Aidan:
Hello and welcome to episode 47 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. My name is Adam Muir and I’m here with my co-host Leah Higl. And today we’re going to be talking about nutrition for powerlifters on competition day. Obviously competition day nutrition is a little bit different from everyday nutrition so we’re probably just going to be going through some of the differences and what you should be looking to be doing on those days.
Leah:
I guess a good place to start is kind of prefacing that good comp day nutrition can mean that you have a really good comp day. It can mean that you get that PR or you get that total that you’re after and it can contribute to great performance. The thing about doing comp nutrition wrong is it can tank you on the day. Like especially as you get more into the day, usually it’s a good five to six hours. If you’ve not planned your nutrition well and you’re not doing the right things, by the time you get to your bench and especially your deadlift, it’s gonna feel quite crappy if you’ve not fuelled yourself and hydrated yourself appropriately.
I guess a good place to start would be don’t do anything that makes you feel worse. So before we get into what makes you feel good or what might work best for most people, even like when we go into all that stuff, even if we talk about something and you go, that probably is not gonna make me feel really good. Cool, don’t do it. It’s always gonna be really individual.
Like there are people that can sit down to a full fried rice meal between lifts and like be okay and there’s people that can’t. So it is gonna be very individual at the end of the day and you kind of have to make a choice what’s gonna feel good for you and what isn’t. It’s probably gonna take a bit of practice but we’re gonna run you through what would be optimal for performance in like the theory side of things.
Aidan:
Yeah, I definitely say there’s something where it’s like if you nail things, you probably get a small boost. If you mess things up, you probably get a pretty significant reduction in performance. So the first rule is obviously do no harm. But then in terms of like focusing on foods to fuel your performance and trying to get the most you can, there’s one major guideline that I’d like to start off with, which is typically most of your food throughout the day should be relatively high-carb, low fibre, low to moderate protein and low to moderate in fat.
Obviously, as I said, like you go with things that you know work for for you well, more than that. That’s more important. But like without further context those are things I’d be looking at going through those individually high-carb is a bit of a no-brainer just because it’s our best source of energy on the day. You don’t really need like masses of glycogen or glucose or anything like that for a palatine competition but we do know that having some carbohydrate in your system can make you a little bit more explosive a little bit more powerful and just feel better as well and the low-fibre one is basically just based on digestion.
It makes it easier to digest if it is lower fibre. We don’t want to be spending heaps of energy on digestion. We just want to be feeling good throughout the day. Same kind of concept with the low slash moderate fat intake. That’s not a huge thing, but the more fat in the meal, probably the longer it takes to digest. If you have a massive high fat meal, it probably takes longer to digest and you may not feel as good.
And the low slash moderate protein one. Like on the day, like your body composition, you’re not gonna make that much of a change. Protein doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to be high protein. The reason why I say low slash moderate is going back to that concept of you probably don’t want your day’s intake to be massively different to your normal intake. Because if you normally feel good with your normal intake, you wouldn’t necessarily want to make a massive change. I’ve heard people use lines like, there’s heaps of powerlifters who pretty much never have added sugar ever, and they’re in competition day, they just have a tonne of sugar, have like lollies, have Powerade, have all these things.
Yeah, and that fits my guidelines, that’s high carb, that’s low fibre, all of those kind of things. But it’s a complete opposite of what they normally do and they might feel kind of sick if they do that. So that’s also where the moderate protein comes into play because it’s like, at least it keeps some semblance. Like if this is like a, as you mentioned, like a six to eight hour kind of day, like in some cases, you wouldn’t normally go that much of the day without having at least a decent meal with some form of protein in it.
Leah:
So if we’re worried about gut upset or GI distress on comp day, which a lot of people are. Something else you can do in relation to avoiding that would be to choose more low FODMAP foods or go more low FODMAP either the days leading up and competition day or just on competition day. So this could be for people who do have IBS and are prone to IBS flare ups, particularly when stressed or nervous, but even just people that feel icky on a comp day, they just have GI upset on a comp day, which is a lot of people when you factor in those nerves and stress of competing. So what this could possibly look like is maybe going for some more low FODMAP grains, so things like rice and oats over your wheat and bread based products. It could mean maybe going less onion or garlic. So if you make yourself like a spag bowl for your meal, maybe leaving the onion and garlic out, going like a gluten free, wheat free pasta.
You might want to avoid the low FODMAP fruits and things like fruit juice and dried fruit. I feel like dried fruit is a, it’s one that trips people up a lot in terms of people will try that on comp day and then feel really sick because they’ve never usually have dried fruit It is one that is that usually a higher FODMAP food So in some cases that might give you GI upset if you’re not used to it.You might go low lactose dairy products if you’re having dairy and I just preface that with because a lot of FODMAPs overlap with higher carb foods, you don’t want to just go low carb.
So you don’t just like look up the low FODMAP diet and go, I’m just going to eat like meat on the day. Because that goes against like the guidelines we spoke about previously. But maybe finding more of those low FODMAP sources of carbohydrates for the day. So it’s a bit more easily digestible if you are prone to gut upset.
