Thoughts.

I don’t follow Alwyn Cosgrove’s stuff with any regularity these days, but this post speaks to a simple concept that’s worth applying: strategy trumps will.

I’m not talking about a smart zone D shutting down a squad of fired-up athletes–I’m talking about your day-to-day life.

It’s great to SAY that you want to work hard this summer and get in shape for the club series/next year’s college season, and to some extent that desire can go a long way towards motivating your training; however, willpower is given to waxing and waning. We respect those singular athletes with seemingly endless willpower because they are so rare.

However, if you currently have the willpower to want to work hard, you should have the willpower to sit down and THINK and PLAN what you want to do. AC gives a nice diet-related example:

…I believe it is more important to build in good strategies. For example, if you eat ice cream every night, rather than trying to “be good” and resist it, simply remove it from the house. If you consistently visit the vending machine because you don’t have time to go to lunch, your strategy would be to pack your lunch the night before and bring it with you.

Recognize the limitations of your situation. Is the trip to the gym too far for you to always make it after class/work, when your energy is low? Get a training buddy who will pick you up (and remove your choice in the matter), or find/create a situation where it becomes more convenient (if you have access to multiple gyms, plan on going to one that’s on the way home, near the campus dining hall, etc). Consider going before work/class, when you (might) have more energy. Can’t stop from eating crap at home? Stop bringing crap home and cut it off at the source. Have trouble figuring out what to do while you’re in the gym? Start keeping a training diary, and pencil in your workouts in advance–or get a coach/trainer or somebody you trust and respect to do the planning for you.

Good strategizing means getting to the source of your issues and taking a good look at yourself–if you’re just going through the motions, take a look at why the motions go the way they do, give your body (and mindset) some different inputs, or place it in a different framework, and see if you can’t get better results.

I’ve harped on this plenty before, but to some extent this is all part of good goal setting and planning, especially when we’re talking about fitness.

Chime in with your own favorites in the comments, please!

Food items that I made sure I was stocked up on before I left for a tournament last year…

1. Gatorade Powder. Simply essential in my book. Mix with water at your desired concentration, get some electrolytes and some sugar during and between games. Stay hydratded, and stay cramp-free (probably). Great for sharing with your teammates too. Keep in mind that you probably don’t want this too concentrated…when I ran cross-country and track, at least, too much sugar meant sloshing in the gut and stomach cramps. I’ve also heard that the “sweet spot” for sports drinks is less like gatorade and more like the propel water–but sweet sells, which is why you had the former long before the latter.
2. Power Gel. I gave it a test run this year and found it VERY useful for quick in-game pick-me-ups. Maybe not necessary if you’re a role player every couple points, but if you see lots of action over a weekend, especially if you play defense and/or cut, this is a great way to replenish the tank. By regionals/nationals time I was having one at halftime of every game, with perhaps a bit spread out between points of the second half/late-day games when I needed a bit more energy. It also comes in a caffeinated version, if that’s your schtick–my personal feelings on caffeine as well as the tendency for any caffeine-related surge to eventually be followed by a crash led me to avoid it for tournament purposes (but maybe for single games, or at the end of the day…?).
3. Powerbar/Gatorade Bar/Cliff Bar. Your basic energy bar. This should have some protein in it! Eat it between games when you have some time to actually digest it–in the middle of a game you want the fast-acting stuff, because adrenaline and the need for your body to perform means basic digestion gets slowed (if not shut down) during play. You might want a few extra in case breakfast options are unsatisfying for whatever reason, whether that be rushing to the fields or your distaste for McDonald’s. Remember to start your day off with protein.
4. Gummy bears/something else sweet and sugary and share-able. Great for the end of the day. Nutrition-wise, your primary concern is just to replenish lost energy, and pretty literally any food you eat at that point will do the trick–the simple sugars hit you quicker though (one time high fructose corn syrup actually comes in handy). And plus, your teammates will like you better (and if you’re the sort of person who likes to warm down and get his teammates to do the same, you can give them a carrot to do so).

Fruits and other items tend to be good for halftime of games; they don’t hit you as quick as your gels or Gatorade will, so they’re not ideal for in-game. You can check out a list of the Glycemic Index of several common foods here. This file, incidentally, comes from Kris Kelly’s materials from last year’s Ultimate Coaches and Player’s Conference (UCPC)–the full archive is here. For guidelines of how to use the GI, check the second slide of Kris’ bit on staying balanced. I disagree with his contention about having only high GI food between games–I think you can work in slower digesting stuff at those points (assuming your breaks are longer than 5-10 minutes–which is to say, your game ends before hard cap)–but the basic idea of what to eat is there, if you’re still trying to figure your own tourney diet out.

What foods can’t you do without? What have you eaten and opted against?

Just about everybody should supplement.

