Wondering how, when and what to give your child before they come to one of our training sessions?
Are you one of the many parents who has just finished a busy day before having to do the school run and then somehow quickly get through Sydney rush hour traffic to get to training on time?
If so, it’s without doubt that getting some nutritional food into your youngsters belly pre-training window isn’t at the forefront of your mind.
Our sessions can start not too long after school hours so chances are your child hasn’t had food since around midday. Football requires the players to sprint, jump, change direction and be able to do this for the full length of the sessions. So, they definitely need SOMETHING before they start.
Not to worry, we know there is limited time and eating on the go isn’t easy. So we have provided some ideas below to help keep your child fuelled, full of energy and ready to train!
HOW LONG YOU GOT?
If your session kicks off in 60-90 minutes after school then you will have to limit the quantity of your food intake. You’ll also have to limit intake of foods that are a heavier on the stomach such as dairy and fatty foods.
Foods we do want are going to have to be a source of carbohydrate and ideally include some protein in with it! This combo is ideal around training times.
Too much and or just some of the wrong thing too close to a football training session is a recipe for disaster!
For that reason if you have this time window we’d recommend small snacks such as:
- Fruit and nut mixes
- Wholemeal or sourdough bread with a nut butter
- Apple and nut butter
- High protein granola bars
- Small Yoghurt with fruit/nut
- Rice cakes and nut butter
- Smoothies
If the solid foods don’t sit well in the stomach then a smoothie is a great option for most!
GOT LONGER?
On the off chance you have a bit longer say 2-3 hours then that starts to open more options as you have more time to digest food.
Things such as:
- Brown rice with some meat and veg
- Wholemeal or sourdough, meat and salad sandwiches/wraps
- Wholewheat pasta with a tomato sauce veg and meat
- Oats with fruit and nuts
- Smoothies (again still a good choice)
These are all good options as they are a bit more substantial but will provide a bit more long lasting energy before training. Keep in mind though not to go overboard on serving size as we still want it to be easily digested prior to training.
PLEASE…
Bear in mind that sports drinks ARE NOT a health drink. We do not recommend children to be drinking sports drinks as they are probably not required for our midweek sessions.
We would much prefer they drank plenty of water before, during and after training in combination with eating some good wholesome foods to fuel and refuel.
This will continue to build the habit of hydrating regularly with water whilst also avoiding an unnecessary intake of a large amount of sugar.
WRAPPING UP!
Hopefully that gives you some ideas of how to best fuel your child for our sessions. To sum up:
- Limited Time: small snacks of mainly carbohydrate and protein – limit dairy and fatty foods
- More Time: more substantial balanced meals including carbohydrates, fats and proteins whilst keeping an eye on portion size to allow for digestion
- Drink plenty of water to build the hydration habit with good old H2O!
If you have your own suggestions you find useful for your players, kids or teams then please share or let us know so we can share and continue to keep youth footballers Australia wide raring to go for their football training!
