THE TRACEUR DIET IMPROVE YOUR DIET, IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE by WillWayland

Why is diet so important?

Traceurs make efforts through training, conditioning, and practice to improve performance. A critical link in this process is proper nutrition.

Improper nutrition can not only hinder performance, but is a detriment to overall physical health. The macronutrients (water, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) can all have major implications if low or deficient.

Parkour raises numerous energy issues, such as body weight maintenance, proper nutrition before and after training.

So how do we need to eat for parkour?. Lets take a look at what parkour is on a physiological level.

Parkour is characterized by high-intensity anaerobic activity interspersed with sub-maximal aerobic work. Traceurs need to rapidly generate muscular force in a quick series of movements.

Aerobic endurance is required to assist with recovery between bursts of high-intensity activity and to support performance through several different movements.

In parkour the traceur must move his body as fast and as explosively as possible during play, carrying unnecessary weight is costly energy expenditure so staying lean is important.

Another problem with traceurs is that they tend too over train and under eat, leaving them listless, tired, sleep deprived and increasingly prone too injury. With this in mind the traceur will get the most out of each training session if they are adequately fueled and hydrated.

STARTING WITH THE BASICS
Dr John Berardi outlines 7 simple habits for anyone to adhere to for a good diet.

I love these guide lines and they’ve served my athletes and myself well.

THE MACRONUTRIENTS
Making up the largest portion these in the right ratio are key to nutritional success

Protein
Most foods contain at least some protein. Good sources of protein include nuts and seeds, pulses, lean beef, chicken/turkey, oily fish, free-range eggs and some dairy products (milk, cheese and yogurt).
You need 1.4-2.0g per kg of Bodyweight daily to help build muscle!

Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates and creatine-phosphate (CP) are the main fuel source used by the body's cells to replenish adenosine triphosphate (ATP) stores during moderate to intense activities. Good sources of carbs are oats/cereals/grains, potatoes/yams, fresh vegetables and fruit.

Fats
Fats are a more abundant source of energy, requiring more oxygen to use up, certain dietary fats are needed for normal organ function, essential fatty padding, nervous system function and other essential uses, thus called essential fatty acids.

These come from fish oil capsules, oily fish such as mackerel, sardines, kippers etc also from nuts and some dairy produce.

Also in this article:

SEVEN GOOD DIET HABITS
EATING ON THE MOVE, THE TRACEURS DOWNFALL
13 REASON TO TAKE FISH OIL

The focus of the overall eating plan should be nutritious carbohydrate-rich foods such as brown pasta, brown rice, whole grain bread, fruit, and flavoured dairy products which will provide the muscles with their training fuel.

Moderate amounts of low-fat protein sources such as lean meat, lean poultry, fish, eggs and vegetarian sources should be added to these foods to balance the meal, as well as additional fruit and vegetables to provide vitamin and minerals.

THE SAMPLE DAY
This is an example day’s worth of food for an entire day, we are looking at multiple smaller meals during the course of a day.

Those who eat with their family in the evening, meal number five sits in there quite well for this purpose.

Remember this is just an example and not set in stone, some days you might be busy and have to give up one or two meals, that’s life.

EATING ON THE MOVE, THE TRACEURS DOWNFALL

During those day long session we risk compromising our hard work with poor nutritional habits, small light mainly carb based meals are the order of the day especially if time is short. During a thread where Brad asked for advice on a day long gymnastics event.

TO READ BRAD'S THREAD

The advice here is useful for those who cant take an hour or two off to eat a proper meal. Getting in some form of fat and protein during a day long training session would be better than just consuming carbs all day (note that the gymnasts didn’t have that luxury).

The other issue is that no one wants to carry around backpacks with food because this can be cumbersome. So sandwich shops and the like are a boon to the traceur on the go.

Picking complex carbs is important because eating a lot of high sugar foods will lead to insulin spikes and drops (that sluggish feeling you get after eating too much of mums roast).

Ergogenics/Supplements
For those of you that have the money and the rest of your diet sorted supplements are useful for getting that last 5% performance improvement.

After you have got your nutrition and workout in order, only then is it time to consider supplementation. For example, taking a fat loss supplement won't help you lose fat if you are consuming more calories than you are using in a day. Similarly, if you don't consume enough food, supplements designed to aid muscle growth will have very little effect.

Supplements cannot do the work for you. They are not a replacement for discipline and desire. They are something you use in addition to your other strategies in order to speed your progress.

Without going into too much detail here are the best two supplements, there are others but I could write a separate article on that alone.

The main players:

Creatine
Creatine supplementation improves repetitive, short-term performance. Contrary to nonsense I hear its not a steroid or a drug. Research has indicated that creatine supplementation may produce a slight muscle-building effect, or - more specifically - an expansion in the size of type II ('fast twitch') muscle fibres. But it wont make you huge aside from gaining a little water weight. Sticking to monohydrate is the best bet, because serum’s and the like degrade quickly in their containers.

Fish oils

Possibly the most important supplement you could ever take.

13 reasons to take fish oils. Charles Polquin does a better job of giving reasons for fishoils than I ever could.

TO READ POLQUIN'S ARTICLE

IMPROVE YOUR DIET, IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE

That about wraps it up. This guide is in no way exhaustive, there is a vast array of information out there on these subjects, what I have given you is a guide. Hopefully setting you up for good diet practice in the beginning.