Proper nutrition is a cornerstone of athletic success, particularly for young volleyball players. By prioritizing healthy eating habits, young athletes can maximize their performance, energy levels, and overall well-being. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of healthy eating strategies tailored for volleyball players, drawing on expert advice and practical tips.
The Importance of Healthy Eating for Volleyball Players
The foods you consume have a profound impact on your athletic performance, energy levels, and even your mood. Daily food choices serve as fuel that can either enhance stamina and elevate your game or deplete energy, leading to underperformance and negatively impacting your mood and the mood of your team.
There's a deep interconnectedness between food, athletic performance, and mental health, known as "the brain in your gut." Research indicates that the gut produces essential nutrients that your body requires during exercise to sustain performance and recover efficiently.
Pre-Match Fueling: Setting the Stage for Success
What you eat before a volleyball game is crucial for providing your body with the energy it needs to perform at its best. Ideally, you should consume a meal that contains a mix of complex carbohydrates and lean protein, as well as some healthy fats.
Focus on Whole Foods
Prioritize consuming foods in their most natural state whenever possible, avoiding packaged foods that have been stripped of their nutrients. Natural foods are more readily absorbed into the gut, maximizing their nutritional benefits.
Read also: Healthy food access with Highmark Wholecare explained.
Sample Pre-Match Meals
- Oatmeal sprinkled with berries or banana
- Slice of whole wheat toast or bagel with nut butter and honey as a natural sweetener
- Hard-boiled egg(s)
If you have less than two hours before game time, opt for easily digestible options like:
- Greek yogurt with nuts/seeds
- Two hard-boiled eggs
- Whole wheat toast and nut butter
- Nut and fruit bar (look for options with less than 7g of sugar and less than 5 ingredients)
Pre-Match Snacks for Sustained Energy
Regardless of whether you play on indoor or sand courts, locally or internationally, access to familiar snacks before a match is crucial to performance. You don’t always have to make your snacks at home or the hotel; you can also buy pre-packaged snacks from grocery stores or restaurants. The main purpose of pre-match snacks is to top off the body’s gas tank before asking the engine to perform at a high level. In this case, the “engine” is both your brain and muscles. Snacks can also help meet overall nutrient needs for the day and prevent excessive hunger mid- to late-match.
To ensure smart snacks are available pre-match, preparation is key. Keep a variety of tasty, nutritious, ready-to-eat snacks available, ready to throw in a backpack or cooler to take to a match.
Balancing Macronutrients for Optimal Performance
Easily digestible carbohydrate sources such as fruit, veggies or grain provide nutrients for muscle contraction and brain function. Balance protein and carbs when choosing your pre-match snack.
The amount you eat before a match depends on match time, what your last meal was, your position, and your individual preferences. The longer time you have before or between matches, the more time there is for your food to digest. Longer digestion times allow for larger or more complex meals. If your next match is coming up in less than an hour, stick to easy-to-digest foods or a drink such as a smoothie.
Read also: Healthy Eating on the Run
Post-Match Recovery: Rebuilding and Replenishing
After a volleyball game, your body needs to recover and repair the muscle tissues that were damaged during the game. To optimize your recovery, you should eat a meal that contains a mix of protein and carbohydrates.
The Importance of Protein
Protein is essential for muscle repair and recovery after the physical and mental strain of playing.
Sample Post-Match Meals
- Rice or quinoa bowl with lean chicken, fish, or beans
- Add greens like spinach or romaine lettuce
- Top with a variety of colorful vegetables and hummus (extra protein!)
- Choose a sauce to bring it all together like chunky salsa, pesto or light salad dressing
Snacking Tips to Refuel & Recover
For adequate recovery of muscle glycogen stores, volleyball players should consume a snack within 30 minutes of play. This is especially critical with tournament play, during heavy training pre-season or when players are expected to compete on consecutive days.
If you do not plan to eat a meal within 30 minutes, a snack is necessary. Select a snack that provide between 0.5-1.0 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight and 10-20 g of protein. (1)Examples include: yogurt, peanut butter or cheese sandwich, low-fat chocolate milk, meal replacement drinks, dry cereal mixed with dried fruit and soy nuts.
Staying Hydrated: A Key to Peak Performance
Hydration before, during and after training and game-time should be well planned. Drinking large amounts of water in the minutes beforehand is not an optimal way to hydrate and can leave you with a “sloshy” stomach in the opening minutes of play. Dehydration (2-3% loss in body weight (2) or just a bit over 3 pounds for a 165-pound player) can slow pace and decrease reaction time. Players should sip small amounts of fluid during training and regularly throughout the day.
Read also: Mobile Dining Revolution
Hydration Tips
- Start hydrating about 4 hours before practice or competitions so that you are able to excrete any excess fluid as urine before you compete.
- If you are training for 60+ minutes, sip 4-6 ounces fluid every 15 minutes. A sports drink may be necessary.
