Do gymnasts have high-protein diets?

[Enchiridion]

I was wondering if gymnasts had a diet similar to bodybuilders and the like, or if they ate a lot like them too.

They say that to build muscle you must eat at least 1 gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight, or something like that.

So does a, for example, 145lb gymnast eat 145 grams of protein each day?

[John Sapinoso]

Most young gymnasts have terrible diets.

[Blairbob]

In the states, it can vary how much influence a coach has on an athlete's diet due to their family, etc. Most coaches don't have much influence on them until they get serious about it. Sometimes this can be early on, sometimes this can be in the more advanced levels. And of course, it's not like all coaches have the same ideas on dietary nutrition.

Let's not even go into Bela and Marta. However, there are guidelines at the Olympic Training Center.

[Enchiridion]

In the states, it can vary how much influence a coach has on an athlete's diet due to their family, etc. Most coaches don't have much influence on them until they get serious about it. Sometimes this can be early on, sometimes this can be in the more advanced levels. And of course, it's not like all coaches have the same ideas on dietary nutrition.

Let's not even go into Bela and Marta. However, there are guidelines at the Olympic Training Center.

Well, so let's say the ones on tv, the ones who go to the Olympics. What about them?

[Joshua Naterman]

I was wondering if gymnasts had a diet similar to bodybuilders and the like, or if they ate a lot like them too.

They say that to build muscle you must eat at least 1 gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight, or something like that.

So does a, for example, 145lb gymnast eat 145 grams of protein each day?

You don't need that much to build muscle lol! It helps, that's for sure, and you'll build more(if that's the training effect your training scheme elicits) and heal a bit faster, but you certainly don't NEED it.

I'm interested in what the OTC guidelines are, that I do not know. I DO know that strength-speed athletes have lower protein requirements than strength-endurance athletes in general. That's because strength is very highly dependant on the nervous system, not on pure muscle mass. That's why there are guys literally half my size who can squat 600 lbs. Yea. They're not beefcake either.

[Jason Stein]

If I recall, 2000 US Olympian Stephen McCain ate high protein/low carb. I'm sure there's data on this somewhere.

As far as overall consumption, Arkaev says that daily energy content during training is between 4500 and 5000 calories.

[Rafael David]

I think Gregor already talked about it here ... :roll:

[Enchiridion]

You don't need that much to build muscle lol! It helps, that's for sure, and you'll build more(if that's the training effect your training scheme elicits) and heal a bit faster, but you certainly don't NEED it.

Well, if this is 100% true, then I'm relieved, because I'm not in the States anymore where it is easy to eat a lot and good food, or buy supplements and stuff. That's just not the case over here, unless you have a lot of money here which I don't. I probably couldn't be eating 6 times a day anyways, like the guy in the article says: http://www.projectswole.com/diet/how-mu ... -in-a-day/

I'm interested in what the OTC guidelines are, that I do not know. I DO know that strength-speed athletes have lower protein requirements than strength-endurance athletes in general. That's because strength is very highly dependant on the nervous system, not on pure muscle mass. That's why there are guys literally half my size who can squat 600 lbs. Yea. They're not beefcake either.

What's OTC?

[Joshua Naterman]

Olympic Training Center!

The biggest thing to pay attention to is calories. If you want to get bigger, you need more calories. That is one thing that will never change! Right now, worry about getting strong. When you're strong, it's easy to get big. When you're weak, it's much harder because you're not strong enough to move enough weight to stimulate lots of growth. Since you're somewhat forced into a calorie restricted diet at the moment, concentrate on building your strength. That's something that, while it may come slowly, will still be possible with reduced calories. Getting big won't be. You've got to have the food!

[Enchiridion]

When you're strong, it's easy to get big. When you're weak, it's much harder because you're not strong enough to move enough weight to stimulate lots of growth.

True, that.

[Gregor]

It all depends how your training looks like and what your body reacts best. Some react better on higher carbs others on higher fat... Carbs:protein:fat ratio is diffrent from people to people from sport to sport from apparatus to apparatus from allarounders to specialists.

