Does anyone know what Coach Sommer recommends for nutrition?

Hi Guys and Girls,

Does anyone know what Coach Sommer recommends for nutrition?

I follow a mainly paleo diet plan... just wondering if anyone knows of any specifics/tips for maximum return on my workout time?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Cam

Coach Sommer

16 Nov 2008

My Athlete's Diet

My athletes' diet is not something that is under my control; all I can do is recommend.

I stress to them to avoid soda, sugar and junk foods as much as possible. I encourage them to increase their healthy fats, fish oil, lean protein and vegetable intake while attempting to reduce empty carbs. My national champion receives nutritional counseling at the US Olympic Training Center on a regular basis. In addition, I have brought in several nutritionists to the gym to work with my athletes. Despite all of this, the improvements in their dietary habits have been moderate at best; they are still teenagers in a culture that reveres fast food.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

There's a lot more in the nutrition forum is you use the search function.

Thanks howens!

I tried searching "nutrition", and nothing came up, except this thread.

Cam

I searched. "Diet" with coach sommer as the author and it pulled up a whole bunch. 99% was eat healthy and well balanced

Hi Cameron,

Coach spends a bit of time with Robb Wolf, who writes about the paleo diet. Robb's recommendations are very similar to Coach's quote above. If you want to read more, maybe read Robb's intro article or check out his book.

To use nutrient timing to maximize the effectiveness of your training, check out Josh Naterman's Perfect Workout Nutrition.

However, if you are already following paleo I would guess your nutrition is already pretty good. For maximum return, you may have more success making sure you are working as hard as you physically can. (Nothing personal, it's just a common error people make in training.)

Thanks howens and Wheezer - very helpful

Cam

I think Josh Naterman's Perfect Workout Nutrition linked above is exactly what you're searching for.

Do many people follow Josh's nutrition? I've read over it a couple of times (not recently) but as ever with fitness and nutrition everything changes.

I've seen a lot of recommendations for not having carbs pre/during workout which I believe this protocol emphases.

This one comes to mind http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942068

BeanLion said:

This one comes to mind http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942068

‘Train low’ has now become a catchphrase in athletic circles as well as in the scientific literature though its practical application is not without limitations. Indeed, consistently performing repeated training sessions in the face of reduced CHO availability may lead to an inability to maintain the desired training intensity (Hulston et al., 2010; Yeo et al., 2008) and hence could potentially lead to a lower overall training impulse (i.e. volume × intensity). Furthermore, performing both long duration and/or high-intensity training sessions in a CHO restricted state may also increase the susceptibility to illness and infection given the role of CHO in offsetting exercise-induced immunosuppression (Gleeson, Nieman, & Pedersen, 2004). Exercising with low CHO availability (especially conditions of reduced muscle glycogen) also increases muscle protein breakdown (Howarth et al., 2010) and if performed chronically in the presence of reduced CHO intake (e.g. a low CHO diet) could lead to a loss of skeletal muscle mass. Finally, exercising without regular exogenous CHO provision impairs the ability to subsequently oxidise exogenous CHO (Cox et al., 2010), an adaptation that may therefore negate competition performance.

There's not enough evidence, AFAIK, of practical use of this method. This study also seems to be focused on endurance athletes, which may well benefit from some amount of low carb training. But this is not an approach you would do most of the time. So I don't think there's much merit in this for strength training. Nutrition ala Naterman has also been producing good results with many people. But if you think there is something here, trial it for 3 months and report back, please!

However, although train-low augmented these markers of training adaptation, exercise performance (1-h time trial) was not improved accordingly. In an identical experimental design but which employed stable isotope tracers, Hulston et al., (2010) demonstrated that training-low specifically increases intramuscular triglyceride oxidation during habitual exercise, likely due in part to superior increases in protein content of both β-HAD and the lipid transporter, FAT/CD36. Nevertheless, these researchers also did not observe superior improvements in exercise performance.

I definitely need to do a lot more N=1 experiments.

As my workouts are usually around 40 minutes long I generally don't feel like I would need to fuel for these workouts. At the minute I either just have either some BCAA's, nothing, or BCAA's plus a small amount of carbs (10g).

I work out at lunchtime and won't eat anything before this.

Maybe if I did eat more ala Naterman I might progress faster, something I'd have to try although I have no appetite at all in the mornings.

I'm pretty sure Coach subsists on a diet of athletes' tears.

Tbh, I read coach's atheletes are on a see food diet.

As an Athletic Trainer and Nutritionist, I can tell you that a lot of great athletes who eat terribly and still have no fat on them are genetic lottery winners.

Some of coachs athletes have the genetic lottery sweeps, but definitely not all. Seeing how hard they train and adding skill training onto that makes it immediately clear and no mystery why they're so ripped! That foundation work that we're all getting results from? They finish that as kids and then switch into higher gear

Man, kids are scary/amazing.

I tried the "Perfect Workout Nutrition" last week and was very pleased with the results.  For the last microcycle, I have been struggling to finish HBP/PE5 and RC/PE1 for mastery.  I just didn't have any gas left in the tank by the end of the sets.  On Monday, only drinking water during the workout, I failed both exercises.  HBP I was taking 2 sec rests between reps on the last 2 sets.  On RC I was only able to complete the first 2 sets with proper form and tempo.  I had to rest for 10 sec halfway through the other sets to get the energy to push through.  And I was SORE for 3 days after.  This has been typical of this workout for the entire microcyle.

On Friday I repeated that workout (3 day split), but this time I was sipping a shake per the Perfect Workout Nutrition.  I powered through all 5 sets of both exercises, got back to my job with energy to spare, and wasn't sore the next day. . .though I felt it in my shoulders pushing the lawnmower.

One workout isn't enough to prove anything, but I'm definitely going to keep this up and see where it takes me.

By the way -- my shake recipe:

1 packet lemonade Kool Aid

1/2 c sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 scoop vanilla whey protein

I mixed about 1/2 of this mixture into 1 qt water.  Surprisingly it even tasted good 

I don't mind to downgrade results, but there are a ton of variables that could've caused this.  More often than not, my athletes are eating carbohydrates too close to training time, causing rebound hypoglycemia and a terribly workout.