Football News - Get Ready for Pre-Season! - Part 2 - 17/07/09
It's the second part of our 'Get Ready for Pre-Season' special, as the SoccerBible makes a concerted effort to help every footballer prepare for the best season of their life!
We've been dishing out some expert advice from Chelsea FC's Jason Palmer in 'Get Ready for Pre-Season' Part 1. But before we return to the Premier League therapy manager, let's tackle the all important dietary issue.
NUTRITIONAL ADVICE: 4 TIPS TO SUPPORT YOUR TRAINING
There's more to being at the peak of fitness than just training. It's important to look after your body in every way - and the first step is nutrition.
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Go for lean cuts of meat - ground steak will be much leaner than ordinary minced beef - and always trim off any visible fat. |
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A players diet is an issue addressed by Chelsea FC's Jason Palmer, but not before he's discussed match intensity...
After a few pre-season matches, getting close to competitive matches, how do you increase intensity towards the real first game of the season?
In terms of intensity, towards the tail end of the eight-week period, you really should be stimulating yourself at a game intensity. Eight weeks isn't a long period anyway and unfortunately a lot of football leagues have no sooner finished than they're starting again. So there's not a big period of time to prepare that much in the off-season. If you haven't done that much within that time, then it's a big ask to actually progress.
My suggestion would be that you certainly won't benefit from going into the first game of the season unprepared to cope with the demands, because then you're going in crossing your fingers.
Coming away from your particular area for a minute, let's talk about diets: What is your recommended diet for a full day's training? For example, a session in the morning, break for lunch and then another session in the afternoon - what would the breakfast and lunch diet consist of?
If you're going to do a session that will cause muscle damage and challenge you like a strength session, or a session on the pitch which is going to give you some muscle soreness, then you really want to make sure you provide your body with the fuel to complete the session and to also repair yourself from it. So, you'd look at your main energy sources like carbohydrates and your fat stores.
If you've got an aerobics session you're going to be utilising them anyway, but for two sessions in a day, you want to have a breakfast with a good carbohydrate source to give you energy for the day.
Having a protein source is also good, because if you're damaging tissues then protein is going to help heal them. A simple thing might be looking at some scrambled eggs, toast and some cereal and juice etc. Having a good breakfast at an appropriate time is essential, so you don't want to have a breakfast half an hour before you go out on the pitch. You'd want to wait about an hour and a half to get the best result. Once you've finished your session, make sure you eat in close proximity to give you more time to process that food before the later session. That way you're not going out on a full stomach in the afternoon.
And finally, without giving too much away about the inner workings of Chelsea FC, do you test the players on anything before they leave for their pre-season break and then when they come back, like body fat?
There are things, which are tested throughout the season, and some physical measures that are reviewed before they finish to give us some information. It's great to know when a player is fit and well and performing at the highest level so that you have targets to meet. We do look at certain measures in terms of physical performance and also look at other physical measures in terms of body fat. We're fortunate here at Chelsea in that we do monitor other things in terms of heart rate, exertion rate and how the players differ from each other as well as the make up of each individual and also their motivation on that day and what the session was like.
