Most soft tissue injuries occur when a player is fatigued and is suffering from tiredness. Weakness and muscle soreness can be prevented to some extent through proper nutrition. Its no secret that glycogen levels in the blood stream and in the muscles is required to play at your peak. Soccer is a game which requires short bursts of energy, followed by long periods of endurance. What many athletes don’t know is that having a positive level of glycogen in the muscles can significantly reduce the risk of soft tissue injuries. Science has proven the link between muscle glycogen depletion with fatigue and injury.
The link or connection is quite simple, muscles that fatigue lose their strength which puts your joints at risk. To help me explain this I’ll use an example. Lets use a very common injury among soccer players and that is the “shin splint”. When a soccer player runs, he relies on one particular muscle to take proportionately more strain. This is the strip of sinew that runs down the shin to the inside edge of the foot and pulls the foot inward and upward. During the running motion, this muscle works twice as hard as the other local muscles and its a safe bet that this muscle will fatigue first. Once this muscle fatigues, the risk of injuries increases exponentially. Injuries such as shin splints, stress fractures and the risk of knee injuries are very common from this kind of fatigue.
So far we’ve established that glycogen levels in the muscles are very important. So how can we prevent this muscle fatigue? A simple answer to this question is eating the right amounts of carbohydrates. Eating to ensure your muscles are packed with glycogen will inevitably prolong muscle fatigue and the risk of injuries. Scientific evidence correlates muscle glycogen depletion with muscle fibre damage and sport injuries.
So what causes muscle fatigue? There are 2 metabolic processes of fatigue that develop in the muscles.
- The first one is the accumulation of certain metabolites,
- and the second one is the depletion of other metabolites.
The first component is very common, if you’ve ever had a cramp you have succumbed to this process. The accumulation component includes an increase in the amount of hydrogen ions as a result of lactate build-up. Depletion on the other hand includes decreasing the amounts of fuels found inside the muscle cells such as ATP and glycogen.
To keep this basic, prolonged exercise is associated with a depletion in muscle glycogen stores, which in turn results in a decrease in energy production. When energy fuel levels in the blood and the muscle cannot satisfy the players workload, the player becomes very vulnerable to injuries both soft tissue and skeletal.
So the question is, what to eat and in what quantities?
The general rule of thumb is that 8-10 grams of carbohydrate per kg of body weight will maintain appropriate glycogen levels during heavy training or competition. This kind of carbohydrate loading only benefits players that exercise for longer than 60 minutes or whose sport requires repeated bouts of high intensity exercise such as soccer. An easy way to boost your glycogen levels is to consume 500-600g of carbohydrates for 3 days before your match.
Also keeping your glycogen level topped up is just as essential in training. It’s very easy to gradually drain your glycogen stores if you’re training without eating a diet high in carbohydrates.
So the take home message from this post is
- Eat simple carbohydrates to replenish and maintain your glycogen levels in the muscles and the liver.
- Avoid glycogen depletion as it is linked to poor performance and injuries.
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