Competition Nutrition Guide
COMPETITION: NUTRITION GUIDE
8 WEEKS OUT: SHIFT YOUR FOCUS
There’s still time to get your nutrition dialed in before that competition you just signed up for but you need to get your booty in gear. If you’re thinking you need to get lean prior to week 1 of the CrossFit Open or your weekend long competition, you need to shift your mindset. There are definitely times to lose body fat but now is not that time. Instead, focus on being able to perform your best.
Why? Because going into a competition, be it a weekend event or 3 weeks of competition after several weeks of a hard deficit most likely won’t end well. The body doesn’t like being in a deficit and you’ll miss out on performing at your highest potential if you go into competition undernourished. Instead, let’s spend the next 8 weeks eating at maintenance which will foster lean muscle growth as well as improve your overall fitness level.
If you’ve never paid attention to how many calories you consume in a day, download a free food tracking app like MacrosFirst or MyFitnessPal and start tracking.
7 WEEKS OUT: HOW MUCH SHOULD I BE EATING?
Now that you’ve spent a week learning about your current eating habits and getting a feel for how many calories you’re currently consuming, it’s time to figure out what your maintenance calories are.
There are a couple ways to go about this. If you’re a past or current AIM client then you have a good idea what your maintenance calories are and know your way around breaking those calories down into an appropriate macro prescription to optimize your calorie consumption.
If you haven't worked with AIM before and are new to the macros game, we recommend researching Alan Aragon’s TDEE macro calculator. This simple formula uses your body weight and activity level to provide a target calorie range. While simplistic, it can get the job done.
Once you figure out your maintenance calories it’s time to build a set of macro goals to follow. Again, if you’ve spent time with AIM and have a good understanding of macros you’ll be able to fine tune these generalized percentages to better fit your needs.
For everyone else, follow these steps to get a general idea of macros to follow.
We’ll use an example of a 200 pound man eating 2,500 calories a day:
Step 1: Find protein goal: Multiply your body weight by .7 - .9 and aim to eat that amount of protein in grams each day. (200 pounds x .9 = 180 grams of protein a day) To find the calories consumed by way of protein take your total grams and multiply that number by 4. (180g x 4 = 720 calories).
Step 2: Find fat goal: A general rule of thumb is to eat 30% of your calories by way of fat.
Take your maintenance calories and multiply them by .3 and then divide that number by 9. (2,500 calories x .3 = 750. 750 / 9 = 83 grams of fat a day)
Step 3: Find carbohydrate goal: Once we’ve figured out how many calories we’re going to be consuming from protein and fat we can take our remaining calories and divide that by 4 to get our daily carbohydrate goal.
2,500 maintenance calories - (720 protein calories + 750 fat calories) = 1030 calories for carbohydrates.
(1,028 calories / 4 = 257g of carbs)
Goal Macros: 180g P / 83g F / 257g C
6 WEEKS OUT: FOCUS ON A SUPPORTIVE ROUTINE
Figuring out your maintenance calories and macro prescription are valuable pieces of information to use for being as prepared as possible for competition. With your competition only 6 weeks out, implementing this new knowledge as much as possible is going to support a stellar performance by you.
Adherence is the commitment to a cause or belief.
Consistency is acting in the same way over time, especially so as to be fair or accurate.
If you want your effort to foster results, then it’s important to commit to being as adherent and as consistent as possible to your nutrition and fitness plan. Having a goal to make the top 10% in the CrossFit Open or landing on the podium in your age group provides you direction but eventually a well-designed system will always win. Make sure your systems are supportive of the areas you want to excel in (being as strong and fit as possible for your competition).
Looking forward, now is the right time to start thinking about building a really strong routine.
Do you wake up at the same time?
Do you go to bed at the same time?
Do you eat at the same time?
Do you work out at the same time?
Do you normally eat before working out?
What about supplements or coffee?
If you have a solid routine already, nice work!
If you’re lacking one, now is a good time to change that. Waking up, eating, training, and sleeping at the same time consistently can produce better sleep, reduce stress, improve nutritional consistency, etc.
Committing to the process is what makes the difference.