- On days where you are training intensely, for every pound lost, replace with 24 ounces of fluid.
- Carry a water bottle with you during the day to help achieve your fluid goals. One sip of water is equal to about 1 ounce.
Hydration during practices and games is also critical. If you are playing for more than 60 minutes then a sports beverage may be needed. Sports beverages can allow you to keep your blood sugar levels within normal limits to allow for immediate energy and split-second decision making. Your brain relies on glucose for its primary fuel source. Without (glucose,) your blood sugar can drop and cause impaired mental acuity.
Tournament Nutrition: Fueling Through Long Days
It’s very hard to keep your energy up over a whole day of playing, and it’s even harder to do when you play multiple days in a row.
Understanding Calories and Energy
Calories are a measurement of energy. If you don’t consume enough calories you won’t have the necessary energy to get through games, matches, and whole days of playing. If you’ve ever felt tired and fatigued towards the end of a long day of playing, or during the last day of a multiple day tournament, then there’s a good chance you’re feeling that way because you didn’t properly fuel your body with the right nutrients/calories.
Macronutrient Breakdown
Calories come from Carbohydrates, Protein, and Fat. To be more exact, you get 4 calories for every gram of carbohydrate and protein you ingest, and 9 calories for every gram of fat you eat. Generally speaking, carbs will be your quickest form of energy because they are digested faster. Protein is well known for helping repair muscles, but can also be used for energy when needed. Fat offers more calories per gram, but will get digested slower.
Fueling Strategies for Tournament Days
Being fueled and ready to play really starts with the night before. I’m sure you have all heard of “Carb Loading” that is a practice of most endurance athletes. Those athletes do that so that their muscle glycogen stores are as high as possible before they start. Now I don’t recommend you try doing this because it takes some trial and error to make sure you feel good the next day too. However, I do recommend that you eat a good normal meal the night before. Nothing special really. Make sure there’s some good protein and carbohydrates for your body to be in good shape to start the next day. Examples of meals the night before:
- Chicken Breast, Rice, and Broccoli
- Pasta and Meatballs or any meat
- Salmon and a baked potato
Next is the morning of. What you eat in the morning will depend a little on when you actually play and what your body can handle. In general, you want to have a decent size meal that contains a good amount of carbohydrates in addition to some protein and fat. If you wake up in the morning and have to play within an hour, then I would recommend minimizing fat intake and increasing carbohydrates because the meal will get digested faster. Fruit, Toast/bagels, and cereal would all be decent examples of a good high carbohydrate meal. Both eggs and Peanut butter works very well to add some extra calories in the form of protein and fat that can be very beneficial too because it will get digested a little slower to give you some prolonged energy without adding a lot of weight to your stomach. To be honest, most breakfast food will work pretty well. I would however avoid anything fried because those foods can be hard on your digestion and therefore disrupt your performance. Bacon and sausage come to mind. A general amount of food to consume would be about 300-400 calories containing 40-60 grams of carbohydrates, 20-30 grams of protein, and 5-10g of fat. I would stay at the lower ranges if you’re going to play within an hour of eating, and more towards the higher ranges if you’re going to still have 2-3 hours before playing. Personally, I like having a bagel with peanut butter on it and an egg on the side. Sometimes a little extra fruit too. Examples of meals the morning before:
- Bagel with peanut butter optional extra hard boiled egg on the side
- 3 eggs and 2 slices of toast
- Cereal with milk. Egg on the side for extra protein
- Pancakes and a small protein shake
- Protein Bar with ~20g protein. Juice on the side if bar doesn’t have a lot of carbs
During play can be a little more tricky. A big factor determining what you can eat will depend on what your actual breaks are. A general rule of thumb would be to try to get close to ingesting 100 calories every hour. Some people can function well right after eating, but others (such as myself) don’t do well when there’s too much food in their stomach. I personally try to sip Gatorade or a similar fluid with carbohydrates when playing games back to back because that allows you to get a constant flow of carbohydrates in your body while also helping you stay hydrated. I recommend to have just a couple ounces at a time though because chugging it will won’t feel so great in your stomach. If you have the chance, having small granola bars or pretzels to snack on will help during these times too. When you have longer breaks you can eat a little more and let it digest before playing. Protein and granola bars work really well for this. Look for ones that are higher in carbohydrates too. The longer break you have the more calories you should try to look for. During this time you can also try to get more protein and fat in since you won’t need the carbohydrates right away either (you should still have carbs here). If you have an actual lunch break with 2-3 hours off then I recommend having a meal similar to breakfast. Common foods to look for would be sandwiches, larger protein bars, or pasta (don’t overeat this). Things I would consider avoiding would be anything greasy, such as pizza, wings, or french fries (although a nice baked potato would be great). I also want to note that it would not be a good idea to simply drink as much Gatorade or ingest as many carbohydrates as possible at one time. For one this would not feel great on your stomach, and two it would also cause a huge rise in blood sugar which can consequently cause it to drop soon after. The goal should be to have a constant flow of carbohydrates in your system to keep your blood glucose up, but not so high that it comes crashing down. Which is why the 100 calories/hour rule is a good general rule of thumb. Examples of food while playing:
- Protein bars.
