Game Day Nutrition

by Travis Martell | Sep 26, 2016 | Educational

Game Day Nutrition

If you follow my blog regularly then you’d know that my last post was about the importance of a pre-game meal and what it should look like.

Today I am going to cover the other 2 meals of the day plus the pre-game snack.

Let’s try and make this as foolproof as possible. We are going to assume your game is at 7:30pm. Most teams will have a pre-game skate in the morning. If you are on a team that doesn’t have one then I would strongly suggest that you wake up by at least 9:00am and go for at a 20-30 minute walk to get the legs moving. If you read my post on the pre-game meal then you’d know you should eat your big meal about 6 hours before the game. So if your game is at 7:30pm then you’re eating your pre-game meal at 1:30pm. You should then be eating breakfast around 10:00am. Since you are eating your big meal 6 hours before a game you could start to feel a little hungry by 7:30pm. This is why the pre-game snack is important. Eating your pre-game snack around 4:00pm will give you enough satisfaction of feeling full but it won’t be enough food to make you feel sluggish come game time.

You should keep the same carbohydrate (carbs), protein, and fat ratio for all meals. This ratio is 50-55% carbs, 25-30% proteins, and 15-20% fat. The example athlete we used in my pre-game meal post was a male who weighed 80kg. We’ll keep the same example so the numbers remain the same. In the pre-game meal post, we said his caloric intake for the day was 3600. Of those 3600, 1300 were allocated towards his pre-game meal. This means that we have 2300 calories left to split between breakfast, pre-game snack, and post game meal.

Now let’s talk breakfast! If you don’t like breakfast or don’t feel hungry in the morning, too bad for you! You have to eat breakfast! It’s EXTREMELY important! So if you don’t like it, start to like it, and slowly incorporate this meal into your daily routine. Breakfast should be about 800 calories, pre-game snack about 500 calories, and the post game meal the remaining 1000 calories.

The post game meal of 1000 calories can be difficult for some players to consume. I personally find it very hard to eat 1000 calories of food right after a game. Do you? If you are like me then I recommend that you consume most of your calories in liquid form. Post game shakes are a great way to get the nutrients you need to replenish your muscle glycogen (muscle’s stored energy) without having to eat solid food. To allow for the fastest absorption of the nutrients, the post game shake should have a 4:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio. Using the 80kg male hockey player example from above, his post game shake would be about 20g of protein and 80g of carbs (this is the 4:1 ratio). The easiest way to achieve this is by mixing your protein powder with some type of sugary juice. Most of the time we want to avoid sugary drinks but right after activity our muscles have depleted their glycogen stores and the best way to replenish them is by ingesting simple sugars. This example of a post game shake is 400 calories, therefore, the remaining 600 calories should be solid food. Having the combination of liquid and solid foods after games helps recovery and the feeling of being satisfied.

Make sure you are eating all your meals and doing everything you can to play at your best!

Now that you know the importance of eating properly on game day you can’t forget about drinking enough water. Here is a visual guide to follow so you know how much water to drink and when to drink it!

This Youth Sports Hydration guide was created by Cisco Athletic

Pre-Game Meal For Hockey Players

by Travis Martell | Sep 12, 2016 | Educational

Pre-Game Meal For Hockey Players

For some odd reason, I can remember the weirdest things pertaining to my hockey career, even from when I was younger. This one particular time has to do with food and a regular bag skate we would do to help get us in shape. Looking back at my youth hockey, we actually did a lot of skating drills at the end of practice. I remember always being one of the last kids to finish the drills. I always thought it was because I was slow. Although that part was partially true, I later figured out it also had to do with what I was eating before I went on the ice.

I came to realize this because one time when we were doing our normal conditioning drill at the end practice I wasn’t as slow as normal. I figured it had to do with my diet and not only the fact I lacked leg strength and power. Years down the road when I became more educated on nutrition I looked back at that particular practice and wondered what the difference was that day? (this is how weird my memory is at times).

