Welcome to our 14th blog interview! This week, we had the privilege of hosting Pedro Miguel Mendes, Performance Nutritionist for the Men's First Team at Sporting CP from 2021 to 2024. At Sporting CP, Pedro has also collaborated with the youth football teams and the Women's First Team. Beyond his work with Sporting CP, Pedro is a PhD student and guest lecturer at various universities and training institutions. He also works at a private clinical practice, supporting elite and recreational athletes across a range of sports.
Pedro Miguel Mendes
Can you outline some common misconceptions about sports nutrition for young athletes and provide insights into the facts? Let’s start with the one that there is no difference between young and adult athletes in terms of nutritional approach.
First, nutritional intervention must be personalized and adjusted to reality and context of the athlete, considering their physical, psychological, and social needs. Young athletes undergo a process of growth in various dimensions, which ultimately challenges nutritional intervention. In this sense, it is also important to mention that a young athlete can be 12 years old, but they can also be older, up to 17 years old. And this is where the customization of the intervention becomes highly relevant.
During the developmental phase, athletes are more predisposed to adopting new habits, so nutritional intervention at younger ages should above all provide athletes with tools so that in the future they can take responsibility for making dietary choices and adopting habits that promote sports performance, as well as health.
How do performance and academy nutritionists tailor nutrition programs to meet the demands of young football players?
During the youth football development period, the objective is to equip the player with technical-tactical skills. In this sense, efforts are also made to ensure that the player can acquire physical skills, including an appropriate body composition for the practice of the sport, as well as psychological and social skills. On the other hand, as described earlier, nutritional intervention should aim to promote nutritional education and the ability to make choices and adopt suitable dietary habits in the medium to long term.
It is during these ages that the essential and primary topics of a football player's nutrition are typically addressed. For example, it may make sense for certain young players for nutritional intervention to focus on qualitative changes, optimizing food choices, rather than imposing strict quantity restrictions. For instance, I find it more important that a 14-year-old player has a varied intake of fruits and vegetables or adequate consumption of grains and dairy products than imposing severe energy restriction or following a meal plan where calories and macronutrients are meticulously counted.
What strategies do you suggest for educating young athletes, coaches, and parents about the importance of nutrition in optimizing athletic performance and overall well-being?
The surrounding context of players is crucial for performance, especially in youth football, where there is a greater reliance on players' families and coaches. Therefore, developing strategies that promote nutritional literacy not only among players but also among those who have a significant influence on their dietary choices becomes essential for successful nutritional intervention that can effectively have a positive impact on athletic performance and players' well-being.
Interestingly, this issue has been debated in recent times, both by the scientific community and by professionals in the field. Efforts have been made to study how nutrition education strategies should be optimized to truly make an impact and promote good dietary choices or even behavioral changes in that regard. Thus, in addition to formal training sessions where athletes/parents/coaches are gathered to discuss certain topics, alternatives that are better received by the population have been sought. Some ideas I propose include:
- Short videos (1-2 minutes) on a particular topic that can be sent to players' mobile phones, facilitating access to them.
- Development of interactive activities that stimulate their curiosity, such as quizzes or cooking workshops.
- Quick and dynamic meetings with small groups of people (player & family members) where various topics are addressed and doubts and dietary myths can be clarified.
What role does hydration play before, during, and after practice or games, and what are some strategies to ensure adequate hydration?
If we consider that the human body is mostly composed of water, we understand the importance of hydration ranging from the athlete's vital functions to their sports performance. During physical exercise, there is a loss of water and minerals through sweating. Besides genetic influences, numerous factors interfere with everyone’s sweating capacity, such as climatic conditions (temperature, humidity), the intensity and duration of exercise, and even the clothing worn during its practice.
Therefore, not only is it crucial to start a training session or game properly hydrated, but the rehydration process during and after is also essential. Significant dehydration status can lead to a decline in athletic performance, impacting for example muscle function, but also cognitive function, particularly regarding the central nervous system and perceived exertion. Severe dehydration can also have a very negative impact on the subject's health, triggering some episodes of loss of consciousness or gastrointestinal disorders.
