Vegan Nutrition Themes for high intensity training / sport
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:26 pmHi,
I'm new to the forum. Have been life long vegetarian but now moving towards vegan due to newly realized concerns (mainly ethical and some nutritional) about dairy products. This thought process actually stemmed indirectly from a lot of thinking, reading and experimenting I have been doing recently about optimal fitness, conditioning and diet for me for (amateur) competitive table tennis in the context of a busy lifestyle. General health is always important too, and I want to improve that, but it's already well above average and without medical problems, so for me is of real and supporting but secondary concern.
I'm interested in feedback members here may have as to any nutritional themes/ideas I may have missed that will help my physiological/athletic performance. To clarify, table tennis benefits mainly from very high intensity short time span athletic performance and agility (think very fast reaction/direction changes, minimal foot time on the ground), even much more so than other racket sports like tennis, and from strength and conditioning of particular muscle groups, mainly core/obliques, hip flexors, leg muscles. Matches are also usually completed in 30-45min, so it's not an endurance sport in the same way as long distance running, triathlon or even tennis.
Btw my mass is about 73kg LBM + 10kg fat, target 75kg+5kg, but only because I'm a little bit vain - for functional purposes any LBM of 70kg+ would be as good or better for my height (180cm), and the fat loss will help.
Main areas I have so far to monitor/work on are:
[list=]Blood oxygenation - eat lots of greens - is any more detail necessary?
[*]Creatine supplements (I'm fairly sure they are vegan) - protocol dose, not excess - carnivorous diets also provide suboptimal creatine
Blood akalosis to improve lactate threshold - lots of raw food will help but probably still do pre training/event soda loading
[*]Hormone stimulation - it seems good testosterone levels are easier to achieve naturally on a vegan diet anyway, and alfafa and fenugreek will probably help but it seems important, both for a competitive edge and to get the most out of resistance training thereby being able to spend more energy on cardio, interval and agility training. I'm inclined given this to also minimize consumption of soy products to be on the safe side of the phytoestrogen issue.
[*]Adequate/optimal lysine - could be a concern especially with avoiding soy but surely an addressable one.
[*]Vasodilation - my BP is normal but I guess any improvement to oxygen delivery mechanisms can't be overlooked. I understand the answer is eat lots of garlic, celery, beetroot and walnuts, which seems easy enough
[*]Minerals - iron seems easy eating fresh food, calcium easy eating nuts and greens, iodine easy with seaweed, Mg easy with nuts, greens and seaweed, potassium easy by eating fresh unprocessed foods, Sodium easy unless my baking soda is too much (but I think I'm alright) or I add lots of foods made with refined kitchen salt (ick) - I can cheaply/easily add a little unrefined sea salt if/when I need more. Zinc I think may be a concern I can partly or wholly address with mushrooms and I'm still looking for more information to help me understand my phosphate needs. Common wisdom seems to be that adequacy of Phosphate is a non-issue in human nutrition, even for sport, despite importance of ATP reactions and that may be right but I'm unsure yet. [/list]
Any comments or other things I should be looking into?
I'm new to the forum. Have been life long vegetarian but now moving towards vegan due to newly realized concerns (mainly ethical and some nutritional) about dairy products. This thought process actually stemmed indirectly from a lot of thinking, reading and experimenting I have been doing recently about optimal fitness, conditioning and diet for me for (amateur) competitive table tennis in the context of a busy lifestyle. General health is always important too, and I want to improve that, but it's already well above average and without medical problems, so for me is of real and supporting but secondary concern.
I'm interested in feedback members here may have as to any nutritional themes/ideas I may have missed that will help my physiological/athletic performance. To clarify, table tennis benefits mainly from very high intensity short time span athletic performance and agility (think very fast reaction/direction changes, minimal foot time on the ground), even much more so than other racket sports like tennis, and from strength and conditioning of particular muscle groups, mainly core/obliques, hip flexors, leg muscles. Matches are also usually completed in 30-45min, so it's not an endurance sport in the same way as long distance running, triathlon or even tennis.
Btw my mass is about 73kg LBM + 10kg fat, target 75kg+5kg, but only because I'm a little bit vain - for functional purposes any LBM of 70kg+ would be as good or better for my height (180cm), and the fat loss will help.
Main areas I have so far to monitor/work on are:
[list=]Blood oxygenation - eat lots of greens - is any more detail necessary?
[*]Creatine supplements (I'm fairly sure they are vegan) - protocol dose, not excess - carnivorous diets also provide suboptimal creatine
Blood akalosis to improve lactate threshold - lots of raw food will help but probably still do pre training/event soda loading
[*]Hormone stimulation - it seems good testosterone levels are easier to achieve naturally on a vegan diet anyway, and alfafa and fenugreek will probably help but it seems important, both for a competitive edge and to get the most out of resistance training thereby being able to spend more energy on cardio, interval and agility training. I'm inclined given this to also minimize consumption of soy products to be on the safe side of the phytoestrogen issue.
[*]Adequate/optimal lysine - could be a concern especially with avoiding soy but surely an addressable one.
[*]Vasodilation - my BP is normal but I guess any improvement to oxygen delivery mechanisms can't be overlooked. I understand the answer is eat lots of garlic, celery, beetroot and walnuts, which seems easy enough
[*]Minerals - iron seems easy eating fresh food, calcium easy eating nuts and greens, iodine easy with seaweed, Mg easy with nuts, greens and seaweed, potassium easy by eating fresh unprocessed foods, Sodium easy unless my baking soda is too much (but I think I'm alright) or I add lots of foods made with refined kitchen salt (ick) - I can cheaply/easily add a little unrefined sea salt if/when I need more. Zinc I think may be a concern I can partly or wholly address with mushrooms and I'm still looking for more information to help me understand my phosphate needs. Common wisdom seems to be that adequacy of Phosphate is a non-issue in human nutrition, even for sport, despite importance of ATP reactions and that may be right but I'm unsure yet. [/list]
Any comments or other things I should be looking into?
