Gymnastic Diet

Hey coach, just curious, but is there a gymnastic diet that gymnasts follow to help aid the strength gain process.

Something equivalent to the bodybuilder's diet of as much meat and protein as you can get.

I normally hear the whole food talk when it comes to losing fat or gaining muscle, but it doesn't seem so stressed when it comes to gymnastic training.

This is just a thought. I assume you watched some of the Olympics right? If so you probably saw the whole food talk about Michael Phelps. He eats the most unhealthy(disgusting) fried foods... and a lot of them. According to the media he eats about 10,000 calories a day. But he works so hard and for so long each day all of the fat is just burned up. Also, even with the unhealthy food you get enough protein to build muscle.

I'm not saying eat like a pig, but he proves that some of us can get away without a huge stress on diet.

Now, I am a vegetarian so I am very concerned about my diet, I cook almost all of my meals and almost never go out to eat. But, I eat a lot. A lot of lean foods that are low in fat, but also a lot of food that is high in protein.

In my opinion, the only thing you should concern yourself with is making sure you get whole foods and a lot of different foods. Like an apple instead of apple sauce and instead of eating a ton of meat(not trying to convince you to go veggie) make sure to throw in some vegetables, fruits, grains, etc.

On days that I workout I eat roughly 4,000 calories, but on days that I'm not working out I barely eat more than 1,800.

Not sure if this helps, but I hope it does.

-Matthew

Lol thanks mat, u seem to be the guy answering all my questions around here.

There was a time in my life when I wanted to go all veggie but I decided it would be too expensive and tedious to prepare veggie and fruit platters 4 each meal.

Michael Phelps is a pig....a great swimmer but a pig at the dinner table...

I always feel better when I eat fruit especially papaya, although it smells like crap.

All I was curious about was if gymnasts need more proteins, carbs, or fats for some strength specific reason, but I guess not.

On a side note, u have a nice x-mas?

Haha, my family is a little bit minimalistic on X-mas. It was kinda like any other day.

Don't forget, I'm not a nutrition specialist or a dietitian, nor am I a really experienced in strength training. I just like to give my input. I might end up being proved wrong by one of the other board members.

All things being normal, gymnasts probably should be eating plenty of protein, some carbs and some fat. However, many of them get very cautious about calorie counts, definitely into the negative calories, especially the women but even Jotchev has commented on how he eats on the light but didn't state what figures he was around.

Most young boys eat like horses, especially on training days when they are getting into some serious training hours. Girls don't seem to curb their eating till they start approaching their pre-teens, but some start even younger depending on their home life, culture.

In general, they need to keep hydrate and eat a lot of protein. I haven't seen any vegetarian gymnasts thrive well, or as well as I think they should. I'm sure they're out there whether they are eating loads and loads of veggie proteins or cheese.

I don't count calories, but my diet is strict of how manj proteins (2-2,5g/kg of body weight) and fat (1g/kg of body weight) intake, the rest are carbohydrates. I use carbohydrates in training time aprox. 200g of fast carbohydrates like glucose and maltodextrine mixture(30g 30 minutes before training/30g in training time/50g imidiatly after in shaker with 30g of protein/45 minutes later after 1. shake I repet procedure with shake/first hard meal with 30-50g of slow carbohidrates). I use carbohydrates only on strenght training with litlle sufficit on calories and on a tehnic training I have only one meal with around 50g of carbohydrates and a litlle deficit.

On sundays I have long run (1hour or litlle more) to make a deficit.

Results are: maintaning strenght - gaining strenght because of a weight/strenght ratio (2kg on 2 months, so I lost pure fat and no muscles).

If gymnasts eat plenty of protein wont that conrtibute to hypertrophy? or does the fact that they keep their exercises

on the 3-5 rep range keep them from gaining muscle while eating tons of proteins?

caloric suficit and training makes a hypertrofy (of course you must have just right amount of proteins). And gaining muscles is not that easy as it sounds

Wow, Gregor thanks for the info as I have not had access to the exact data on how much protein some elites intake. 2-2.5g/kg sounds pretty normal and similar to what some BB use. Basically, lots of protein from 150-200g of protein/day.

Yes, around 150-200g....some meat, aprox. 5 eggs,cottage cheese, whey isolate powder...

Lol ur right gregor, its not.

Their diet sounds like any other athelete's diet.

Somewhere in the back of my head at the dinner table I was thinking that there was a specific diet gymnasts followed to aid their strength gains.

Thanks for the figures Gregor