many people to lose weight but it's also typically left them tired and listless. The body needs Carbohydrates for energy, especially when you're more physically active.
Carbohydrates are the main energy source used in moderate to high intensity exercise routines. Fats are used during low intensity exercise routines that last for long periods of time. You also need adequate amounts of protein to feed your muscles; it does no good to lift weights to make your muscles grow if you don't feed them so they can do just that.
But of course it does no good to get your protein from fatty red meats if you're exercising to lose weight. Most sports nutrition basics include using lean protein such as chicken, turkey and fish as your protein sources with red meat being consumed only on occasion if at all. Your Carbohydrates should also be complex Carbohydrates, meaning whole grains, rather than simple Carbohydrates such as white flour products which just break down into sugar in the body and provide little energy.
So you see that sports nutrition basics are very simple and typically very easy to understand. There's nothing complicated about eating lean protein, complex carbs, and getting plenty of water. Of course you want to have a balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables and very few sugars as well; if you keep these sports nutrition basics and simple instructions in mind, you're sure to be in the best shape and as healthy as you can be.
Nancy Clark Sports Nutrition
Sports nutrition plays a central role in any exercise regimen. Even if you're born with natural physical prowess, this won't sustain you in your workouts. A diet with enough nutrition will not only help you during exercise but will stimulate the feeling well-being, inspiring you to continue with your regimen.
1. During workout, your body undergoes a tremendous activity unmatched by any man-made machine. It is during this exercise that your manifest the genius of its design. But it comes with a great price. Your body uses all of the strength it can use, depleting in the process the energy reserves in your body. This is the reason why you need optimum sports nutrition.
2. The harder you exercise, the faster the reserve energy depletion is. It follows that during this heavy physical activity, you will be exhausted tremendously. Worst, you wouldn't have enough reserve energy to sustain you during the exercise. If you are using optimum sports nutrition, your body will sustain itself, and will help to stabilize the sugar level in your body to help it recover faster after the exercise.
3. Hours after a workout, it is natural to feel a lingering fatigue, particularly if you are not taking optimum sports nutrition. This not only slows your muscles' recovery but also will affect you psychologically. When this happens, your entire body is affected, whose care is the very reason why you're into sports in the first place.
4. Optimum sports nutrition was designed and formulated specifically to suit your need before and during the workout. Optimum sports nutrition, aside from giving you sustenance during the workout, will also give you "extra" nutrients left for you to work with as the body heals itself.
But why engage in heavy workout and optimum sports nutrition in the first place? Because your body will "learn" from this activities, boosting your immune system in the process. Optimum sports nutrition also means optimal capacity for your body to heal itself faster, bringing your body into next level higher each time.
5. Optimum sports nutrition contains complex and simple carbohydrates blended into maximum amount to give an exhaustible nutrients source. This perfect blend carbs will help your body utilize energy without depleting your reserve energy necessary for recovery. Many commercial sports nutrition uses calories for their formula using simple carbohydrates that easily results in unstable flow of blood sugar in your body.
If the sugar content in your blood is at the optimal level, oxygen consumption assured, helping your body to sustain during intense exercise. Oxygen consumption also helps in preserving the tissues, which need doubled amount of oxygen during your regimen
Optimum sports nutrition after exercise
6. Optimal recovery is just as important as optimum energy during exercise. Your fast and efficient recovery will help your body to heal faster and prepare itself fort he next schedule. This is where optimum sports nutrition comes in after your exercise.
7. After the heavy regimen, your body will automatically use all available energy it can utilize. A nutritional supplement high in quality protein is important to give your body the raw materials for muscle growth and repair.
8. Remember the early Greek athletes? They usually consume large quantities of meat after every contest in sports. They already knew by then, that something in the meat helps the body to recover after the unbelievably hard exercise. This importance of the protein is not lost to our modern day bodybuilders. It is not lost to them that protein goes a long way in maintaining health during and after intense exercise.
This is also the right time to do away with what some sports "experts" today proposes that high protein content in your sports nutrition will harm you. If protein did not harm the early Greeks, so are you.
9. Last is the quality. Optimum sports nutrition gives you the highest in quality standards, against commercially available nutrition sports. This is your last safeguard against consuming substandard sports nutrition products, which will put your training in jeopardy. This will also help you to realize that quality is more important than taste. Don't look for ice-cream tasting sports nutrients because taste is a matter of practice, just like your exercise regimen.
Both David Cowley & Jody Siena are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
David Cowley has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fitness, Aging Supplement and Heart Conditions. David Cowley has created numerous articles on Home Exercise Equipment. He has also created a Web Site dedicated to Home Exercise Equipment. Visit
