Since ancient Greece diet’s been key for Olympians
NOTTINGHAM: The Olympics are now in full swing, with more than 10 500 athletes from 205 different countries in Rio de Janeiro for the Summer Games. At this elite level the winning margins are increasingly narrow and, when all else is equal, the difference between gold and silver may come down to something as seemingly simple as what an athlete eats. But, of course, what’s on the menu is far from simple and, in the athletes village in Rio, a team of 2 500 will be working around the clock to serve 60 000 meals a day.
Elite athletes are likely to take a personalised approach to their nutrition – with their diets meticulously planned, tested and often underpinned by the latest research.
But the meticulous approach to food and diet taken by modern-day Olympians is in stark contrast to some of the earliest ancient Greek athletes. Take Charmis, the Spartan winner of the Olympic short sprint in 668 BC, who is reported to have eaten a special diet of dried figs throughout the Games. While other typical early Olympians lived sparingly on barley bread and cheese.
The ancient Greek trainer Pythagoras – not to be confused with the famous Greek philosopher and mathematician – then introduced the concept of eating meat into the diets of athletes in the middle of the 5th century. And from there athletes didn’t look back.
One of the first to incorporate meat into his training diet was middle-distance runner Dromeus of Stymhalos. He had two victories in the dolichos (long-foot race) at both Olympia and the Pythian Games, which led to meat being seriously considered as a nutritional strategy.
The first detailed recording of dietary intakes during the modern Olympic Games didn’t appear until the 1936 Berlin Games. Here, a study of athletes’ diets found that many would dine on two steaks a meal and sometimes poultry – with nearly half a kilogram of meat eaten daily – while pre-event meals consisted of three steaks, eggs and meat extract.
Other athletes would stress the importance of a high carbohydrate intake, with the Brits consuming large quantities of porridge and the Italians pasta. Some athletes would eat diets so high in carbohydrate that it was reported they consumed between 6 700 to 7 300 calories a day.
It is now known, of course, that one of the most significant ways to enhance endurance performance – such as marathon running – is indeed by eating carbohydrate before a race. For a 65kg athlete this would work out at 650g a day, and would be spread across multiple meals from a variety of carbohydrate sources – such as bread, potatoes, rice or pasta.
In relation to exercise training, however, it is now thought that strategic periods of reduced carbohydrate and elevated protein intake may actually be more beneficial.
For modern athletes, events with higher exercise intensities and short durations – such as track sprint cycling – can also be enhanced by nutritional strategy. Athletes will often take the naturally occurring amino acid beta-alanine as a nutritional supplement.
Beetroot juice has also received substantial recent interest due to its possible performance-enhancing effects. Drinking it both before – usually up to 2.5 hours – and after (more than six days) may improve exercise capacity by decreasing the “oxygen cost”.
So by drinking beetroot juice an athlete can become more economical in their performance.
But in the pursuit of Olympic glory, ultimately nutrition is just one component in the arsenal that athletes have. Since ancient Greece, food has been seen as integral to performance, and with a growing body of evidence showing that performance nutrition can be the difference between places on the podium, it makes sense for athletes to carefully consider what they are putting into their bodies.
Williams is a lecturer in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition, Nottingham Trent University insw the UK. This piece first appeared in The Conversation