Fuelling the Functional Athlete
Copyright All Rights Reserved BOX NUTRITION 2019
Jack Braniff MSc. SENr. CISSN
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ABOUT the Author
Jack Braniff MSc SENr
Jack has a Master's degree in sports and exercise nutrition, is a registered sports nutritionist (SENr) and holds his CISSN. Specialising in competitive and functional fitness, he understands the difficulty in setting up a diet that improves both body composition and performance. Whether you are a competitive athlete or a recreational gym goer, this book provides you with the framework he uses to help his own clients achieve greater fitness success through better nutrition.
Contents
"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
Voltaire
PREFACE
I decided to write this book after becoming frustrated with the amount of ambiguous, poor and quite frankly wrong information that is often spread by the host of unqualified influencers in regards to nutrition for functional fitness.
For me, it was plain to see how many recreational and even competitive athletes were failing to apply basic principles of sports nutrition to harness their performance and also improve the way they looked. The dogma attached to eating Paleo, Zone and now Keto as opposed to a personalised strategy has held back a number of athletes fulfilling their true potential. Instead, why arent we taking well-accepted sports nutrition practice from elite sports and applying it to this world of functional fitness?
This is the reason I decided to write this book. To break through the murky waters of nutrition for functional fitness, to use an evidence-informed approach to breakdown and simplify exactly what is needed to perform and look your best.
How can we apply a number of fundamental scientific principles to improve all aspects of this discipline? Get stronger, fitter, faster, recover more readily and build a diet around making you a better functional athlete.
This is what I have set out to achieve. This is what fuelling the functional athlete is made for. To arm you with the knowledge and practical skills to look your best, feel your best and perform at your best.
1.1
WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL FITNESS
Although Functional Fitness is a very subjective and loose term, we can broadly break it down into the following areas:
Weightlifting (WL), which includes the major lifts (clean, squats, deadlift, presses and Olympic lifts)
Aerobic capacity/metabolic conditioning/HIIT (cardio)
Bodyweight exercises
Gymnastic movements
This list is not exclusive. Areas may be added or subtracted based on the angle from which you choose to view it.
Utilising this wide range of exercises, the idea is to help you improve capacity across the whole spectrum of fitness and exercise, as well as develop all three of the major energy systems (ATP- PCr, anaerobic glycolysis and aerobic glycolysis).
Metabolic pathways - Your energy systems
Metabolic pathways are the chemical and biological processes that provide energy to the body. By understanding these pathways and how each of them is fuelled, we can eat according to the demands of our metabolism.
1. ATP - PCr - This energy system provides burst energy for activities which require the highest amount of power, and typically last less than 10 seconds. Think of 100m sprints or Olympic weightlifting. This type of explosive activity can only be sustained for a short period of time on maximal output due to the limited ATP and Pcr stores (1).
2. Anaerobic Glycolysis - This energy system is used for activity which is prolonged for at least 1-2 minutes, but still produces a relatively large amount of power (2). An example would be a 400m run or some of the shorter girl CrossFit workouts that last around a minute with no rest, like Fran, Cindy and Barbara. This energy system works without oxygen, so lactate is produced. Although lactate is used later down the line as an energy source, it also results in an increase of hydrogen ions that reduce the PH of the cell. This inhibits force production and glycogen breakdown (2), which is why you can only maintain this level of force for a set amount of time.
3. Aerobic - The third energy system will not provide the same power as the previous two, however it can produce considerably more energy over a longer period (several hours). The presence of oxygen allows more ATP (energy) to be produced and enable the exercise to continue (1).
Functional fitness looks to improve exercise capacity across all the components of fitness whilst, at the same time developing the three energy systems (ATP- PCr, anaerobic glycolysis and the aerobic system). However, depending on the workout, the contribution to overall energy supply will differ depending on intensity, recovery periods, duration of exercise and the fitness of the individual (3).
This is important to know, because, by defining the type of workout, you can manipulate your nutrition accordingly. Olympic weightlifting sessions will require adequate Pcr availability, highlighting the benefit of creatine supplementation. High intensity sessions that require the quick turnover of ATP will need more carbohydrates and beta alanine can help reduce the acidosis (hydrogen ion accumulation) resulting from ATP breakdown in the muscles. Low intensity workout, in turn, can be fuelled by fat.
This further highlights the need to consider each training session in relation to the energy demand and intensity, so nutrition can be properly paced and structured. A flexible approach towards your nutrition will allow you to maximise performance, speed up recovery, prevent injury and improve how you look simultaneously.
This is the point where context and adapting your nutrition to the goal at hand become critical. A typical find your 1 rep max deadlift workout will obviously require a different fuelling strategy to running a 5k. Therefore, it makes sense to view functional fitness as just an umbrella term, where more focus needs to be placed on its individual aspects, geared towards specific goals, rather than the sum of its parts.
