Nutrient Loading for Athletes

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Nutrient Loading for Athletes

For most athletes and female competitive body builders, who participate in endurance sports, they require a good source of energy that will keep them going for a long time without being depleted. It is upon this reason that most athletes look for viable nutrition programs that can help them endure these demanding times (Coleman, 2010).

Because people recognize the need for efficient use of nutrients for maximum output, most athletes have been utilizing carbohydrates to supply them with the much needed energy. This means they have been practicing carbohydrate loading. Loading in this case is used to refer to the increasing of the stores of a particular nutrient so that it can be used during a much demanding period in an individual’s life like participating in an exercise. Some of the most commonly used forms of loading include carbohydrate and fat loading. In carbohydrate loading, an individual or athlete is subjected to consumption of carbohydrate dense meal just before the exercise and also during the course of the exercise. This is believed to improve the performance of the female body builder in the exercise before them by supplying them with the needed energy throughout the exercise. For fat loading, the subject is given a high fat diet some days before the exercise, to build fat stores that can be used during intense exercise and ensure the person can endure long exercises (Coleman, 2010).

The athlete is thus is able to do fat loading. The main reason why fat loading is beneficial is on the basis of endurance. The rationale behind the athletes not using the ready and most known source of energy, carbohydrates, is that the carbohydrates when used as a source of energy in activity leads to early burnout and thus reduced performance. Carbohydrates are a good source of energy when one is involved in short and less involving exercises but when it comes to long enduring exercises, the energy supplied by carbohydrates becomes limited. This is especially the case because of the inability of the athlete to consume the carbohydrate rich foods and inefficiency of the body to store energy. It is believed that carbohydrate source of energy is depleted very fast during intense and long exercise and thus there is need to come up with a source of energy that can be released gradually and for long time. It is upon this realization that the concept of fat loading was adopted. The first advantage of fat loading is that it is good at slowing down the use of carbohydrate stores and ensures the carbohydrates are saved(Carey, Staudacher &Cummings, 2011).

Fat as a source of energy real comes in handy during intense exercise. For the female body builder involved in intense exercise, they develop an adaptation that helps them to increase theircapacity of oxidizing fats. For short events the fats are not used a lot for energy provision but when the endurance increases the fats are the main source of energy. Another reason why fat loading is important for a female body builder is that they have muscles that have improved capability owing to the increased number of mitochondria, to utilize fat efficiently. This is not the case for the muscles of people who are not involved in exercise daily. Because the fat source of energy allows slow release of energy, it is effective for an athlete as they will exercise for a longer period before the individual gets exhausted(Coleman, 2010).

References

Carey, A., Staudacher, H. M. &Cummings, N.K. (2011). Effects of fat adaptation

and carbohydrate restoration on prolonged endurance exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology.Pp.115-122.

Coleman, E. (2010). Fat loading for endurance sports.

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