Sports Requiring Combined Power and Endurance

Team sports such as soccer and basketball, and individual sports such as tennis, have a combined requirement for power and endurance. These sports require the ultimate balance in conditioning and often have an additional requirement for a high level of skill that is sports specific. The nutritional demands on athletes involved in team sports are high, with a need for sufficient calories to endure long and frequent practices, and a high need for fluids to sustain hydration state. Unlike many other sports, team sports often have natural “Breaks”during practices and competitions that should be considered by the participating athlete as a golden opportunity to replenish carbohydrate stores and fluids. The ideal training regimen would be one that gives athletes constant practice in understanding how much fluid they can tolerate during these breaks, so that drinking during competitions will be performance enhancing rather than performance detracting. Athletes should understand, however, that humans are highly adaptable to food and nutrient intake, so practicing fluid consumption should lead to an enhanced capacity to consume more fluids over time without any GI distress. Given what we now know to be true from well-designed research studies, athletes who drink plain water during the natural breaks in practice and competition are missing a valuable opportunity to sustain blood volume, sustain sweat rates, and sustain carbohydrate delivery to working muscles. Only carbohydrate-electrolyte containing beverages have the potential of fulfilling these during-exercise needs, while plain water may actually have the opposite effect. Combined power and endurance sports often have periods or halftime breaks interspersed during the competition. These should also be considered valuable opportunities for consuming fluids and carbohydrates. Consumption of anything else, such as protein bars, simply detracts from what working muscles really need: carbohydrate and fluid. There is a place for meal-replacement bars that contain vitamins, minerals, and protein, but halftime during a basketball game is not one of those times. In some cases, athletes have adapted to eating a banana, crackers, or bread during halftime, but these should be well practiced before a competition to be certain they are well tolerated and leave the stomach before the game restarts.

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