When starting a speed and agility training program, many of today’s athletes ignore one of the most important aspects of achieving desired results, and that is diet and nutrition. Too many young athletes tend to eat too much fast food and do not pay attention to what they eat during the day.

To get the most out of a speed and agility workout, the best place to start when it comes to nutrition and diet is a well-balanced meal. All meals throughout the day should contain foods from all four food groups. If this is not possible, make sure that throughout the day your diet has contained servings from all four food groups.

To improve your diet to cope with the high enough physical demands of sports training, which requires a high rate of energy production, you will need to increase your carbohydrate intake. Regardless of the sport or workout you are participating in, this type of energy production can only be achieved by breaking down carbohydrates. This means that players should pay special attention to this aspect of their diet, most especially when considering the notorious exercises of speed and agility programs, especially when athletes are not given guidance on what to eat. The intense training program that most speed and agility workouts involve only serves to increase the need for carbohydrate intake.

When talking about this topic, it is common to express the form of energy consumed as percentages (proportions) ingested as carbohydrates, fats and proteins. While the typical diet for the general population is about 40% carbohydrates, 45% fat, and 15% protein, the recommended dietary allowances for a soccer player (whose training is very strenuous and balanced) would be roughly 65% carbohydrates, 20% fat and 15% protein, according to Peak Performance Newsletter.

Ingesting essential amino acids immediately after exercise increases protein synthesis, which means more muscle and (provided you train “right”) more power. A very important point in protein intake is timing: if you are having protein shakes or bars, take them as soon as possible after exercise.

As long as you are eating a well balanced diet with sufficient energy, creatine supplementation has also been shown to improve repeated sprinting ability as discussed earlier in the Vitamins and Supplements article.

Some of the information used in this article was obtained from the Peak Performance newsletter.