I don't count calories, but I make sure I take at least 2,5g per BW/kg proteins, enough good fat, and on strength days I rise amount of carbs.

[Patrick Angelo Sardilli]

Well we aren't doing long duration so carbs is out of the question for sure. Of course we still need to eat them just not excessive.

[Nicholas Sortino]

Well we aren't doing long duration so carbs is out of the question for sure. Of course we still need to eat them just not excessive.

Technically, you don't need to eat them at all. There are no essential carbs for the body. Nor do you necessarily need them to do endurance events. I am not arguing their validity for use by athletes, since I use them in small amounts to hopefully help fuel quicker recovery and greater strength gains. I am merely stating they are not not necessary for life, health or function.

[Joshua Naterman]

Well we aren't doing long duration so carbs is out of the question for sure. Of course we still need to eat them just not excessive.

Technically, you don't need to eat them at all. There are no essential carbs for the body. Nor do you necessarily need them to do endurance events. I am not arguing their validity for use by athletes, since I use them in small amounts to hopefully help fuel quicker recovery and greater strength gains. I am merely stating they are not not necessary for life, health or function.

That's technically the exact opposite of the truth. Carbs are so essential that our bodies have developed processes like gluconeogenesis to create carbohydrates from many other substances so that even if we can not eat carbs directly our bodies can still store sugar in muscles and the liver, which in turn helps the brain to function and the body to move. If there is little/no protein available either the process of ketosis protects us from 100% glycogen depletion and also from the body's structural proteins being broken down for use as carbs. One way or the other our body gets the pyruvate it needs, but for some reason our bodies protect a small amount of glycogen no matter what. We wouldn't do that if it wasn't essential. That is literally the body's last resort. Even existing hunter-gatherers don't live that way.

So, it seems that carbs are in fact quite necessary for life, health AND function. Our bodies literally run on them. That's like saying you don't need electricity to run a radio because it's solar. The radio is still running on electricity. Whether that electricity comes from somewhere else or is made by the machine itself does not matter. Same thing with piezoelectric devices. Current from crystal compression? It's STILL electricity. Our body is equipped to keep us supplied with at least a minimal level of carbs regardless of dietary macronutrient breakdown because we can't live without them. True 100% ketosis without gluconeogenesis is practically impossible. If you're taking in protein at all, some will be converted to carbs for essential processes. We don't need very much, but we DO need some. If we didn't why would our bodies use ketosis to protect us from 100% glycogen depletion? I am completely open to more information on this, but I think I have presented both a fair AND accurate view here. I do think it is quite interesting that all of our energy sources can be converted into pyruvate, which appears to be the one essential part of cellular metabolism.

Now, essential for dietary consumption is something else again. We could easily make the argument that many, many vitamins and minerals are not essential, but there is so much evidence supporting a balanced intake of the various known vitamins and minerals that only a fool would think he/she could perform their best without them. There is some good evidence that endurance can be maintained on a very high fat diet, so for endurance carbs certainly seem to not be "essential" for performance. I have yet to see results for strength on a very low/no carb diet, and I really don't know how that would go.

The need for dietary carbs really depends on each person's genetics, specific activities and dietary adaptation over time. I don't think anyone wants to try and make the argument that one can perform at their full potential without full glycogen stores, because it is a well known and well supported fact that the less sugar you've got stored the less time you will be able to maintain a higher intensity training session, meaning any session where fat isn't giving you enough energy on its own. That's pretty much every workout that isn't a light stretch or low-level active recovery. There are many ways to recover glycogen, but I have yet to see or hear about someone who stays away from all carbs all the time and is totally kicking everyone's butt. They eat veggies. They eat berries. There are carbs stored in meat, spices, milk, so on and so on. I think the term "carbs" needs to be somewhat more clearly defined, because when you start looking at your food from a chemical perspective instead of local vernacular you may realize there are a lot more carbs there than you realized.

If you're interested in keeping carbs low or absent, you're going to need a lot of MCT, so you may want to look into coconut oil and coconut milk. They have done wonders for me! I personally like having more of that and no carbs that don't come from fruits or veggies. I keep getting stronger and leaner.

