What are some really high energy foods that you can eat before a Football game?!
Answers:
Carbohydrate loading helps to build up glycogen stores. Eat - pasta, granola bars, granola, apple crumb pie, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, etc
doesn't your coach have a list of things to eat? A lot of runners and athletes have a large meal of pasta - try the whole grain type which releases carbs a bit slower but provides them all the same.
Loading up for team sports
Soccer, basketball, hockey, and football are all examples of team sports where the exercise is often high-intensity, and the length of play in some circumstances can exceed 90 minutes. These sports can burn glycogen at a high rate, and if played long enough, can result in muscle glycogen depletion and fatigue. Therefore, performance could potentially be improved by supercompensation of muscle glycogen stores. However, the benefit will likely vary based on the position you play. For example, point guards in basketball or running backs in football are more likely to deplete muscle glycogen stores, and may benefit more from carbohydrate loading than other positions in these sports. If you play heavy minutes in your sport, you may want to experiment with carbohydrate loading to see if it makes a difference for you.
carbohydrate loading for athletes
Most people I know have a main meal of pasta/chicken/spaghetti or fish about 3-4 hours before playing. Foods like those aren't exactly superfoods but give a continuous source of energy for a match. Drinking lots of water or other isotonic fluids is really important too -- a 3% loss of fluids can reduce endurance by 20.
Pasta is the most common meal for football players before a game. Other foods include Jaffa cakes, which most professional clubs advocate. Rio Ferdinand and Djibril Cisse have been seen eating Jaffa cakes during football matches.