5 WEEKS OUT: GUT CHECK
Now that you’re following a nutrition plan consistently, it’s important for you to do a self assessment of how things are going. Let’s use this week to analyze how you felt.
How did workouts go?
Did you have plenty of energy?
How was your recovery across the week?
How did you sleep? Wake up any more or less than usual?
If you answered positively to those questions, keep up the good work. However, if you felt a bit lethargic, woke up in the middle of the night frequently, or had a poor recovery, you might think about adding ~20-40 grams of carbs for a few days and seeing if your biofeedback improves.
How’s your pre-workout nutrition??
Make sure you’re eating a pre-workout meal roughly 1-2 hours prior to your workout.
~ 40g (men)/~20g (women) of protein and ~ 50-80g of carbs is a good starting point. An athlete’s carbohydrate intake is specific to each individual but something to keep in mind is that the maximum amount of carbohydrates that can be digested and absorbed during exercise is 60-80 grams per hour.
4 WEEKS OUT: RECOVERY
Fueling for performance goes much further than eating some carbs before your workout. It’s easy to only think of fueling for performance as the food you eat prior to your workout but you’re doing yourself a disservice by doing so.
The only way to perform at your highest potential during a competition is to have solid training under your belt. The only way to have solid training under your belt is to have consistently good training sessions. The only way to have consistently good training sessions is to be recovered to put your body through high strain situations day after day.
This is where recovery plays a significant role.
If you're not recovering well, you're not going to train well. In turn, this results in suboptimal performance come competition time.
Here are the three key components of recovery we suggest you focus on.
Food Quality: While macronutrients are important when it comes to maximizing your performance, we cannot forget about micronutrients either. In general, micronutrients are required to run an efficient metabolism, so ensuring that you’re filling your macros with whole, perishable foods that support your health and performance is a must. Focusing on eating a total of 800g (in combined weight) of fruits and vegetables every day is a simple and effective way to ensure you’re getting in your micronutrients along with your macronutrients. Simply choosing to “eat the rainbow” from your foods (and not from skittles) will get the job done.
Given our modern-busy lifestyles, the tendency is for people to sleep too little (33% of adults). We recommend a baseline of 7 hours, however, if an athlete is putting in several hours of training this baseline might look more like 8-9 hours a night. Focusing on good sleep hygiene (time in bed, avoiding blue screen, cool temperature, white noise, and wake time consistency) will serve your recovery well.
The amount of strain we accrue in a day isn’t only from the hard workout we had. We must take into account the other factors that are putting stress on our bodies and minds. Outside stressors such as our work load, children’s activities, relationship stress, illness, and busyness all play a role.
Pay attention to the external stressors that you take on and do your best to implement a system(s) to minimize it. Be proactive, write to-do lists and accomplish them based on importance, practice good communication skills with your spouse and peers, prep meals or use a meal service, and choose quiet time away from a screen instead of in front of one.
3 WEEKS OUT: MEAL TIMING
It’s time to make sure you’re getting the most out of your quality nutrition. Meal timing is a great way to add yet another layer for optimizing your performance. Being only 3 weeks out from competition, it’s a great time to nail down some macro breakdowns and food choices that work well for you prior to workouts as well as support solid recovery.
Remember though…without an initial balanced and consistent diet the results and improved performance for an athlete will be minimal. Remember this when you’re asking about when to eat those extra 20g of carbs or take your BCAAs.
Early Pre-Workout (1-3 hours prior)
P: make sure to include at this meal so amino acids are available
C: Eat a mix of high and low GI carbs (grains and leafy greens)
F: Fat slows digestion, incorporating some fat in this meal is ok but don’t overdo it
Immediate/ Intra workout meal:
(30 min prior or half way through 2+ hours)
P: whey protein shake
C: high GI carbs (white rice, fruit, baby food/fuel pouches, carb/protein shakes)
F: Avoid high fat foods in this meal!
Post Workout Meal:
First Meal After Workout (0-2 hours after)
P: Will continue promoting muscle growth and recovery
C: High GI carbs so they can quickly absorb to allow for optimal recovery
F: Keep fats low, we want to process C and P
Outside of workout window:
(4-5 hours either side of workout)
These meals assist with recovery and can prepare us for a good night’s sleep.
