Beware of the verdict of the scales! Footballers and other high-level athletes risk the yo-yo effect at the end of confinement, when they will have to regain a healthy weight after several months of reduced activity.
If the streaks of Maradona, Adriano, Ronaldinho, Andr-Pierre Gignac or Antonio Cassano have remained in the annals, it is not uncommon for players to accuse a few extra pounds after the holidays. But this time, it is less the evening capirinha in a nightclub than the hindrances to training and the delights of family cooking that threaten, as summed up Aaron Ramsey, Welsh midfielder for Juventus Turin.
I am the work program that the club sent us, but it is not the same as a collective training. I have to be careful not to get fat. My wife likes to cook and I like to eat, it’s a dangerous combination. At home we have lots of cookies for the kids, and I taste them every time I take tea.
Watch out for the freelance
With the deterioration of training and the maintenance of caloric intake, athletes risk both muscle loss and an increase in fat mass, a cumulative fear by Xavier Frezza, physical trainer working with professional footballers.
Athletes do a lot of sport, so they have a fairly rich diet, linked to their activity. If their activity is lighter, which is the case, and they keep the same diet, it is freelance. You can quickly gain a little weight, combined with a lack of form, he explains.
The threat is particularly serious for athletes with strong diets to fuel intense training, such as swimmers. The big problem for me is food, because I’m a big eater. And when you do less sport, you spend less, said Florent Manaudou at the start of confinement. I want to keep myself in shape, because I know that if not, going back to the water will be difficult.
They manage well
Conversely, many athletes are used to paying attention to their weight, whether to maintain their performance level, to comply with standards in sports where aesthetics count, or simply to be allowed to compete. in weight category sports, explains Eve Tiollier, nutritionist at Insep, the center of French sport.
For the moment, they are doing well and the indicator we have (the weight) remains relatively stable. They all have a training program, and I have no sign that the anxiety and boredom related to the situation have a major impact on their behavior, she adds.
Then we will see what it really is when they go out, because the important thing is not so much the weight as the distribution between muscle mass and fat mass, which can be unbalanced without changing the total on the balance. The recovery is then handicapped by an increased risk of injury and the need for a diet that comes to draw on the strengths of the athlete.
No to the diet
For Jean-Jacques Menuet, doctor of the Arkea-Samsic cycling team, the riders must keep a weight which will be compatible with the resumption of the races. But I authorize the gain of one, two or three kilos, we know that we can regain a healthy weight, gradually, during the five or six weeks which will precede the resumption of the races.
Containment is a kind of offseason that can allow you to enjoy a more varied diet than what runners have during races, where they eat mainly ham, pasta and turkey.
There, I make them discover new vegetables, new recipes. Certain antioxidants, zinc, certain vitamins, especially vitamin D, have properties that stimulate immune defenses, he explains.
But beware, fall into the opposite excess, warns Eve Tiollier. There are some who want to take advantage of this period to dry up a bit. So there, the message is rather to say that we must be careful. We know that energy deficits are one of the situations that can weaken the immune system. This is not the moment.
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(nxp / afp)
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