On the other hand, ensuring a good hydration status before a game or training allows the player to consume water and electrolytes, as well as carbohydrates, a crucial energy component to delay the onset of fatigue and promote good performance. Isotonic drinks and fruit juices are examples of products that allow the intake of the three components and are excellent options to be consumed at all three times, especially before and during exercise. After exercise, rehydration strategies are one of the pillars of the athletes' recovery process, with their urgency depending on when the next sporting event will occur.
What are some go-to snack combinations that you recommend for young athletes to try before their practice or game?
The meal eaten immediately before training, or a game plays an important role in the young player's performance. In addition to being one of the last opportunities for the player to prepare their body and energy reserves for exercise, this meal should mainly consist of foods that are well digested by the player, generally ensuring foods with low-fat content, reduced fiber content, and good digestibility.
The pre-training or game meal, like all other meals, should not be analyzed in isolation but should be considered in the context of the day's overall diet. That is, especially before games and competitive moments, the amount of carbohydrates needed in that meal to optimize the athlete's performance will depend on what they consumed in the last 24 hours before the game. Thus, following this line of reasoning, the snack should include good sources of carbohydrates, such as fruit, bread, cereals, oatmeal, or other foods like oatmeal pancakes.
Since protein intake should be spread throughout the day, this meal can also be an opportunity to consume protein, particularly through dairy products and their derivatives, eggs, or even fortified plant-based drinks. As previously described, the last meal before exercise is a good opportunity to improve hydration status by combining water intake with electrolytes and carbohydrates, for example through fruit juices and the fruit itself.
Above all, what matters is that the athlete consumes something that gives them energy for the training or game period, but that is to their liking and is well tolerated and digested.
How important is proper nutrition in the recovery process for young athletes?
Nutrition is one of the pillars of the recovery process, naturally including not only food intake but also the rehydration process.
After a training session or a game, several factors must be considered for the recovery process to be efficient and for the athlete to be ready for the next competitive or training session. Three main factors where nutrition has a significant influence during this process should be considered: rehydration with the respective replacement of the fluid balance and electrolytes excreted during exercise; energy replenishment through the intake of food sources primarily rich in carbohydrates; and the optimization of protein synthesis and muscle recovery, where the intake of good protein sources plays a fundamental role.
Although the post-exercise meal is often associated with the intake of supplements and more "fancy" strategies, the truth is that consuming a complete meal is the best way to start the recovery process. Thus, it is crucial to aim for a meal that includes a good intake of fruits and vegetables (vegetables, salad, and fruit), good protein sources (lean meats such as chicken, turkey, rabbit, beef tenderloin/fish/eggs, or plant-based protein sources like legumes), and a significant amount of carbohydrates (through rice, pasta, potatoes, sweet potatoes, legumes like beans, chickpeas, peas, among others). The closer the next training or competition session is, the more important efficient rehydration and energy replenishment become.
What is your opinion on supplements and its use among youth athletes?
First, it is important to note that sports supplements can currently be divided into two distinct groups that can help address this issue. The scientific community differentiates them into sports foods or functional foods and supplements (with ergogenic potential). In this sense, sports foods include products rich in carbohydrates, such as sports drinks, energy gels, or energy bars, and products rich in protein like whey protein and protein-enhanced foods, among others. On the other hand, the supplements group includes products such as creatine, caffeine, nitrates, beta-alanine, sodium bicarbonate, among others (these being the ones with the highest degree of scientific evidence).
In this way, the use of sports foods in young athletes may make sense if justified. That is, since most of the products described in this group are fortified foods with a certain nutrient (whether protein or carbohydrates, mostly), there is no health risk associated with their use. However, it is very important for the athlete to understand that they may benefit from their use. For example, if the athlete already has adequate protein intake for their needs, there is no justification for using protein-enhanced yogurt or whey protein. The same applies to other products in this group.
On the other hand, the use of supplements with ergogenic potential in young athletes should be carefully considered beforehand, even though there is already some scientific evidence showing no health risk, as is the case with creatine.
However, as discussed at the beginning of this interview, nutritional intervention in young athletes should focus more on promoting nutritional education and providing them with tools to adopt good eating habits. In this sense, the approach should follow a food first approach, as the impact of good eating habits will have a much more relevant role in their sports performance and health than the use of sports supplements.