P: Casein before sleep
C: Low GI carbs keep glycogen and glucose stocked without spiking insulin
F: Time for Fats! Keeps your digestion slow
This is the best time to eat essential macro and micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals that weren’t eaten around workout time, like fats and more fibrous vegetables.
2 WEEKS OUT: GAME PLAN PRACTICE
This week let’s focus on 24 hours prior to your actual workouts.
THE NIGHT BEFORE:
It can take up to 24 hours to replenish glycogen stores, which means that if you want to be "topped off" for the workout, you need to eat adequately at least 24 hours before the event starts. For most people, their normal macro intake will be sufficient for a single workout, but if you feel even slightly burned out, then it’s a good idea to add an extra 50 grams of carbs. This shouldn’t be an issue in week 1, but by week 3, it might be necessary especially if we’re talking about a competition like the CrossFit Open where you may be doing a workout multiple times each week.
As for carb type, veggies are great but focus on dense starchy carbs like sweet potatoes, rice, quinoa, oatmeal, etc. These are easy to break down and will help to top off your muscle glycogen levels.
Stay relatively hydrated and make sure you're not thirsty before you go to bed. You can't fix dehydration in one hour, so get your stuff together the day(s) before.
THE DAY OF:
Don’t eat solid foods ~2 hours prior to the workout. We don’t want anything heavy sitting in your gut during these ultra-high-intensity workouts.
An hour before the your workout, eat something easily digestible like a @fuelforfire, applesauce pouches, or a banana. These can provide a little extra glucose for the workout. Follow your normal pre-workout supplement routine and then go crush the workout.
WHAT IF THERE ARE TWO BACK-TO-BACK WORKOUTS?
If there is a workout with two components to it, or your events are set up with limited rest time between them, have something sweet to sip on between the events, and between lifts. Gatorade, coconut water, or even fruit juice all work here.
Why? Studies have consistently shown that tasting sweet flavors while fatigued can increase athletic performance. The cool thing about this is that you don’t technically even have to swallow the drink! All that matters is your brain SENSES that more fuel is coming and you’ll get the benefit!
1 WEEK OUT: EXECUTION
At this point, your nutrition should be pretty much set! Last week we covered how to approach eating the day before and the day of for each workout. But… what happens if your nerves get the best of you and your appetite disappears? What can we do to get it back?
Let’s just quickly review the science behind this phenomenon.
You never have to think, “Beat my heart, digest my food, make sweat.” These functions are controlled by the AUTONOMIC nervous system which can be subdivided into the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system (SNS & PSNS). The SNS is considered the “fight or flight” system, preparing your body for intense action. Any intense physical exercise (like your workout), but also emotional stress, activate this system as well. The PSNS is called the “rest and digest” system. In many ways, it’s the opposite of the SNS. It is activated by calming thoughts and deep breathing. Activation of the SNS can dramatically slow digestion. This is because under intense stress the body prioritizes actions IMMEDIATELY required for survival. Digestion of the meal you ate 2 hours ago is NOT the priority. From what we’ve seen, many people experience this phenomenon before major competitions. Suddenly all of the good plans they made around nutrition go out the window because they’ve lost their appetite. The good news is that science has taught us a few simple breathing tricks to calm the brain down and bring back your appetite.
One way is to perform a technique called “Box Breathing” a few times throughout the day and during warm ups. The box breathing technique is a quick, simple, and effective way to calm your body and mind. To execute, simply count as you breathe, and breathe with intention. There will be a 4 second inhale, a four second exhale, and a four second hold at the bottom. Complete the box as many times as necessary until you feel calmer.
Another way is to utilize nasal breathing as long as possible in warm ups and when the timer starts. The longer a person can breathe through their nose the longer they’re going to hang in that PSNS state. Granted, we know that doing Fran while breathing through your nose is likely unrealistic. The longer you can stay in that ‘rest and digest’ state the better off you’ll be in those longer chipper style workouts.
If you want to have someone in your corner while you prepare for your competition, our AIM coaches are here to ensure you’re ready to rock and roll come game time.