[Razz]

I would be very interested to hear Ido's or Robb Wolfs thoughts in regards to performance on low CHO diets (10-20% kcal from carbs) in regards to anaerob performance. So far I haven't seen studies where the low carb-high fat performed even close to what the high carb group did...

[Nicholas Sortino]

That's technically the exact opposite of the truth. Carbs are so essential that our bodies have developed processes like gluconeogenesis to create carbohydrates from many other substances so that even if we can not eat carbs directly our bodies can still store sugar in muscles and the liver, which in turn helps the brain to function and the body to move. If there is little/no protein available either the process of ketosis protects us from 100% glycogen depletion and also from the body's structural proteins being broken down for use as carbs. One way or the other our body gets the pyruvate it needs, but for some reason our bodies protect a small amount of glycogen no matter what. We wouldn't do that if it wasn't essential. That is literally the body's last resort. Even existing hunter-gatherers don't live that way.

So, it seems that carbs are in fact quite necessary for life, health AND function. Our bodies literally run on them. That's like saying you don't need electricity to run a radio because it's solar. The radio is still running on electricity. Whether that electricity comes from somewhere else or is made by the machine itself does not matter. Same thing with piezoelectric devices. Current from crystal compression? It's STILL electricity. Our body is equipped to keep us supplied with at least a minimal level of carbs regardless of dietary macronutrient breakdown because we can't live without them. True 100% ketosis without gluconeogenesis is practically impossible. If you're taking in protein at all, some will be converted to carbs for essential processes. We don't need very much, but we DO need some. If we didn't why would our bodies use ketosis to protect us from 100% glycogen depletion? I am completely open to more information on this, but I think I have presented both a fair AND accurate view here. I do think it is quite interesting that all of our energy sources can be converted into pyruvate, which appears to be the one essential part of cellular metabolism.

Now, essential for dietary consumption is something else again. We could easily make the argument that many, many vitamins and minerals are not essential, but there is so much evidence supporting a balanced intake of the various known vitamins and minerals that only a fool would think he/she could perform their best without them. There is some good evidence that endurance can be maintained on a very high fat diet, so for endurance carbs certainly seem to not be "essential" for performance. I have yet to see results for strength on a very low/no carb diet, and I really don't know how that would go.

The need for dietary carbs really depends on each person's genetics, specific activities and dietary adaptation over time. I don't think anyone wants to try and make the argument that one can perform at their full potential without full glycogen stores, because it is a well known and well supported fact that the less sugar you've got stored the less time you will be able to maintain a higher intensity training session, meaning any session where fat isn't giving you enough energy on its own. That's pretty much every workout that isn't a light stretch or low-level active recovery. There are many ways to recover glycogen, but I have yet to see or hear about someone who stays away from all carbs all the time and is totally kicking everyone's butt. They eat veggies. They eat berries. There are carbs stored in meat, spices, milk, so on and so on. I think the term "carbs" needs to be somewhat more clearly defined, because when you start looking at your food from a chemical perspective instead of local vernacular you may realize there are a lot more carbs there than you realized.

If you're interested in keeping carbs low or absent, you're going to need a lot of MCT, so you may want to look into coconut oil and coconut milk. They have done wonders for me! I personally like having more of that and no carbs that don't come from fruits or veggies. I keep getting stronger and leaner.

Now slizz, I think you are taking my statement out of context. I was only talking about dietary carbohydrates. They are not essential for life or function. There are many cultures that have thrived on a virtually zero carb (eating nothing but meat) diet. Some prime examples would be the northern Cree and Eskimo.

Your argument about the watch actually supports my viewpoint. Whether or not our bodies may create glycogen is not the point, or rather it is the point. Our bodies will make it regardless of whether or not we consume glucose. Just like that watch doesn't need batteries to make electricity, we don't need dietary carbohydrates to make the small amount of glycogen we require.