When I got older I was able to connect the dots and figure out that what I did differently before that practice was actually pretty simple. I had a huge plate of pasta! This whole time my muscles were missing the energy from the carbohydrates in the noodles. At the time I didn’t know the importance of eating a high carbohydrate diet for energy.

So what makes the perfect pre-game meal?

The timing of the meal
What we are eating
How many grams of each macronutrient (protein, carbohydrate, fat)

Let me first explain the timing of the meal and why this is important.

I’ve played hockey with guys who like to eat their pre-game meal 8 hours before a game and guys who like to eat their meal as close as 4 hours before the game. My professional (and personal) preference is around 6 hours before game time. This allows enough time for the meal to fully digest and helps prevent any type of stomach or indigestion issues that might arise come game time.

Now that we know when we should be eating, the next question is what should we be eating?

The ideal meal is some form of pasta (whole wheat is better) and some type of protein (chicken is best because it digests faster than steak). The amount of food we should be eating is where things get a little trickier.

How much we need to eat is based on how much we weigh and our activity level. If you are a hockey player I think it’s safe to say that you’re practicing at least 3 times a week with about 2 games on the weekends and possibly 1-2 off-ice workouts as well. I would consider this very active. To get your daily caloric allowance multiply your weight in kilograms by 45 for males and by 39 for females (Males use the following scale 42-51 and females 37 – 43. Use a higher or lower number based on your activity level)

As an example let’s say you’re a male and weigh 80kg. Multiply that by 45 and you should get 3600. This number represents the amount of calories you’re allowed in a day to maintain your current body weight. Breakfast should be about 800 calories and your pre-game snack should be about 500 calories and post game meal should be about 1000 calories leaving you with 1300 calories for your pre-game meal.

Of these 1300 calories, you’ll want 50-55% of them to be carbohydrates, 25-30% protein, and 15-20% fat. Since 1 gram of carbohydrates and protein represents 4 calories and 1 gram of fat represents 9 calories we can figure out how many grams of each macronutrient we need in our pre-game meal.

Next, we need to do some math to figure out much to eat, 55% of 1300 is 715 (this is how many calories of carbohydrates we’ll consume). Now that we know we can consume 715 calories of carbohydrates we need to divide that number by 4 (because we know 1 gram of carbohydrates equals 4 calories) to figure out how many grams we’re allowed. With some quick math, we know we’re allowed about 179 grams of carbohydrates in our pre-game meal.

We’re not ready yet because we still need to do this for protein and fat. Our allowance for protein is 30% and when we multiply that by 1300 we get 390 calories of protein and when we divide that number by 4 (1 gram of protein equals 4 calories) we end up with 98 grams of protein. And the final macronutrient is fat and 15% of 1300 is 195 calories and when we divide this number by 9 (1 gram of fat equals 9 calories) we get 22 grams of fat.

I am sorry if this part is a little confusing but it is important that we don’t overeat as this will not give us any more of an athletic advantage. To the contrary, it can contribute to stomach and digestive issues. If we under eat we will deprive our muscles of the nutrients they need to provide us with the energy to perform at a high level.

Now that we have our numbers we can put together our pre-game meal. With our calculations from above, we’ll want 240 grams of whole wheat spaghetti with sauce, 190 grams chicken breast, and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Bake the chicken in the oven, boil the spaghetti noodles and put a nice red sauce over the noodles along with the olive oil and you’ll have a meal that will fuel you throughout the whole game.

Do You Know Your Sweat Rate?

by Travis Martell | Aug 29, 2016 | Educational

Do You Know Your Sweat Rate?

Ever since I was a child I sweat a lot, no matter the activity. Things have not changed as I’ve gotten older. My first year playing professional hockey over in Germany really showed me how much I could actually sweat. The arena we played in was partially outdoors, as the whole back wall was exposed to the outside. And since training camp started in August it was very hot and humid in the rink. It felt like a rain forest. There was so much fog you couldn’t even see the puck in the corner from the blueline. There was condensation dripping from the ceiling of the arena. These conditions made me sweat more than I ever had in the past and it was very difficult to stay cool because of the humidity in the air. This wasn’t the ideal environment to be playing hockey in but it had to be done.

