How important really is diet when it comes down to running fast times? …
i have not really been disciplined when it comes to diet as i am not sure aht to really be eating as a sprinter , can anyone advise me on a sprinters weeakly diet ?
Chaz,
Take a look at the diet and nutrition portion of the forum. Your questions have been discussed at length by Charlie and numerous other educated and experienced individuals and will help you more than starting a new thread.
Directly, not very, unless it’s making you fat. Training is important for running fast times. Diet is important for providing the necessary nutrients to enable your body to train and recover.
If your diet is not very disciplined, then realistically, any improvement you make to it will yield benefits. The greatest marginal impact will occur simply from reducing or eliminating processed junk food and concentrating on fresh, unprocessed whole foods. Tedious minutiae like macronutrient ratios, etc. is really just mental masturbation. Leave that stuff to the bodybuilders.
Some of the elite sprinters past and present don’t seem to be too worried about their diets. Tyson gay says he goes “super crazy on the weekends” eating ice cream and chocolate. Maurice greene I believe was sometimes seen eating Mcdonalds. Ben johnson drank beer some weekends.
So eat as you normally would unless you’re getting fat or lethargic.
I think proper nutrition is essential for many reasons and the point made by Flash is a good one regarding if you have not been diligent with your nutrtional needs you will likely notice positive differences quickly.
An example of this was when I first began training seriously with Charlie and Mauro DiPasquali gave me a list of nutritional benefits for various supplements. Not to make too fine a point about this but it was almost like I turned a switch on. There were problems for sure like taking too much iron. Bad plan for me but I solved it over time and learned as I went along. Now I prefer foods like ( raw juicing), liquid supplements, powders especially those condensed super foods and digestive aids to assist the decreased levels of our hydrochloric acid. ( essential for proper absorption
I read an interview with Tommie Smith and he said that before his world record on the straight 200m with time 20.0 he had eaten apple pie with coke for breakfast…
What people do occasionally- especially at meets where little nutritional food is available doesn’t outweigh the average- or common sense