Why? Because our diets are inadequate. Quite honestly, unless you are the most diligent of connoisseurs of natural foods, getting food that is full of natural nutrients in balanced fashion (even the veggies you get from the supermarket can be dumbed-down, cheaper versions of what you’d get growing it yourself), you’re probably deficient somewhere or could at least stand to benefit from some extra nutrients.

I take three supplements with regularity. As far as I can tell, I don’t need much else–but feel free to chime in.

Fish Oil

Tons and tons of purported health benefits here.

It’s all about getting the omega-3 fatty acids to balance out your fat intake profile. To get into it a little bit without getting too technical, having a variety of fatty acids is especially beneficial for your cell membranes (which are made primarily of fats)–health membranes means healthier cells, which means a healthier body. There is some hooplah out there about the quality of various fish oils…I’ve done a fair bit of reading, and the best (and simplest) advice I’ve heard is if it isn’t rancid in the bottle, you’re probably ok in terms of getting the O-3 fatty acids. Depending on how much you’re willing to shell out you can get additional assurances of quality, but I go for some of the fairly cheap stuff in bulk and have noticed the benefits. It’s particularly apparent in my skin quality, actually–I find my skin dries and peels a lot more easily when I haven’t been getting enough fish oil in my diet.

It’s also a potent anti-inflammatory. Inflammation is that thing that happens to your body with repeated stress (like ultimate practice, or hitting the gym) or acute stress (like twisting your ankle–ibuprofen is also an anti-inflammatory!). Instead of taking ibu all the time, try fish oil to keep your swelling under control outside of practice. I’m not saying replace ibuprofen with this–if you swell up in practice or at tourneys, go for the more powerful stuff–but it’s better to get adequate fish oil as an extra aid.

DOSAGE–I take anywhere from 2-6 capsules in a day, which equates to 1200-3600 mg/day (I take more when I’m being more active). You can trend higher than that and likely see more benefits, but I’m cheap and this has worked decently well for me.

Keep in mind that, though I’m talking about O-3 Fatty acids here, getting O-3′s from, say, flaxseed oil, is actually a different (incomplete) set of fatty acids. Go for the right stuff, go for the fish oil.

Multivitamins

Your mom or your grandma might have hounded you to take your vitamins every morning when you were growing up. You may have heard it’s a good idea for expecting mothers to take a multivitamin to ensure their child gets adequate nutrition. Seems like getting your vitamins and minerals is pretty important for growth and development.

Why, then, is it so common to stop taking vitamins when we’re grown? Our body is still functioning. Just because we’re not growing in size doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for these vitamins, as our body constantly regenerates itself. Balance out your nutrition. Get a multivitamin that you can stomach (or take it with water to try and avoid tasting it) and take it every day. Make sure you get zinc here, too–if you fancy yourself an athlete, a zinc deficiency (as well as an HCl deficiency, but that’s above and beyond in my book of supplements) is fairly common and will hinder your digestion (read: absorption of nutrients). Ladies and vegetarians, make sure you get some iron here too, lest you suffer from the effects of anemia.

DOSAGE: one a day unless you get two a days, etc. Really don’t worry about getting “too much” of any particular vitamin–this is very rare, USDA recommendations are WELL below any kind of dangerously high amount, and being an athlete means you probably need more anyways.

This is actually a doubly good vitamin pictured above: more on that in the final supplement.

Probiotics

Last, but certainly not least.

The multivitamin above was doubly good because it had a probiotic included in each tablet–if you’re not familiar with the term, a probiotic is typically a bacteria (often acidophilus) that, when ingested, will act synergystically in your gut. If you didn’t know, your gut has its own ecology–things live there–some of them are good, some of them are not. This ups the good guys, helping to combat the bad and keep you healthier. If you’re the type that gets sick frequently, you might see a big difference with some probiotics in your diet (it also apparently helps with constipation, if that sounds like something you might benefit from, too).

You can get them in a supplement or (my preferred method) through yogurt. There are probably other options to get probiotics naturally, but I don’t know of them. Mind your health here.

DOSAGE: I eat (or rather, ate–harder now to get the steady supply I got in college) a lot of yogurt, probably a couple servings a day. I doubt you need that much to see benefits, a single serving a day (or maybe less frequently than that, even) will probably do you. Alternatively, get a physical supplement and take the recommended dosage of that.

I might recommend refrigerating the probiotics–I’ve heard it can help keep the bacteria count high in the tablets–but I don’t know that it’s explicitly necessary.

Keep in mind that I’m going more for general health than fitness here (though improved fitness is an obvious benefit)–while I could spring for supplements like BCAAs, and while I may occasionally indulge in protein supplementation (typically powerbars or the like) post-workout, I don’t have the kind of income nor the kind of training schedule (currently) where I feel such things are necessary. Cover your bases for general health and wellness, but for fitness’ sake, keep in mind that the supplements aren’t putting in the work for you–anybody who works and sweats will improve appreciably, with our without supplements.