Being a guy who already sweats a ton, these conditions made it so much worse for me. I was losing so much water weight that when I wasn’t training I needed to do nothing but drink water and juice to replenish everything I had lost.

Do you know how do you figure out your sweat rate so you know exactly how much water to drink after training to replenish all the fluids you lost?

Before a typical training session (60-minute duration) you need to weigh yourself naked (or with a minimal amount of clothing) and then weigh yourself again after the training session (make sure you’re not wearing your sweaty clothes). The difference between your pre-workout weight and your post-workout weight is what we call your sweat rate. For example, if you weighed 85 kg (187lbs) before the training session and 82kg (180lbs) after the training session you would have a sweat rate of 3kg (7lbs) per hour. And each 1kg (2.2lbs) of sweat loss is equivalent to 1L (32 ounces) of fluid.

If you didn’t already know, muscles are made up of approximately 75% water. And in order for our muscles to perform at their full potential, we need to keep them hydrated. All it takes is a 2% drop in bodily fluids for us to see a decrease in strength. If we use our 85kg athlete as an example, it would only take this individual a 1.7kg of weight loss during their training or competition to see a decrease in strength. At 4% loss of bodily fluids, our core temperature will rise and our heart rate will increase and we will fatigue much faster.

To prevent dehydration during training and competition it is extremely important to continue to drink water throughout your activity. A good rule of thumb is to drink at least 80% of your hourly sweat rate in fluids during your event. If we reference back to the sweat rate of 3kg per hour this means you will want to consume 2.4L (76.8 ounces) of fluids during your event. Consuming this will help prevent dehydration and keep your muscles performing at optimal levels.

On event days, 4 hours before the competition you should drink 5-7 ml/kg of bodyweight (BW) of water and 2 hours before you should consume another 3-5 ml/kg of BW of water. However, we can not only drink fluids on the days of our events and expect that we will be hydrated and perform at our highest potential. We have to drink water on a daily basis to maintain a healthy fluid balance. Recommended daily fluid intake will depend on a few variables like body size, the intensity of exercise, and levels of heat and humidity in your environment. Coffee, tea, juices, and foods containing high water content all contribute to your daily fluid intake. Males should drink a minimum of 3 litres of water daily and females should drink a minimum of 2 litres daily.

Along with fluid loss through sweat, we also lose minerals (electrolytes) like potassium and sodium. Water alone will not replace these electrolytes, therefore, you should consume some juices, sports drinks or potassium rich food to replenish these electrolytes.

Below is a list of items that contain high levels of potassium:

1 large Potato (820mg of potassium)
250 ml of Orange Juice (475mg of potassium)
1 medium Banana (450mg of potassium)
1/4 cup of raisins (300mg of potassium)

To help increase your sodium levels it is recommended to add a little table salt to your meals or you can consume some of the following items:

1 can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup (2225mg of sodium)
1 packet of Ramen Noodles (1560mg of sodium)
1 cup of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (560mg of sodium)
1 Bagel (500mg of sodium)

Remember that it’s good to sweat because it’s our body’s way of keeping us cool and allowing us to exercise longer and at a higher rate. But as soon we lose too much bodily fluid through sweat we become dehydrated and our performance will decrease drastically. Drinking water continuously throughout the day is the best way to prevent dehydration.

With all the sweating hockey players do there is typically a smell that goes along with it. Check out the infographic from Prostockhockey.com to help combat the stink that goes along with all the hard work!

Pro Stock Hockey offers stench control tips for players, coaches and parents — thanks to input from NHL trainers and staff — that are sure to give a helping hand off the ice. Below are the steps you need to take to defend against the stench.

Click arrows in the bottom right corner to expand full screen

Importance of aerobic capacity in hockey

by Travis Martell | Aug 15, 2016 | Educational

Importance of aerobic capacity in hockey

As you probably already know, hockey is a very intense sport. The game is played over 3, 20 minute periods and each player’s shift typically lasts 45-60 seconds. Hockey players change on the fly and every once in awhile there is a stoppage in play for an icing, offside, penalty, and a goal. With everything going on, the rest between each player’s shift can last anywhere between 90-120 seconds.

