If you are among the many sweaty athletes who wonders what to drink to quench your thirst, you may feel confused by the abundant choices of fluids. There's plain ol' water, sports drinks, soft drinks (sugar-sweetened or diet), 100% fruit juices, juice drinks, milk (skim, lowfat, or whole), beer, wine….and the list goes on. As a sports dietitian, I get lots of questions about what's best (or worst) to drink. Here are my answers to just a few commonly asked questions about liquids with calories.
Q. Should I stop drinking orange juice because it is loaded with (fattening) carbs and sugar?
In a 2003 NACAC article on the practice of wait listing and deferrals, Martin Wilder – Executive Board Member of NACAC said, “The waitlist notification offers neither the joy of acceptance nor the finality of rejection.” Being waitlisted or deferred means that a college has not accepted you but thinks enough of you that if any spots are available as the year unfolds, the school will give you a chance to enroll. Waitlists were created to benefit schools, not applicants, and are designed to ensure there are enough interested students to fill enrollment. If a particular college has 2,000 openings in their freshman class and only 1,900 students enroll, a school turns to their "wait-list" to fill enrollment until they have reached an acceptable number. According to NACAC, roughly 30% of colleges use waitlists and students only have a 1-5 chance if they are waitlisted.
As I have observed the game of fast pitch softball for women the past 10 years I have seen an interesting situation develop. There has been an extraordinary emphasis on pitching instruction around the country. The skills I used to see in only the best high school senior pitchers years ago are now being executed by girls as young as 12 and 13.
The 55mph barrier is being broken by younger and younger girls each year and the amount of movement on their pitchers that these young pitchers can achieve is startling.
All this leads me to the question: Do your pitchers out-pitch your catchers? Has the increase in skill of your pitchers out paced the skill of your catchers? Do your pitchers have pitches they can throw for strikes that your catchers have no chance of keeping a strike or maybe even just plain catching?
FlowBoarding is an emerging board sport combining the best of surfing, skatingboarding and snowboarding. Look at a few of these video clips from FlowRider installations around the United States.
Engineered Sports Foods: Convenience or Necessity?
Sunday, 03 May 2009 19:58
The Athlete’s Kitchen
Copyright: Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD April 2009
Engineered Sports Foods: Convenience or Necessity?
To look at all the ads for sports drinks, energy bars, electrolyte replacers, and sports candies, you'd think these engineered products are a necessary part of a sports diet, particularly if you are doing endurance exercise such as training for a marathon or a triathlon. When my clients ask for advice about how to use these products, I first assess their daily sports diet to determine if they can get—or are getting—what they want from standard foods (carbs, sodium). In most cases, they can get their needs met with a wisely chosen sports diet.
