Episode 203: #202 Chris Beaty: Nutrition and Hydration for Footballers

With that, actually, we're going to jump around a few things here, Chris, because I'm interested in a number of these areas.

But just on the weigh-in, weigh-out, can you explain a little bit how that obviously works? So all the players pre-game weigh themselves in.

So let's say you weigh 80 kilos.

And then post-games, so you weigh 78 kilos.

You're looking to basically – that's all obviously – Hydration, that needs to happen post-game to sort of fix that deficit.

It's a bit of a – it's a looser measure, I guess.

You can go into a bit more detail, but I try and keep it pretty simple because it's quite time-consuming.

So there's hydration.

They also used up their muscle glycogen, so their stored glucose or stored carbohydrate, which also – as part of that weight loss.

But as just a really basic measure, we take that weight loss.

So if they've lost two kilos, we will look to replace 1.5 times that.

So 150% of that within a sort of a four to six hour window after the game to get them sort of back up to their normal hydration level.

Okay, so that two kilos, you look at 150%, so that's three litres of fluid.

What sort of fluid are we talking here? Mainly water, electrolytes? Could you drink soft drink? What sort of thing are you looking at here?

I don't tend to limit them.

It's whatever they want.

Obviously, three litres of water is quite boring and not many would really stick to it so um milk is one of the ones that i encourage a lot because milk's got your fat protein carbohydrate and it's very hydrating um some do soft drink some will have cokes up you know with the functions upstairs after games um predominantly water obviously that's the main um the main one we sort of always go to, but mixing it up.

A bit of electrolyte, obviously milk's got electrolytes as well.

So yeah, I try to get them to have a variety.

And just for the senior players listening, what about alcohol post-game? How does that fit into the schedule? And what are your thoughts around

that? Obviously, the dietitian hat is not ideal.

It's not great for, obviously, rehydration.

Culturally, it's sort of a pretty standard practice.

So, yeah, I agree.

Try to encourage them to not, but there's only so much you can do.

With that, actually, we're going to jump around a few things here, Chris, because I'm interested in a number of these areas.

But just on the weigh-in, weigh-out, can you explain a little bit how that obviously works? So all the players pre-game weigh themselves in.

So let's say you weigh 80 kilos.

And then post-games, so you weigh 78 kilos.

You're looking to basically – that's all obviously – Hydration, that needs to happen post-game to sort of fix that deficit.

It's a bit of a – it's a looser measure, I guess.

You can go into a bit more detail, but I try and keep it pretty simple because it's quite time-consuming.

So there's hydration.

They also used up their muscle glycogen, so their stored glucose or stored carbohydrate, which also – as part of that weight loss.

But as just a really basic measure, we take that weight loss.

So if they've lost two kilos, we will look to replace 1.5 times that.

So 150% of that within a sort of a four to six hour window after the game to get them sort of back up to their normal hydration level.

Okay, so that two kilos, you look at 150%, so that's three litres of fluid.

What sort of fluid are we talking here? Mainly water, electrolytes? Could you drink soft drink? What sort of thing are you looking at here?

I don't tend to limit them.

It's whatever they want.

Obviously, three litres of water is quite boring and not many would really stick to it so um milk is one of the ones that i encourage a lot because milk's got your fat protein carbohydrate and it's very hydrating um some do soft drink some will have cokes up you know with the functions upstairs after games um predominantly water obviously that's the main um the main one we sort of always go to, but mixing it up.

A bit of electrolyte, obviously milk's got electrolytes as well.

So yeah, I try to get them to have a variety.

And just for the senior players listening, what about alcohol post-game? How does that fit into the schedule? And what are your thoughts around

that? Obviously, the dietitian hat is not ideal.

It's not great for, obviously, rehydration.

Culturally, it's sort of a pretty standard practice.

So, yeah, I agree.

Try to encourage them to not, but there's only so much you can do.