Aidan:
Yeah. And even when I’m doing just competition day plans for people without any mention of RBS or anything like that, if I have a choice between regular pasta and rice, oftentimes I choose rice for that reason. If I’m choosing the vegetables, oftentimes I’ll choose like a lower FODMAP vegetable like spinach rather than something like say broccoli or something like that. Same kind of concept just because like it just reduces the odds of issues coming into play. Like it’s just a percentages thing. Like what if me doing that helps like 10% more people it’s still kind of worthwhile looking into.
Leah:
Yeah, it’s definitely worth it even if you’re Thinking that you’re probably not super prone to it. could just make you feel a little bit lighter on the day.
Aidan:
Yeah, and for people who are prone to it like doing it for a few days leading up to comp definitely makes sense even like an endurance athlete seems to do that like Even for people who haven’t done the full low FODMAP diet haven’t done the elimination style kind of process reintroduction. It can still make sense leading up to competition day.
The next one is caffeine. So this is an interesting topic to me because the research on the topic is kind of different to what people do in practice. It’s only going to be a small benefit, but it’s something that I like to share with all of my athletes. So what the research shows is that five to seven milligrams of caffeine in the lead up to a one rep max is like the evidence-based range.
Everybody knows that caffeine like hypes you up and everything like that. And I’ve probably talked about a little bit on the podcast, but it literally does make you stronger and more powerful. On average, the research on a topic showing that amount of caffeine leads to a three to 4% improvement in one rep max on average. Very individual, but that’s the average. And I like sharing that research with a lot of people because most people don’t plan their caffeine out like that.
Most people do what I would honestly recommend, but they just do what makes them feel good, basically. But I like talking about this range because it’s like, what if you have never had that high amount of caffeine, because there’s a lot of caffeine, and I’ll put context around that. But what if you’ve never gone that high? You could be leaving performance on the table. Obviously, there’s downsides to going that high in some cases, like some people don’t feel good when they do that. But it’s probably, if you’re going to compete for 10 years, it’s probably worth trying at some stage.
For context, it’s a lot like five, seven milligrams for somebody who is a 100 kilo athlete. That would be 500 to 700 milligrams. That’s pretty easy maths. One 500 mil monster is 160 milligrams. So we’re looking at like three, three monsters basically. 1.5 litres of energy. Yeah. Pre-workout, one service. So like typically like two scoops can be anywhere from 240 to 300 milligrams. So you could have like a monster in pre-workout and it’s probably getting closer. And a shot of coffee is often 80 milligrams, but it’s super variable. There’s a lot of research showing that it can be way higher or way lower than that. And when we’re talking about quite high doses of caffeine, I don’t really like the margin of error. Like I wouldn’t mind having like one coffee or two coffees or something like that in there, but I wouldn’t be trying to get it all through coffee because what if it is significantly higher or lower?
It’s not really as scientific or specific, so to speak. I’d probably use a combination of stuff to get up to that high amount. Obviously for smaller athletes, it’s less and for larger athletes, it’s more. I don’t know about you, but when I’m working with people who are like 150 plus kilos, I typically don’t go this high.
Leah:
No, that would just be insane.
Aidan:
Yeah. And there’s no reason from what I’ve seen in the research that it really differs based on body weight, based on that. But I also have not seen research on 150 kilo athletes, so I’m not that confident. It’s an interesting one, but that begs another question. So powerlifting meets are often, I don’t know, like three to eight hours long, depending on if it’s a single lift or a three lift or however many people are in there. So it’s a logistical challenge. All this research is done on leading up to one rep max. There’s no research on powerlifting competitions that I’m aware of, which therefore means, how do we know, should we go that high in the lead up to squats and just like sit on that for the rest of the day? We have top up caffeine throughout the day? Should we go higher? Is there a downside like from like being hyped up for eight hours straight that then like leaves you drained when deadlifts come around?
That’s where a lot of personal preference comes into play where it’s like, I typically will have people have just below that range, like 30 minutes before their squad opener, because it takes about 30 to 60 minutes for caffeine to peak in the system. But then I’ll just have them top up throughout the day. But if somebody finds themselves drained at the end of the day, and they feel like that’s a variable, obviously we’ll change it. If somebody feels great doing that, then we’ll keep it the same. And we kind of just play around based on that because for some people, that’s too much. Other people, it’s too little. There’s some people who love even more than that.
Leah:
Yeah, it’s so variable with caffeine. I’m generally with that range, always say like, don’t just jump straight to that in competition and go, that’s the first time you’re gonna try that kind of dosage. Always try to training, see how it feels. And then also factor in, you’re probably, for most people, there are gonna be nerves and stuff around competition day and is that caffeine dose going to throw you over into like the anxiety range and your performance in that way? So yeah, it’s so variable. You’ve got to trial it, test it, see what feels good.
Aidan:
Yeah, 100%.
