the body can take up to 1 liter/ hour with out putting un due stress on the kidneys.
2-3 hours before a session you should drink up to 500ml of water. this promotes adequate hydration as you start your activity and allows for excretion of excess.
15 mins prior you should drink anouther 150- 350 mL.
during activity you should be drinking 1L/hour to stay hydrated. try drinking on a regular schedule: every 15-20 mins have 150-350 mL of water. relying on thist is a bad idea because it doesn't reliably indicate your need for flids. if you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated and not performing at peak condition. after you kick you should be drinking 750mL for every .5kg of weight lost, because that's not fat burn off, it's water loss! monitor your urine colour and make sure it's clear and not scanty and dark.
and you can drink any think that's not alcoholic or caffenated to help get that fluid back into you.
for long sessions a gatorade or what have you is not a bad idea. although testing has shown that in activity lasting less than 1 hour there is no advantage to drinking sports drinks with carbs and eletrolytes, but if you like how they taste and would rather drink them over water then by all means, DO IT! many people sugest cutting them with water because when we exercise things often taste different and sports drinks are often percieved as being too sweet. they give me the pasties personaly so i cut them 50-50.Ken wrote:Be sure to drink enough water when you play. Sports drinks with electrolytes, such as gatorade, can also be good. I've heard that a mix of the two is actually the best.
eating is important before and after your session. before you kick it helps to stave of hunger pangs and nausea. also, preactivity meals often provide more psychological power than physical power and help you feel more prepared for you kick. It's main function though is to provide you with energy in the form of glucose. Carbs are digested and leave the stomach approximately twice as fast as protein or fat foods. carbs take 3-5 hours to digest where as protein can take up to 8 and fat up to 12. so prior to kicking you should et something high in carbs with some protein and fat mixed in to. the size of what you eat will depend on how much time you have prior to kicking. if you have a big meal (a sub sandwich) you'll need 3-4 hours for digestion. smaller meals (like a bowl of cereal or toast) will take 2-3, and liquid meals (a fruit smoothie) will take 1-2hours.
Proper carbo loading is slightly harder than simply eating alot of pasta the day before (which is a good thing to do!!) but it's not relevent for an anarobic sport like footbag. it's an endurace exercise mostly used by marathoners and longdistance cyclists. it requires you go through a depletion phase where you max out your muscle glycogen (energy stored in your muscles for use in intense physical activities) over a period of days. when you begin to load your starving muscles quickly absorb glycogen and can end up over loading by 20-40% alowing you to go slightly longer befor slowing down.ken wrote:The day before a session, it can be a good idea to "carbo-load." Eat lots of pasta or grains the day before, and you will have energy to play the next day.
a very basic glycogen supercompensation plan would be:
monday - 90mins moderately hard training - diet ~50% Carbs
tuesday - 40mins moderately hard training - diet ~50% Carbs
wednesday - 40mins moderately hard training - diet ~50% Carbs
thursday - 20mins easy training - diet ~70% carbs
friday - 20mins easy training - diet ~70% carbs
saturday - no training - diet ~70% carbs
sunday - run a marathon - diet ~70% carbs
if you plan to run a marathon it could help, but you'll be wasting alot of time and resources if you do this for footbag.
after you kick for a long time you need to replace the glycogen your muscles have used up. if you don't do this you'll have less energy for the next day of kicking or competition. your body is most readily able to absorbe glucose and process it into muscle glycogen 15-30 minutes after playing, so this is the best time to have a high carb snack. it's also important to incorporate some protein in that snack too. amino acids will help with rebuilding muscle tissue damaged during training. some good ideas for this are cereal with milk, a sandwich and fruit, chocolate milk, powerbars or drinks like boost.