This type of cycle between flying around on the ice and resting on the bench waiting to get back out on the ice classifies hockey as a very anaerobic sport.

So, do hockey players really need aerobic capacity?

When performing a high-intensity exercise like a game of hockey a lot of physiological things are taking place. There is a depletion of adenosine triphosphate phosphocreatine (ATP-PC), an increase in inorganic phosphate, accumulation of hydrogen ions, increase in lactate formation, and a decrease in pH. With all these physiological changes happening to the body, an athlete will start to feel fatigued and they will notice a decline in power output. It is thought that restoring all these metabolites to normal levels will result in a full recovery.

What is the best way to restore the metabolites to normal levels?

Let’s start by stating that the greater capillary density we have and the more Oxygen our body can supply to our fatigued muscles, and as a result, the faster our muscles can recover.

To simplify, the greater our aerobic system is the faster we can recover. So to answer the question “Do hockey players really need aerobic capacity?”, YES!

Now that we know that we need some level of aerobic capacity, we need to know how much is the right amount…

I believe this is up for debate because hockey is a very anaerobic sport by nature and we need this system to be very efficient in order for us to be successful. But without a strong aerobic base, we might not be recovering to optimal levels between practices, training sessions, and most importantly games.

From my own personal experience playing professional hockey and changing up my off-season training I can honestly say that the summers I performed more aerobic training, I felt fresher during the entirety of the hockey season.

The most important time of the off-season to perform aerobic training is in the first 4 weeks. During this time, it is smart to get in 1-2 aerobic training sessions per week. Then over the next 4 weeks another 1-2 times. And over the last 8 weeks of summer training, performing aerobic training 1-2 times should be adequate because when training our anaerobic system we still improve the capacity of our aerobic system. As you can see, we want to start our summer training by building a good aerobic base and then as the summer progresses we can start to decrease the amount of aerobic specific training and transfer into more anaerobic style training.

It’s still very important to keep up our aerobic training during the hockey season but with games, practices, and weight training sessions it leaves us with a minimal amount of time for our aerobic training. So during the hockey season, it is important to dedicate at least 2 aerobic training sessions per month and no more than 4.

Since most hockey players have poor running mechanics I recommend my athletes to use the bike to develop their aerobic base.

How We Say It Matters!

by Travis Martell | Aug 1, 2016 | Educational

How We Say It Matters!

How important is communication within hockey or any sport for that matter?

I will tell you it is very important. How do I know this? Well, it is because I have been playing hockey for all of my life. And for the last seven years, it has been at the professional level. Since turning professional, I have had the privilege of being a part of some championship teams. With those winning teams, there was a great deal of communication. Since our coaches did a great job explaining their vision we (the team) were able to all work towards a common goal, with each player knowing their importance on the team.

Right now you might be thinking, “Well I know communication is important in sports, but how does it help me with my training?” When training with a strength and conditioning coach, it doesn’t matter how good the program is if the “coach” can’t explain how to execute the program properly. If the athlete is having problems with a certain movement pattern and the coach they are working with can’t correct the issue(s) properly, the athlete will develop poor habits. These poor movement patterns will transfer into their sport and possibly restrict them reaching their full potential. Luckily some research has been done on this issue to help us “coaches” maximize athletes’ full potential by proper communication.

There are two different ways we can communicate to get our point across. Whether we are trying to teach a new movement or correct an old one. We can either use verbal or visual instruction. And each of these two methods can be broken down once more. Visual instruction can be done one of two ways. An expert (hopefully the coach) can provide a demonstration of the movement or a novice (usually another athlete) demonstrator can show the movement pattern while the coach explains the proper cues during the example. Using both expert and novice demonstrators have been proven to enhance the learning capabilities of athletes.