Your point about vitamins and minerals irks me some. Show me a study that conclusively proves we need all of these different vitamins and minerals, and in particular, in the amounts they say we do. . We don't understand the human body that well. RDA amounts are not contrived from science, they are amounts measured in supposedly "healthy" people eating a typical western diet. A prime example of this would be Vitamin C. "Experts" claim we need so much Vit. C in our diets to prevent scurvy and other sicknesses. Then why is that people can survive indefinitely (for their lifespan of course) on an all meat with no vitamin supplementation at all and not get scurvy or have these other deficiencies that we will certainly get if we don't get enough of "x" vitamin or mineral? How can people who lived on nothing but caribou meat and fat not have brittle bones from lack of calcium and vitamin D?

As to Very Low Carbers crushing the competition, I cannot account for that. I the the Author of This Blog eats a zero carb diet and runs regular half marathons, often times placing in the top 10%. I would venture to say there some stellar athletes out there that eat very few carbs but are not vocal about it. It could also be the people themselves. Some people will still be among the best regardless of what they do. Others of us will never come to their level no matter how hard we train and how well we eat.

If you haven't read them, I highly suggest both Good Calories Bad Calories and Not by Bread Alone.

I'll leave with a few more things to consider:

Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance

Blog article about the possible negative affect of Vitamin C supplementation on exercise

An entire community of Zero Carbers. - Sure they may be a little crazy and extremely opinionated, but there is some very good information buried within their forums. It is worth a look if the concept interests you.

[Joshua Naterman]

Now slizz, I think you are taking my statement out of context. I was only talking about dietary carbohydrates. They are not essential for life or function. There are many cultures that have thrived on a virtually zero carb (eating nothing but meat) diet. Some prime examples would be the northern Cree and Eskimo.

That's true, but interestingly they seem to have some issues with blood leaking through the smaller blood vessels due to the extremely high levels of EPA they consume. I had no idea about that, my buddy Andrew just learned something about that recently in his 400 level nutrition class for exercise science. I don't have any idea how serious or not serious those complications are.

[Quote}

Your argument about the watch actually supports my viewpoint. Whether or not our bodies may create glycogen is not the point, or rather it is the point. Our bodies will make it regardless of whether or not we consume glucose. Just like that watch doesn't need batteries to make electricity, we don't need dietary carbohydrates to make the small amount of glycogen we require.

I know! I wasn't actually trying to say you're wrong, just clarifying a technicality. I'm not really worried about you not realizing what I pointed out half so much as some people who come here and just don't know very much, because they may run with that and end up giving bad advice to others when they really shouldn't be giving any advice to anyone.

Your point about vitamins and minerals irks me some. Show me a study that conclusively proves we need all of these different vitamins and minerals, and in particular, in the amounts they say we do. . We don't understand the human body that well. RDA amounts are not contrived from science, they are amounts measured in supposedly "healthy" people eating a typical western diet. A prime example of this would be Vitamin C. "Experts" claim we need so much Vit. C in our diets to prevent scurvy and other sicknesses. Then why is that people can survive indefinitely (for their lifespan of course) on an all meat with no vitamin supplementation at all and not get scurvy or have these other deficiencies that we will certainly get if we don't get enough of "x" vitamin or mineral? How can people who lived on nothing but caribou meat and fat not have brittle bones from lack of calcium and vitamin D?

These are interesting questions, and as it happens I have taken an hour and managed to dig up answers for you because your questions were interesting to me too!

I don't know about any particular cultures, but many cultures consume cartilage and parts of the bones and bone marrow. That material is fairly dense in calcium, and this quote may be of interest : "Fats as part of a meal slow down absorption so that we can go longer without feeling hungry. In addition, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. They play a vital role in the health of our bones. For calcium to be effectively incorporated into the skeletal structure, at least 50% of the dietary fats should be saturated." The source is http://www.health-report.co.uk/saturated_fats_health_benefits.htm which itself directly references the original research studies. It appears as though the presence of fat itself helps protect our health and helps us use the vitamins and minerals we consume.

