Another No Sweat Way to Improve your Racing

Another No Sweat Way to Improve your Racing

The event: USAC Level One Cycling Coaches clinic

The dates: February 20-24, 2009

The location: Colorado Springs, CO

Olympic Training Complex

Scot Willingham just returned from the above and this is his write-up re: the different seminars. This is part 1 of a 3 part write-up of his impressions.

Nutrition by Bob Seebohar, MS, RD, CSSD, CSCS

Author of Nutrition Periodization for Endurance Athletes

While much of what Bob talks and writes about we all know already, the genius of this program is the way in which Bob presents his information. What he's done is take what is most familiar to athletes (goal setting and periodization in training) and applies it to nutrition and eating behavior.

He begins with the Fuel Target (food is now fuel). The Bull's-eye (the highest score [as I said he knows his audience]) is Proteins and healthy Fats. The next ring is Fruits and Vegetables. The outer ring is Whole Grains/healthier Starches. Around these rings are dots that Bob calls Misses. Finally, around these circles, he draws squares that equate to your Mesocycles.

Then, his direction is eating from the inside out. No measuring, no weighing, no food logs, etc. The 3 reasons for his choices (this being primarily a high-protein/low glycemic menu) are:

1)    Stabilize blood glucose by avoiding large amounts of unhealthy starches (complex sugars) in the diet.

2)    Feel satiated because of the slower digestion of a high-protein/fat/low glycemic diet

3)    Thermogenesis of digestion. High-protein/low glycemic diets use more energy to process the food.

As Bob says, the body uses the fuel that you feed it. So, if you eat a high carbohydrate menu, your body will utilize that. However, if you reduce the carbs and feed it more protein/healthy fat, then you would create a stimulus to use fat. Later in the presentation, he calls this Metabolic Efficiency --with controversial research, as he supports this theory with only case studies.

Back to goal setting and periodization - Bob has you recognize (again, referring to physical training and your mesocycles) that there are different cycles for nutrition.

In your Preparatory/Base/Off Season, your goals would be weight loss, good nutrition, and learning what is edible and tolerable while active - what Bob calls "learning the gut" - finding out what does and does not cause gastric distress. His instruction is you use the smallest square, Zone 1, which includes the Bull's-eye, the second ring and parts of the 3rd ring -- with some Misses, of course.

In the Build cycle where you are adding intensity, you need more nutrition, but basically the same balance. You would then use Zone 2, which includes all the rings and some areas off the target.

In your Competition cycle, you would use all the area in his graphic, as this part of the year is about maintaining the fuel levels and recharging the system by good recovery menus.

To me, the best part of this graphic is the Misses. It records that you are still near the target; you just aren't scoring. Thus, you are still trying to behave more supportively of your goals. This is a nice euphemistic way of switching the typical reaction to over-eating or whatever derails your diets of being upset, angry and thinking negative self-talk.

The one comment I have is that he doesn't address behavior. It takes a conscious decision and awareness to realize at the end of your Competition cycle, you then must attend to adjusting your eating back to Zone 1. While the information is out there and all of us have access to this information (as I said, most of this is not NEW information), intelligence does not necessarily translate into intelligent behavior.

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/9/859) and reported in the NY Times did note that the diet people chose did not matter, but depended more on their individual behaviors. So, this would support that even if you utilize Bob's program, the success or failure is dependent more on you and how you apply it.

Yet, one of the largest barriers to managing one's nutrition is the complicated and detail-oriented menu and diet plans with all the food logging and calorie counting and measuring, weighing, planning, shopping, cooking, etc......

....which in my opinion and experience can shortcut any diligent efforts to manage eating and/or weight gain. Bob has offered a much more familiar and easier method in which to support your sport while reaching not only performance but also nutritional goals.

For more information, Bob includes these resources:

His book

www.gssiweb.com

www.ais.org.au

Advanced Sports Nutrition, Bernadot

Endurance Sports Nutrition, Girard-Eberle

Eating for Endurance, Coleman

To find a sport dietician:

www.scandpg.org

Scot Willingham is a USAC Elite level cycling coach, a Strength and Conditioning coach and is certified by ACSM. He has been working as a coach and a fitness provider for over 20 years in NYC. He works primarily with people that have come out of injury and/or surgery emphasizing Neuro-Muscular Re-Education. This is the ability to identify movement issues, re-training and re-conditioning people to new structure or movement patterns that will better facilitate their activity and/or sport. He is also finishing a Masters in Motor Learning at Teachers College, Columbia University which studies how humans acquire movement skills and is used primarily in Physical and Occupational Therapy, Sports Coaching, and Physical Education.