Four Days Before Competition

Four days before the event is a good time for making your final strategic plans for the competition. Your training regimen should focus on key elements of the special skills you have, with an emphasis on practicing skills in a way that keeps you from becoming exhausted. As with the previous days, you should maintain a high carbohydrate and fluid intake to support your needs.

This is also a good time to eat a little extra protein, up to 2 grams per kilogram, to make certain all your tissue-repair needs are covered and to support the manufacture of creatine. For a 190-pound (86 kilogram) athlete, 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight amounts to 172 grams of protein. The examples in the chapter provided 1.26 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, an amount that is well within the general requirements for athletes (1 to 2 grams per day). Therefore, providing a little extra protein merely provides some assurance that protein intake is not a limiting factor in performance.