- High carbohydrate foods: Pretzels, Fruit, Gatorade or similar beverage
- Nuts. Recommended more when you have longer breaks since they take longer to digest.
- Sandwiches/subs. Recommended for longer breaks.
Once the day is over you should try to catch up on all of those calories that you burned off. It’s almost impossible to eat enough during the day while you’re playing. I strongly recommend eating directly after the day of playing is over because this is the time that your body will be most prepared to take in extra nutrients to replenish glycogen stores and protein to help those muscles recover. During this time you could even go get some ice cream or get a donut. That would help catch up on some of those calories you burned off. Again, timing can affect this too. If you’re done playing at 2:00 pm you should grab some food right after and then eat a somewhat normal dinner later in the evening. If you’re done playing at 6:00 pm, then you should likely consider eating a fairly large dinner as soon as possible and that might be it for the night. It’s hard to give any calorie goals for this, but I would suggest eating more than you would on a normal day. Especially if you’re going to be playing again tomorrow. You need Protein, carbs, and fat for this meal. Examples of foods after playing:
- Pretty much anything, but I generally would still stay away from anything that could cause digestion issues or make you feel bloated the next day. Fried food and overly salted foods can sometimes do this. Although you will need some salt to stay hydrated too.
Coach Dan’s Mock Eating Plan For A 1 Day Tournament
Pool Play times (2 set matches):
9:00 am
10:30 am
11:15 am
Lunch Break after pool play
Quarter Finals: 2:30
Semi-finals: 3:30
Finals: 4:30
7:30am - Bagel/Toast with peanut butter and one egg with a cup of coffee.
9:00 am - water or small amount of gatorade. Breakfast should still be enough energy.
9:45 am half of a protein bar: This one probably. Few ounces of gatorade.
10:30 am - noon: Back to back games will likely mean only gatorade. If needed I will finish the protein bar from earlier between matches
Noon: Larger lunch. I do well with protein bars. This one especially for now because it’s higher calorie and the fat will digest a little slower which is fine because we have time.
2:30 pm - 4:30pm: Gatorade and pretzels. Small granola bar if time.
5:30 pm: Finish any food I have left. Plan somewhere for dinner with the team after a victor…
Healthy Snack Ideas
Go for whole, fresh foods and if it does come from a package, pay attention to the sugar and ingredient count - less is more!
- Peanut butter
- Chopped apples and cinnamon
- Fresh Fruit: Sliced or whole pieces of fresh fruit from grocery store or dining hall
Women’s National Team Energy Balls
The Women’s National team loves these balls as a pre-match snack. In fact, athletes will bring the ingredients to make this recipe with them on international trips so they can have a familiar treat despite playing on the road.
- 1/4 cup honey
- Mix honey and peanut butter until smooth. Stir in oats and chocolate chips. Mix until combined. Roll into bite-size balls and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Enjoy!
Peach Barbecue Sauce
This peach BBQ sauce is a summer favorite with USA Volleyball’s National Teams.
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 tbsp. minced garlic
- 1 tbsp. grated ginger
- 1 tbsp. peach preserves
- 1/2 tbsp. soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp. liquid smoke
- 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
- Blend all ingredients until smooth. Add more water to thin if necessary.
Tips for Eating Healthy Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates supply our body with sustained energy. Eating healthy carbohydrates also gives us the vitamins our metabolism needs to unlock vital energy from food. Eating nutrient dense healthy carbohydrates for meals and snacks will provide appropriate energy needs and also satisfy high energy requirements needed for building and maintaining lean muscle mass.
- Get organized. Have whole grain crackers, nutrition bars, fresh /dried fruit, granola bars and trail mix available with you at all times.
- Eat more often rather than increasing the size of your meals. It is not uncommon for volleyball players to eat six times a day.
- To increase your carbohydrates during high level trainings. Select fruit smoothies, 100% juice or meal replacement beverages.
- Good sources of carbohydrates include whole grain bread, crackers, pasta, tortillas, fresh and dried fruit, starchy vegetables, milk and yogurt. Specifics can be found on the ICYF “Athlete Shopping List” guide.
Additional Considerations
- Individual Preferences: What you eat exactly will be determined by what you can tolerate and will vary greatly between people. Use these guidelines to help you decide what you can try.
- Avoid Relying on Caffeine: The worst thing you can do is decide to not eat anything and rely on coffee or energy drinks to get you by. Trust me, that won’t go very well.
- Clean Eating: In order to play at your optimal level, clean eating, a healthy weight and hydration are your secret weapons to winning.
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