Today, we are joined by Sports Dietitian, Rachel Svenson, to discuss nutritional strategies for the injured athlete. We discuss supplementation for soft tissue injuries as well as nutritional guidelines for dreaded stress fractures. Further, we discuss how injury forced lay-offs may present an opportunity for the athlete to review and improve their dietary habits to improve their performance on their return to activity.
Contact Rachel at:w: www.rachelsvenson.com, or info@rachelsvenson.com
Transcript:
hi guys it’s Anthony from Grand Stand
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sports clinic today’s topic is all about
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nutrition am I really lucky to be joined
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by Rachel Spencer who is a consulting
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sports dietitian
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[Music]
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all right thanks so much for joining us
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today now you’ve obviously had a lot of
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experience dealing with about latina in
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a variety of different environments so
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from the NRA or super 12 rugby and
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high-performance New Zealand can you
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tell us a little bit about your
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experiences dealing with athletes with
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nutritional issues sure thank you for
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having me the my I’ve had about 12 15
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years of experience with sports
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nutrition and that’s from you know young
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athletes right through development
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stages through to professional athletes
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so there’s a big range of experiences
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I’ve had in both male and female sports
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and a variety of sports so individuals
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doing individual triathlon multi-sport
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events athletics through to team sports
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through soccer yeah an NRL rugby has
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been a big part of of my sports
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nutrition practice as well so with all
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the different types of athletes that
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you’ve worked with who would you think
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would be the most challenging athletes
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to work without doping anyone in oh okay
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no names they the challenging ones
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probably that athletes who don’t have a
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lot of nutritional knowledge behind them
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and who’ve been probably progress
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through this sport quite quickly and
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those are the ones who just haven’t got
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nutrition fully grasped and often other
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ones who are going off to other people
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to you know seek nutrition advice they
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can be the challenging ones if the other
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ones are also the guys who will players
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athletes whoever you’re talking to who
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just need to change body composition for
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whatever sport or yeah whatever they’re
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doing whether that’s you know trying to
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get their skin folds or their lean mess
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Millie miss high body fat Maslow yeah
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and that can be challenging for some who
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still aren’t God good on you Trisha you
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still want to achieve those results
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define that’s a real issue with
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nutrition that people are sourcing their
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information from unreliable sources so
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what they’re seeing on Instagram or
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things like that
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who has worked its way into sport I
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think it’s always been there but it’s
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certainly more with social media now
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it’s certainly an outlet for people to
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go and look at and get advice and mates
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are a great one for advice but mates
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really don’t know what they’re talking
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about and you really want somebody who’s
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got some good knowledge behind them and
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who can actually point you in the right
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direction yeah this everyone eats so
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everyone’s an expert that’s how they
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come across yeah
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sir Oh Tessa physiotherapist we tend to
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see people pretty soon after they’ve
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injured themselves whether they be a
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muscle strain or ligament tear or
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something like that
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now as well as doing the physio stuff
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that we manage are there any sort of
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nutritional strategies specifically for
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soft tissue injuries that clients could
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be looking at doing sure and I think
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this is an area that’s growing quite
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rapidly and nutrition at the moment
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there’s a lot of information out there
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for you know for people to have a look
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at but certainly inflammation is one of
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the key ones that we’re trying to settle
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down as quickly as we can and although
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the body has its natural you know
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inflammation process that it has to go
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to through the usually within about five
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to seven days after an injury is a
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really good time to start targeting the
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food and there are some really good
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really sound practices and and research
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out there which tells us that by
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modifying your diet you can improve your
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you know reduce inflammation quite
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quickly I think that’s a really
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important point because we have
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obviously quite a few of our patients
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who are in that inflammatory sort of
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cycle and you know understandably some
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people are resistant to go on to the
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heavy pharmaceutical anti-inflammatories
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so there there are alternatives which oh
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yeah so fish oils is a really common one
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that we all know about another
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anti-inflammatory food so you know have
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you got you know avocado and your diet
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have you got some good nuts in your diet
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and using seeds things like that looking
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at berries and pineapple you know and
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there’s another good into your lemon
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tree okay and it’s obviously being some
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talk in the industry about tumeric oh
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yeah okay it’s a big one don’t you tell
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me about the tumor no it’s
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it’s a very good product there’s some
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really good evidence around it so tumor
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if itself has a small amount of an
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active ingredient called curcumin and so
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it’s actually the curcumin the
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ingredient you’re looking for so if you
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want to use your off-the-shelf turmeric
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you’ll have to use probably four or five
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tablespoons of it every day to get the
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benefit and to maximize that again you
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need to add black pepper to it
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the curcumin that you want to use off
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the shelf and a supplement form needs to
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be inactivated form so you need to be
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looking for something that has a high
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percentage of curcumin content in it
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rather than turmeric and the curcumin
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content also needs to be bio activated
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so you’re those are the sort of things
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you’re looking for and the product so
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right what about the other side of the
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coin are there foods that we should be
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avoiding when we are in an inflammatory
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status to do to prevent information from
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happening there are foods that we
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classify as pro-inflammatory and those
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are the ones that we want to avoid the
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main ones are processed foods that are