I ran across this story in my search for the beginning of scurvy treatment: Basically, a British sailor with scurvy started eating grass and got better. It was eventually found that ascorbic acid was the key to preventing scurvy. It turns out that grass is a great source of ascorbic acid, as are many plants. Now, if we eat something that eats a ton of plants, why should it be surprising that we get the same protection from scurvy? Do some google searching and you will find this: grass-fed cattle are much higher in vitamin E, vitamin C and beta-carotene than grain-fed, but ALL meat has these nutrients! Interesting, isn't it? The meat BECOMES our source of vitamins and minerals, particularly when it is raised on a natural diet for that animal. The blood of animals also is an excellent source.

We DO need vitamins and minerals. This is not a subject for debate. How much? That's a great question and in my book there are no perfect answers. The ISSA has some interesting guidelines that call for far more than the RDA (which we both know is completely unscientific) and are based on a lot of research in some cases and athlete experiences in others. I am not entirely sure that we really have a perfect answer on that one or that we ever will, I mean it will always be a function of lean mass and total body mass so each person will have unique requirements. I think the best we could do is come up with some pretty good equations for breaking down the amount per lb of lean mass with a modifier for body fat percentage. I think that could be done with several long-term case studies used as starting points and then using that data to generate initial equations, followed by larger sample studies to figure out how much these case studies can generalize. If it's found to be good, those equations could be a very solid foundation for perfect nutrition. Or... people could just start eating grassfed meats and drinking raw milk. But that's crazy, we need science, man... SCIENCE.

The RDA exists to make sure that we are not abnormally sick. They are not designed to produce perfect health, they are simply designed to (hopefully) ward off chronic malnutrition diseases like scurvy and rickets. Very much not the same thing as optimal performance or optimal health.

As to Very Low Carbers crushing the competition, I cannot account for that. I the the Author of This Blog eats a zero carb diet and runs regular half marathons, often times placing in the top 10%. I would venture to say there some stellar athletes out there that eat very few carbs but are not vocal about it. It could also be the people themselves. Some people will still be among the best regardless of what they do. Others of us will never come to their level no matter how hard we train and how well we eat.

Great points! I really have no idea either, although keep in mind that I did notice earlier that endurance performance seems to be unaffected by carbohydrate intake. I have yet to see any studies on strength/power athletes and variations in performance due to carb intake modulation.

[quote

If you haven't read them, I highly suggest both Good Calories Bad Calories and Not by Bread Alone.

I'll leave with a few more things to consider:

Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance

Blog article about the possible negative affect of Vitamin C supplementation on exercise

An entire community of Zero Carbers. - Sure they may be a little crazy and extremely opinionated, but there is some very good information buried within their forums. It is worth a look if the concept interests you.

I will have to check some of these out. I do know that high levels of vitamin C appear to actually retard athletic progress, I remember that from my performance nutrition cert. I don't remember details anymore.

Thank you for all the questions, opinions, and info! I learned a good bit during this last hour.

[Nicholas Sortino]

Seems we are in agreeable for the most part on this topic. I didn't want to make it seem as if I believe we don't need vitamins and minerals to survive, more that we don't know how much we need, or what we don't necessarily need. It is all likely very dependent on a lot of factors. I seriously doubt someone who consumes primarily fatty meat with a few veggies needs nearly as many vitamins to stay healthy as someone who eats high amounts of carbs. I do not believe vitamin supplementation is healthy or important, unless of course it is a vitamin that you are deficient in. I still feel taking multi-vitamins carries more risks than benefits, and are not worth my money.

I only wanted to present the point that one can function and even perform without and plant matter at all. I am not saying it is the best method, but that it is a viable one.

That's true, but interestingly they seem to have some issues with blood leaking through the smaller blood vessels due to the extremely high levels of EPA they consume. I had no idea about that, my buddy Andrew just learned something about that recently in his 400 level nutrition class for exercise science. I don't have any idea how serious or not serious those complications are.

To my knowledge, although I haven't researched it, this only affects those that ate an almost entirely fish diet. The peoples I choose to model my example off of survived almost entirely off of caribou or bison, depending on the region. If this happens to be something that affects them as well, please let me know.

