If you want to be an elite hockey player, it takes lots of dedication and hard work, strength and conditioning, dry-land workouts and plyometrics.  All of this is critical; however, without proper nutrition, your dedication to achieving optimal hockey performance can be deterred with poor eating habits.

Since you’re serious about being a top athlete, you’ll find it difficult to achieve your goals without proper cellular nutrition. It is simply that important, so start building a solid foundation for long-term sports fitness and health.

In order for your cells to function optimally, they must be able to absorb the nutrients you

To reach the elite level of performance requires the right fuel.

Carey Price and other hockey players understand how important nutrition is to their performance
consume. Starting in the digestive tract, you need both balanced nutrition and receptive cells to accomplish this. When either or both of these systems are impaired, memory, clear thinking, problem solving and even mood can be affected. This is why cellular nutrition is essential for your good health.

Tying Nutrition to Your Hockey Performance

For hockey, nutrition is a key link between physical preparation and improved game performance. No matter how hard you work on and off the ice, without the right nutrition you’ll never achieve optimal hockey performance.

Learn how to delay fatigue, speed post-game recovery, promote prevention of illness, and assist the rehab process after an injury. Once a player realizes the power of certain food choices and how they can eat for hockey success, they can turn to nutrition as a competitive edge.

Improvements in hockey performance require extra physical exercise or practice time. If a player knows that simply choosing one type of food over another provides twice the energy on the ice, it will be a natural and easy choice to make.

NUTRIENTS

Six nutrients within four main food groups are essential for health and hockey success. The nutrients are carbohydrates, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, and water. The food groups are grain products, fruit and vegetables, milk products, and meat or meat alternatives.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the main source of energy during a hockey game. Complex carbohydrates come from many fruits/vegetables. Athletes are encouraged to get 65% or more of their daily caloric intake from carbohydrates, with 50% being from complex carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are the preferred fuel for intense hockey action.
Skating, shooting, and body checking all consume carbohydrates. Most carbohydrates in your body are stored in muscles. Since carbohydrates stored are relatively small, and hockey preferentially uses carbohydrates for energy, players need repetitive refueling, eating carbohydrates each day and each meal.
Preventing fatigue is critical to allowing hockey skills and technique to proceed unimpeded. When your muscles run out of carbs, your legs feel tired. Once fatigued, players lose speed, strength, and stride power, their skating ability, and technique is adversely affected. It also starts to cause low-blood sugar – which causes mental fatigue and lethargy.

There are two ways to increase your storage of carbohydrates:
Conditioning and carb loading. Proper nutrition allows hockey players to train harder and longer. And well-conditioned athletes can then store more carbohydrates. Once they can store more carbs, they can train with an even greater volume. Workouts are not just to develop the fitness, strength, speed, and energy systems needed for hockey performance. The workouts are also telling your body to store more carbohydrates – which also increases your endurance. You’ll have a double advantage over less prepared players.

Carb loading is something competitive hockey players need to do every day. To meet the energy requirements and recover from the high volume of activity, players need to consume a diet high in carbs, both after games and practices.

Fats

Fat has many positive roles for the body: providing energy for activities and protection for the body during impact, serving many optimal functions such as aiding digestion and vitamin transfer. But too much of the wrong fats is very unhealthy and makes movement less efficient, because the extra weight of fat does not contribute to movement, as muscles do.

Protein

Protein’s well-known function is to repair and build muscle tissue. Skinless turkey and chicken, non-fried fish, full fat cream and lean grass fed red meats are the “stars” of the protein foods.  They are high in protein and carbs and low in fat.

Vitamins and Minerals

While vitamins and minerals are not an energy source, but they are needed in the energy production process. Vitamins regulate many body functions. Minerals combine to form many body structures and also regulate many body processes. Both are essential for optimal body functioning.
Alternative to strict calorie/fat policing
Now, even though we have gone over some of the optimal kinds of food to work with on controlling your protein, calorie and fat intake, it is a difficult challenge to manage all this while eating in restaurants, traveling, and in cooking for the whole family. This does not mean that you still shouldn’t try to adhere as closely as possible to the above food groups. What it does mean, is that there are some help mates to keeping physically fit and provide you with healthy, non-drug energy boosts for play.

Water, water, water

Did you know that water accounts for more than 70% of your body weight?  It helps regulate body temperature, run the energy production process, build muscle, and it carries nutrients to body parts while taking waste products away. Athletes who lose a lot of water through sweat during daily practices, games, and workouts needs to drink much more water.

Isotonics/Electrolytes

Isotonics, such as Gatorade and Powerade, are commonly sought after to replace body fluids during heavy workouts. Gulping down one of these like you do water may cause stomach discomfort and truly – there are better natural solutions.
Water, honey and a touch of salt is all that is really needed.  Time and time again I see good meaning parents giving their kids electrolye sport drinks at their sporting events.  All of these commercial drinks contain dyes and an abundance of sugar that make them unhealthy options.

Red Bull and similar type drinks

BAD! Caffeine may give you what feels like a burst of energy or wake you up, but what it really does is “spike” you up quickly. Unfortunately, what is also does is “spike” down quickly. So, you could play a little more awake during the 1st and possibly part Of the 2nd period, but you would start to become sludge during the 3rd period.  Here are some other alternatives to soda for you to consider.

Pre-Game Nutrition

Steaks, burgers, pizza, nachos, fries, and other high-fat foods don’t digest well or provide any good usable energy. Things like chocolate bars make you dizzy and lethargic. The science of nutrition can provide athletes with amazing tools to assist in game performance. If you’re not eating a balanced diet that consists of high-carb sources, including a lots of vegetables and fruits, your body’s not going to be able to perform at the level it’s capable of.

Pre-Game Meal:

Five to six hours before a game, eat a large meal high in carbs and low in fat and protein. Carbs top off your hockey fuel tanks and are more easily digested than fat and protein foods. Five hours leaves enough time for digestion, but is not so long that you’ll be overly hungry when you set onto the ice.

A pre-game snack three hours before the game will supply a little more energy and prevent hunger pains during the game. The closer you get to  game time, the lighter and more liquid the food. A pre-game snack should be foods like yogurt, bananas, raisins, vegetables and almond milk.

Eating or drinking a carb source (e.g., fruit juice) or simple sugar (candy) for “quick energy” within 60 minutes of the game can have a negative effect.

Water is an important nutrient for both health and sport performance.

Your kidneys need 60-90 minutes to process excess liquid, so stop drinking fluids 90 minutes before game time to allow the excess to be eliminated.

Drink one to two cups of water 5-10 minutes before your game to add a little extra fluid to help replace sweat losses. In addition, during game time, ensure that you have your bottle of water to replenish as you sweat.

Dr. Craig Hazel’s mission is to help families THRIVE.  After graduating from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Physical and Health Education, he went on to earn a Doctor of Chiropractic degree and a Bachelor of Science in Anatomy from Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas Texas.  He is passionate about seeing children and families in his private practice at Synergy Chiropractic in Kanata Ontario.  A sought after speaker, he has been featured regularly on TSN Team 1200, CTV and Rogers TV. He is also the Chairman of the Alliance for Chiropractic of Ontario.