What rowers eat: Nutritionists tell you

Rowing is a water sport originated in the UK and is one of the most traditional events in the Olympics. Rowing is a physical endurance sport that consumes a lot of heat and nutrients. The diet of rowers is highly correlated to their performance. Let's learn about the nutrient intake of rowers.

Rowing athletes’ daily training is long, intense, and consumes a lot of energy. Sugar is the best energy source during exercise. Sugar is mainly stored in the body in the form of glycogen for energy supply. When the training time is more than 40 minutes, the content of muscle glycogen will be significantly reduced. Therefore, if the glycogen reserve is not restored in time after rowing training, the training effect of the athlete will be affected in the next training. Insufficient sugar reserves cannot meet the energy needs during training, which will directly affect the rower’s leg kicking speed, reduce the rowing frequency, deform the posture, etc., affecting the training effect. In daily diet, cereals and potatoes are mainly used. Every meal not only has rice and steamed buns, but also sweet potatoes, corn, taro, etc. to replenish glycogen in the body. [1]

Since rowing is a sport that uses muscle work to propel the boat forward, the body's energy substances are converted and utilized by muscles to output energy. Therefore, strength quality is very important for rowers. At the same time, whether the oxygen supply during exercise can meet the demand is crucial to maintaining athletic ability. The oxygen supply capacity during exercise is closely related to the hemoglobin level, the deformability of red blood cells, and the iron content. The size of the training load has an impact on the hemoglobin concentration. During the heavy load training stage, the muscle load increases, causing damage to muscle cells, and the repair of muscle cells requires the consumption of a large amount of protein, which causes the blood cells in the blood to decompose and release hemoglobin as an energy substance for synthesizing muscle cells.

Protein not only increases muscle strength, but also participates in the synthesis of hemoglobin and various enzymes, so it is closely related to the athletic ability of rowers. After daily training, adequate protein intake can repair damaged muscle fibers, promote muscle recovery, and enhance muscle strength. Replace pork with mutton, increase fish and poultry, reduce the number of braised dishes, drink at least one bag of milk and one egg every morning, eat more than one, do not eat the egg yolk, eat less or no fat, and ensure that every meal has high-quality protein. [1]

Body fat is very important for rowing athletes. The body fat percentage of Chinese athletes is generally higher than the international level. This may be one of the reasons why there is a certain gap between the level of Chinese open-class rowing athletes and the world level. Too much fat will reduce work ability, cause fatigue to occur earlier, and also reduce the body's immune ability. Athletes who consume a high-fat diet will have a harmful effect on the body's immune function. High fat content is very detrimental to exercise. When fat is oxidized, it consumes a lot of oxygen, which makes the body prone to fatigue. Its metabolites will also increase the burden on the liver and kidneys. Choose more beef, mutton, and poultry as fatty foods, and try to reduce pork; reduce the use of butter and cream in breakfast and replace them with jam; reduce the amount of oil used for cooking and use vegetable oil instead of animal oil. [1]

Athletes’ vitamin requirements are slightly higher than those of ordinary people because of the large amount of training, which speeds up the metabolism and consumes more. Rowing athletes train on the water all year round, and the light reflected from the water can cause certain damage to the eyes. Supplementing VA can relieve or reduce eye fatigue; vitamin VB1 accelerates the decomposition of glycogen and creatine phosphate during energy metabolism and can also promote appetite. Rowing athletes train on the water in winter, which is very cold. Some researchers believe that in low-temperature environments, increasing the intake of vitamin B and vitamin E can enhance the body’s adaptability to cold and improve cold resistance, which is very beneficial to enhancing the body’s disease resistance and immune function. Athletes have dark green or orange-yellow vegetables such as carrots, spinach or broccoli at every meal, which can be used as cold dishes, eaten raw with sauce or stir-fried. The staple food should include coarse grains such as millet, purple rice, black rice, mung beans, steamed bread, and corn to supplement B vitamins. [1]

In general, the total calories and nutrients consumed by rowers basically meet the recommended standards, which not only allows them to quickly recover their physical strength but also allows them to maintain a good training state.

［1］Li Yan. Preliminary analysis of dietary nutrition intervention for rowing athletes.［M］, Beijing Sport University, 2011.