As to the studies on strength/power athletes, I may have something that may interest you. Sometime after the holidays I plan on testing this on myself. For a minimum of an 8 week period I will eat nothing but fat and meat, some cheese, and a small amount of goat milk and cream. I will not take any vitamin or mineral supplements besides the small amount of cod liver and krill oil I take currently. I am still on the fence about creatine and beta-alanine. I will test my perfomance in both strength and speed exercises before this, and then again at 8 weeks. I don't intend to change my training methods during that time. Of course one person does not a study make, but it will be some form of evidence one way or the other, even if it only truly pertains to me.

[Joshua Naterman]

That will actually be really awesome!

I'm almost positive that you are correct in stating that the leaky blood thing only happens to nearly exclusive fish diets.

The way I see it, if something is already eating all the things I'm "supposed" to eat (in terms of veggies and fruits and all that), and eating FAR more than I do, why should I go eat all that stuff all the time when I can just eat the deer and get the same benefit? It's ridiculous for people to say that won't work when they have never even looked into the nutritional qualities of the foods in question. We know it works. Go meat! I DO like eating some veggies, but it's almost all cruciferous. I do find that the occasional sweet potato after dynamic push days helps me a bit, but I too play around with my diet a bit. These days I vastly prefer the way I feel when I'm taking in a lot of coconut products and far less starches/sugars.

I used to think we needed all these carbs and whatnot, but thanks to many discussions here and subsequent research I have found that to be almost entirely untrue. We are capable of functioning well on a wide variety of diets, so long as each meets our requirements for vitamins, minerals and energy. Some just seem to be a bit healthier than others in terms of chronic disease risk. As the son of a diabetic who has eaten absolutely terribly for the first 20 years of life or so, I am very interested in not ever having to deal with that diabetes crap, and I really really am doing my best to not get caught up with that. I'm feeling better than I ever have, and I'm not eating very many carbs at all. My buddy doesn't think it's the MOST brilliant, but I think that as I feed him more research and background that he'll see more of the nutritional equivalency.

[Neal Winkler]

Carb intake most definitely effects endurance performance. Carbs are a faster source of energy, and even though you can increase the rate at which you derive energy from fat it will not catch up to carbs.

What's the issue here? You won't die if you never eat carbs again, sure, but they do affect both anaerobic and aerobic endurance performance.

[Nicholas Sortino]

Carb intake most definitely effects endurance performance. Carbs are a faster source of energy, and even though you can increase the rate at which you derive energy from fat it will not catch up to carbs.

What's the issue here? You won't die if you never eat carbs again, sure, but they do affect both anaerobic and aerobic endurance performance.

But we've already seen studies showing they don't infact matter for endurance. The first link I posted demonstrates that in multiple studies.

Whether or not it will affect my strength gains and ability to sprint are still in question. Common knowledge says of course it will, but common knowledge is pretty wrong about a lot of things. This is why I want to test it on myself. I am quite certain the less carbs I eat, the lower my chances of chronic diseases. So now I want to find the level where my carbs are at their lowest and my performance at its highest. My test will be measuring 0-20g of carbs a day for 8 weeks, nothing from the plant kingdom at all (including oils). We'll see how it turns out.

[Joshua Naterman]

Carb intake most definitely effects endurance performance. Carbs are a faster source of energy, and even though you can increase the rate at which you derive energy from fat it will not catch up to carbs.

What's the issue here? You won't die if you never eat carbs again, sure, but they do affect both anaerobic and aerobic endurance performance.

There actually HAVE been some excellent studies showing that it is possible to have the same performance on low carb as traditional endurance nutrition. Anaerobic... that's a different world altogether. You're talking about pure glycolysis, and as far as I have read I have seen nothing that suggests MCT can act in place of local glycogen. That doesn't mean they can't or don't but as far as I know there is no research in this area.

[Patrick Angelo Sardilli]

good discussion here.

[Razz]

Yeah, the issue is strength power, not endurance. In endurance it seems like fat may even be superior to carbs in some situations.