When using only verbal cues to help improve an athlete’s performance, they are split into internal and external cues. An internal cue puts the focus on the body movement of the athlete while external cues are a direct result of the movement itself. An example of an internal cue is telling an athlete to “extend their legs” during a sprint and the external cue would be “drive the ground away”. Several studies were done testing the effectiveness of internal and external verbal cues. One of the studies looked a ski-simulator while the other study looked at a balance test. Both of these studies found greater improvement in the external cues group when re-testing the tasked learned.

Now that we are aware of what types of communication work the best, how much feedback should be said during each movement (exercise)? The answer seems simple, “we should give feedback on every set of every exercise”. There are a few problems with that answer. The first one is athletes will end up becoming dependent on the feedback. We as coaches should want to educate and prepare our athletes so they are able to train on their own one day. So if we give feedback to our athletes 100% of the time we are actually setting them up for failure because they will notice a decrease in performance once the feedback is removed.

Three experiments were done testing the different amount of feedback frequencies and they all came to the same conclusion. Providing feedback on 50% of trials was superior to providing feedback 100% of the time. The best way to only give feedback half the time is to start the first couple sets with 100% feedback and then reducing it to 33% of the time. This way the athlete doesn’t become dependent on the feedback and will see improvement with the small amount of advice they receive.

Remember:

Communication is important
Visual and Verbal Examples
External Cues are better ie. Drive the ground away
Feedback on 50% of exercises

As coaches, we must recognize that not only what we say is important but also how we say it and how much we say it. We are instructing our athletes with different coaching strategies to develop them to the best of their abilities. Showing movement patterns (exercises) ourselves so our athletes can learn by viewing an expert or having them watch a novice athlete and picking out the mistakes made. Using these types of visual examples allows the athletes to learn according to their unique style of learning.

7 Signs You’re Overtraining

by Travis Martell | Jul 18, 2016 | Educational

7 Signs You’re Overtraining

I would like to think that we are all under the same impression, if we want to become better hockey players we must work hard. That means working harder in the gym during the off-season (in-season too) and at practice. We have to have the mentality to do more and bust our ass 100% of the time to get to the level of hockey we want to play at. To have such a work ethic creates a fine line between getting better and becoming overtrained. To have such a mindset can act as a double edge sword. While doing more is usually better, we must be smart enough to know when less is actually more.

Playing professional hockey over in Germany and implementing their training styles has opened my eyes and helped me understand this fine line between working hard and becoming overtrained. Some people might find it weird but I actually enjoy working hard. It is fascinating to see how far the human body can be pushed and what it can accomplish. But when our work ethic stays the same and we are no longer getting improvements then we need to take a step back and re-evaluate things. This is when less becomes more.

There are two different ways an athlete can become overtrained. The first one is called Monotonous program overtraining. This type of overtraining is caused by the consistent and unvarying use of the same variety of an exercise or workout program. The second one is called Chronic overwork. This will happen when the duration of a program phase is too longer and the athlete repeats the same workout too frequent within that phase.

Hockey players need to be more aware of the signs and symptoms of overtraining due to the nature of our sport. Since hockey is more of an anaerobic sport and we are strength/power athletes we are more inclined to becoming overtrained.

Even though there are more than 7 signs and symptoms of overtraining, below I list what I believe to be the easiest to spot. Knowing these signs and symptoms will help us understand when decreasing the training volume will be more beneficial and continue to help develop our athletic performance.

Decrease in performance
Irritability, lack motivation
Lack of self-confidence
Changes in sleep patterns
Decreased appetite
A decrease in total body weight plus lean body mass (increased body fat)
Increase in resting heart rate

It is good to know what to watch out for when we are overtrained but there is a way to continue to work hard and prevent something like this to happening. We need to have a proper diet that consists of an adequate amount of carbohydrates (about 55% of our diet) and a minimum of 15% of protein. Getting the proper amount of sleep each night (8 hours). Making sure we have a variety with our training volume, intensity, exercises, and load. Keeping a training log and recording our body weight, resting heart rate, and a subjective rating of how we feel (general heath and how difficult our training sessions felt). All these things combined will help keep us working hard in the gym and allow for continual performance growth.