Leah:
So the next part we’ll be talking about is hydration. So hydration for a powerlifting meat, not typically super complicated. It can be more nuanced and complicated if you’ve done a weight cut and then you’ve got to do a refuel and stuff like that. That is kind of out of the context of this podcast, but we have done an episode on weight cutting and that was episode 16. So if you want to hear about that, you can go there. But generally talking about hydration for a powerlifting meat, my general recommendation is to in the days leading up to that comp, if you’re not doing a weight cut, just maintain good hydration.
Leading in, there’s that week, just making sure you’re getting enough fluid in day to day. And then the day of, I just recommend for my athletes to sip on fluids throughout the whole day. So make sure that there is like a water bottle there for you that you can kind of continuously sip on when you need it. If it’s a particularly hot and humid day and you’re losing a lot of sweat throughout the day, you might consider something like a sports drink.
And that could also be a source of carbohydrates for you as well as fluid and electrolytes. But I wouldn’t generally overthink hydration at a powerlifting meet other than have it available and try to sip on it throughout the day.
Aidan:
Yeah, pretty simple. And like, it’s just putting that into practice. Some people forget or whatever, but like it’s yeah, pretty simple. The stat I always go, I don’t know if you said, but like that like 2% kind of number. If your body weight decreases by 2% due to dehydration, you are weaker, you are less coordinated. And I’ve went to that set all the time because it’s like, well, we’re trying to be stronger. We’re trying to avoid that from happening. So as you sort of know, that it’s not just a like common sense, like you should do this thing, it like actually impacts your performance.
Leah:
It makes a difference. Yeah, for sure.
Aidan:
The next thing to talk about is like timing of food. It’s a bit of a boring one to me because once again, this one actually is quite a common sense thing. It’s just like based on how you feel throughout the day. So ideally, say lifting starts in the morning, you probably want to be having breakfast like two hours before that. You probably want to have a similar breakfast to your normal breakfast. And then like 15, 30 minutes before you squat open as whatever, have some caffeine.
And then snacking throughout the day and we’ll probably talk about more specific like snacks and foods and stuff like that in a second but like snacking throughout squats and then throughout the day and then also like after you bench press because it’s going to be like squat bench deadlift and there’ll be gaps between after you bench probably makes sense when to have a meal if you’re going to have a meal in there. Some people don’t want to have meals just because it’s hard to eat on comp day.
Leah:
I never have a meal on comp day. I think it makes me feel absolutely like so sick even if I keep it simple. And I know a lot of athletes like that. And I know a lot of athletes that like to have their meal later in the day or earlier in the day. Again, that comes to individuals.
Aidan:
Yeah, I guess we’ll jump into that. So we’ll talk about meals, then we’ll talk about snacks. what I like to do for people is I like to have a simple meal that fits that criteria of being high carb, low fibre, all those kind of things, low to moderate protein. Probably relatively low in vegetables, but still containing some vegetables just to keep it similar to what people normally do, but not so much that it’s high fibre or high FODMAP. And I like to have it there, and people just eat however much they want to eat. If they want to eat the entire meal because they feel comfortable doing so, go for it. If they don’t feel like it, probably just having a little bit and then putting it away or whatever is probably how I like it. Anything to add on that?
Leah:
No, like it’s just it’s so individual. It’s hard to get really specific about it. But if you do have a meal, I guess just keep it, yeah, lower fibre than maybe you’d usually go and a little lower fat.
Aidan:
Yeah, I also like people to have more food on hand than they probably are going to need.
Leah:
That’s a good point.
Aidan:
Because appetite just changes on day to day. I’ve only done a few comps myself, but like there was first comp I did, I didn’t get that hungry. Second comp packed the exact same amount of food because I was like, that worked well the first time. I was starving when deadlifts came. Like I actually missed the deadlift and then I and then hit that number that I missed and I’m like, it actually did play a role.
I’m not gonna say that’s the only thing, but it was very clear to me and that’s advice I give to everybody. That’s just like, have more food than you think you need, because the worst case scenario is you just don’t eat it. Yeah, and I always say I also have a bit of a variety. Generally, I’m, I guess, only person on comp day, but I’ll always pack some salty snacks in case that that’s what I feel like on comp day. Because I think a lot of people, you really can only eat sometimes what you feel like. Like you’re gonna probably struggle if you’ve packed something and you’re like, man, I really don’t feel like that right now. So just having a variety of options can be helpful. So common stuff we give clients?
Leah:
Snack wise? Yeah. Yeah. So things I’d usually go for would be things like rice cakes or even rice cakes and honey. I love a good simple muesli bar. So things like LCMs and kind of those like kids muesli bars almost, like candy. I personally like lollies and stuff on comp day, but you can go for things like pie cuts with jam, sports drink. Rice pudding is a good one, I feel, just because it does tend to be low fat, low fibre. Sandwiches are great. So there’s a lot of snack options for you. Again, will depend on preference.
This has been episode 47 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. If you’re able to leave a rating or review, that would be so greatly appreciated, but otherwise, thanks for tuning in.