Guide to Football Nutrition and Sports Supplements

Footballers need to pay special attention to their diet and nutrition. This is as important as the effort that they put into technique, skills, speed and endurance. Remember, none of these attributes can be put to use unless you have the right levels of nutrients to fuel for your body… and this comes directly from your diet and the sports supplements you take.

Vitamins and minerals for football

One of the first things that you need to review is the vitamins and minerals that you consume. Football is a very intense sport and you will no doubt lose minerals, and salts via perspiration during training or in competition. This means you need to replace them. As such, vitamins and minerals play a major role in the life of footballers, in the recovery process and in staying healthy throughout the football season.

Make sure your diet includes adequate amounts of vitamin D and calcium. These two nutrients work together to prevent you losing bone mass and to keep your bones strong. Other sources of vitamin D and calcium include drinking plenty of milk and getting some natural sunlight. Sunlight is involved in the body’s production of vitamin D.

Joint and cartilage health

Remember that the stresses and strains that you place on your skeletal structure can be very high when playing football. There are many movements in football that overload the joints and bone structure. For this reason, you should also consider taking a supplement containing Glucosamine and Chondroitin, which will improve the health of joints and cartilage.

Complex carbohydrates for footballers

Footballers should consider introducing lots of complex carbohydrates into their daily diet. Complex carbs provide protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals (which are not high in fat or sugars). They also pack a big punch for the amount of calories they contain. You will find that you feel fuller on fewer calories with complex carbs.

Eat sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes if you want to shed a few calories off your diet. Not only do sweet potatoes taste great, they also have less calories than white potatoes and the energy you get from them is much better for football (as it is released slowly). They are also higher in Vitamins A, fibre and Vitamin C.

Football nutrition and protein

Focusing on good football nutrition can have real benefits on performance improvement both in training and during competitive matches. Protein should be a key constituent of your nutritional plan as a footballer. You need to ensure that you consume enough protein each day. If you can eat skinless chicken, turkey or lean beef then do so. You can also consider taking a protein supplement in order to consume enough during the day. A good tip is to find a good quality supplement that contains whey protein isolate and drink it with milk or water.

If you train hard then you need to recover quickly and effectively, and protein is a key nutrient that your body breaks down to aid its recovery. You will feel much better, stronger and more energetic if you start to consume the correct levels of protein each day.

As you can see, proper nutrition for football is something that all players can easily put into practice. There are only a few fundamentals to a really good diet and sports supplement programme. If you use the tips given here, you will improve your footballing performances and your general quality of life.

Wikipedia: Football

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