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Munster Rugby nutritionist Emma Tester has provided five top tips for aspiring rugby players heading into another big weekend of European Rugby with Munster set to play Castres on Saturday evening.
Tester was a Performance Nutritionist for the England RFU U20’s programme for three years, Leeds Carnegie for four years and prior to that she was the Academy Nutritionist for Leicester City Football club for three seasons.
Here she highlights the importance of protein and carbohydrates, preparing food around a busy schedule and the value of supplements, but she insists that it all starts with a healthy, balanced diet.
1. Eating Healthy
The basics of healthy eating is going to do more for your performance than anything else. It's getting those foundations right. That has to be your primary starting point.
Everyone knows that coca-cola and burgers aren't good for you and we eat them because of our habits. Healthy eating is about healthy habits and everyone knows of the food pyramid. They're good principles but you should be asking how can you in your personal life adopt them?
Say fruit and vegetables for example. I'd be more focused on vegetables but if you're not big on vegetables then maybe you can blitz some into a pasta sauce. You don't have to sit and eat a bowl of broccoli, you've got the nutrients in a different way. They're habits that you can encourage yourself to eat around.
2. Preparation
My second point is that preparation is key. If you have a busy schedule then you have to prepare for that. Make sure you have quality meals or snack options. From a player point of view, nutrition should be apart of your kit.
3. Protein
Protein is essential for muscle growth and repair. You have got to aim to take regular hits of protein, ideally from food or a shake when that's not feasible. You should be aiming for about five or six 20 gram hits of protein per day. That's dependent on body size but the aim is for 20 gram protein hits throughout the day. There's no point in taking in a massive amount in one go. Your body can't process it. The regularity of the protein is key.
4. Carbohydrate
Carbohydrate is really vital for performance and is essentially your fuel. It's about making sure you get a good serving of carbohydrate about three hours before training or competition. Just to make sure you're fueled and ready to go. You need it to get the most out of those sessions. There's no point going in training for an hour or two without that fuel. You're not going to get the gains that you want.
5. Supplements
My last one is generally around supplements. People should question what they see and what they read. You have got to have a good evidence base around supplements and everything we get from Optimum Nutrition comes with a batch testing certificate to increase our confidence in the safety of products for our elite players.
From my point of view we have a real core number of products that we'd use from Optimum Nutrition such as Gold Standard 100% Whey. They really are just to complement what the players are doing nutritionally, they're not a replacement. It's in addition to and the lads would be good at recognising that factor.
With so many dietary fads and trends that go on, they might not all work for you as a rugby player or an aspiring player, and you should be asking do I need it? Is it the best option?
CJ Stander talks about how Munster's approach to nutrition has improved his game.
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