How To Play Hockey Better And More Consistently

Why are KFC, McDonalds and Burger King bad meal choices before hockey?

It may be a tasty meal but have you considered a levels of fat, sugar, and salt, in it?

A Mcdonalds Big Mac contains 490 calories and that's without fries, 216 of which come from fat which equates to approximately 24g of fat, which is roughly half of what you should be eating a day to stay lean, now let me show you what your blood looks like after consuming this much fat, that yellow portion in the blood is the fat from the cheeseburger that the patient had eaten the previous night, this fat is very viscous, slowing down the transport of oxygen to the working muscles, this means, your legs aren't going to be able to move as quickly and your recovery times will be longer meaning, with each shift you will feel worse and worse.




Alongside this, fat causes red blood cells to coagulate, what this means is that the fat binds to different red blood cells together and ultimately slows them down, here's what it looks like under the microscope, on the left there is coagulated cells and on the right are normal cells.

When oxygen is being delivered to the muscles at a slower rate, your potential VO2 Max,amount of oxygen you can take in and use per kilogram of body weight per minute goes down, which also lowers your Lactate Threshold, the amount of lactate you can have in your muscles before loss of performance, making you more susceptible to cramps and also making you more likely to suffer oxygen debt, which is when you have exercised so hard that your body couldn't produce energy with oxygen so had to make it without, the byproduct being lactate, and then when you stop your body has to 'catch up' causing you to pant very hard to catch your breathe, this can actually cause chest pains during and after hockey.

So, if you want to increase potential performance before a game consume a healthy meal containing a variety of different coloured fruits, such as bananas, apples, strawberries, raspberries, these contain essential electrolytes, such as sodium, magnesium, calcium and potassium, necessary for muscular contraction, also you should consider eating a salad based meal including beetroot as they are high in nitrates, scientifically proven to cause vasorelaxation (reduction of tension in blood vessell walls, lowering blood pressure and allowing more oxygen in and out of the active muscles) leading to improved VO2 Max, cardiovascular endurance, strength endurance and muscular endurance.

Make sure that you consider these factors next time you eat food before training and/or a game, if you want to know more you ask me via email @ powerskater3@gmail.com and you can ask me via the comments section below!

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