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high in fat so commercially prepared
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cakes and biscuits and crackers that are
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have a high fat content and them
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takeaway foods those particularly and if
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you’re using canola oils some flower
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oils so you been oils in your cupboard
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we look at reducing those so rich what
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about the athlete ooh I’ve got a high
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training load and worry about having an
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injury there preventative strategies in
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athletes can look out to try to avoid an
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injury from taking place yeah so those
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sort of soft tissue injuries ligaments
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tendons and cartilage there’s been a lot
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more research just in the last even
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couple of years about the use of
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collagen as a yes preventative so using
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collagen in the form of gelatin and
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using those on a daily basis the
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quantities are only like 10 15 grams and
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you take that dose before
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a training session where it has maximum
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benefit and what and what does that do
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is that yeah so what it’s working on is
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getting those essential amino acids that
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build collagen into the bloodstream
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so that when those soft tissues are
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being stressed as you wouldn’t training
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then the collagen is available for
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immediate repair after that training
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session it makes sense yeah yeah so
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that’s certainly proven now and really
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interesting area to movement aside from
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the soft tissue injuries we’ve spoken
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about obviously to be ready for a lot of
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athletes is the stress fractures because
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you interrupted training for so long in
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terms of nutritional strategies what
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sort of things would it need sports
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nutritionist advise for someone to
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prevent a stress fracture but also in
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the treatment of stress fractures
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certainly having an assessment done by
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Sports and nutrition is actually highly
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valuable it sports doctors can help you
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look at those criteria about body weight
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and looking at those body weight changes
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that often athletes go through looking
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at how to manage macronutrient intake so
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looking at your big carbohydrate protein
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fats nutrients and then looking at your
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micro nutrient intake so looking at
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vitamin D and calcium intakes
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specifically so given a gauge of are you
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meeting your requirements for those
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nutrients in some instances it might be
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necessary to go away and have your
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vitamin D level tested because you may
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actually be running around for low
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vitamin D level without even knowing
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that you have it so looking at
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preventive ways would just be making
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sure that you’ve got adequate nutrients
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of calcium and vitamin D in your diet
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now with any athlete who sustains a
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significant injury they obviously look
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at changing the amount of activity that
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are doing usually because the physio has
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if not prescribed rest at least
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prescribed protective rest for someone
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so that will change their energy output
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quite significantly do you find a fight
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struggle with that for me from the point
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of view absolutely no injuries can be
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quite a scary
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athletes as well because there’s the
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fear of gaining too much fat mass or
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losing lean muscle mass it doesn’t take
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too much manipulation around you know of
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the diet to achieve your goals
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we know that actually during an injury
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your calorie intake actually might need
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to be higher than what you anticipate
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because the injury itself requires a lot
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of calories to repair and recover and so
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there can be quite challenging as well
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really important to look at maybe some
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of your big macronutrients your carb
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intake may be adjusting that down at
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different times of the day looking at
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really good quality protein hits
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throughout the day so small quantities
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of protein looking at your fat and take
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good quality fats with those pro
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although there’s anti-inflammatory sets
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and then looking at some of your micro
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nutrient intake which we’ve discussed
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just around your you know antioxidants
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and anti-inflammatory foods and with
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athletes I’m assuming there’s a huge
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individual difference but if an athlete
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is removed from their training in the
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environment do you tend to find that do
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you struggle more with people overeating
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as a result of not training or actually
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go the other way and not eat enough
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because they’re completely probably what
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you find is people because they’re away
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it becomes a comfortable thing so maybe
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comfort eating on poor quality foods so
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you can direct an athlete and go you
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know what this is actually a really good
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time to review your diet and look at it
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and maybe increase the volume of food
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that you’re actually eating but from
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truth better sources so maybe thing just
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looking at how to increase your those
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small hits of protein the extra vitamins
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from fruits and vegetables that they
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haven’t really considered before so
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there is scopes who incur encourage that
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or allow that to happen but still within
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the realms of good nutrition and keeping
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you well nourished keeping you you know
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well without impacting on body weight
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too much so we can certainly use injury
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lay-off Sun like we do as physios to
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work on people’s weaknesses but we can
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actually also use it as an opportunity
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to make you know lifelong changes to an
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it’s nutrition hmm to make them a better
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athlete for when they return from their
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their injury as long as they keep the
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head around it so usually through an
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injury it’s the first day the week or
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two it’s a bit sluggish for them but
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then once you get into it and review
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diet and look at it’s a really exciting
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time for them to maybe make those
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changes if they’re ready for it yeah
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fantastic all right thank you so much
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for your time here Rachel remember
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Rachel is consulting yet grandstand
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sports injuries clinic will put up some
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details if you want to contact Rachel
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directly but certainly any of the
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athletes out there who want to know more
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about nutrition Rachel’s a fantastic
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resource and I can only encourage you
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and thank you so much
