Is Sports Nutrition All the Same?

All athletes are different. First of all, they have unique body types which means that their nutritional needs will be different. Coupled with this, their chosen sport will make these athletes’ nutritional needs quite dissimilar.

Different Body Types Need Different Nutrition

According to Everyday Nutrition, everyone has a different body type. They are either an:

  • Ectomorph: If you are an ectomorph, you have a smaller bone structure. In addition, you are long, lean and lanky. A person with this type of body structure can usually handle more carbohydrates.
  • Endomorph: An endomorph body type tends to have more body fat around their belly, hips as well as thighs. Endomorphs are more prone to suffering from insulin resistance because their bodies are more prone to converting carbohydrates to sugar and storing this as fat. This means that these types of people should cut back on their carb intake.
  • Mesomorph: If you are a mesomorph, you have a medium frame and are muscular. Typically, according to ISSA, you’ll have an hourglass figure. Owing to the fact that you are muscular, you need higher amounts of protein in order to maintain this muscle.

Just as a note, no one body type is better than the other. In fact, people typically display a combination of two body types.

Different Sports Call For Different Nutrition

The sport that you do will require you to eat differently as opposed to others who don’t perform that particular sport. For example, people who do Olympic Lifting – which requires a lot of muscle power – will need to consume more protein than others in order to assist them with lifting that required muscle. But don’t think that they won’t need carbs. They’ll need the carbs to give them the energy to actually lift the weights in the first place.

Long-distance marathon runners are required to expend a lot of energy, over a protracted period of time. Thus, before a marathon, they will need to carbo-load so that they have the energy that they need to sustain them. However, this doesn’t mean that they must not eat good sources of protein.

Protein is the main component of muscles and muscle microscopically tear when people exercise – this is true for exercise such as weight lifting and running. In order to rebuild the muscle, and make it stronger, athletes will need to take in a good amount of healthy protein so that their muscles keep functioning the way that they do.

It’s vitally important that you eat lean sources of protein – such as eggs or skinless chicken breasts. However, if you want to change it up, there are also great-tasting protein powders which will help you get the protein that you need.

So, to answer the question: “Is Sports Nutrition All The Same?” the answer is “no”. What an athlete eats depends on what their body needs and, secondly, what their chosen sport requires that they eat so that the athletes are able to perform at their very best!