A few days ago, I was talking with the mother of a young ball player about baseball in general. Eventually our discussion turned to energy and eating. While this mother was aware of the general concepts of good nutrition, she didn’t really know how all of this tied together with training and performance. She said her son was always tired, and that she and most of the other parents were just giving their kids “candy bars and Red Bull to get them through games.”

No wonder these kids are tired! Sugary foods and drinks with caffeine are probably the worst things players of any age should consume during games (or most any other time, for that matter!). The energy/rebound effect of the insulin/blood sugar cycle produced by these kinds of foods results in this tired feeling in many humans, regardless of age or athletic status. As you might guess, there are better alternatives to sugar and caffeine, which we’ll touch on shortly.

Important Differences Between Drugs and Nutritional Supplements

Steroids and baseball have been big news of late, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Not so long ago, steroids were considered to be of no value to athletes. The negative side-effects were better known, but sports medicine experts had determined that there were no benefits in terms of size and strength development for anyone taking steroids and performing hard training, such as bodybuilders or football players.

While that “conventional wisdom” has changed radically in recent years, to my knowledge, there is not a single clinical study that shows that steroids benefit ball players. Yet the lack of research in this particular area does not preclude one from drawing some reasonable conclusions.

And we do have some compelling empirical evidence that steroids do help ball players – such examples include Ken Caminiti, Mark McGwire, & Rafael Palmiero, amongst others. But if anyone thinks the new testing procedures put in place by MLB will stop the use of performance-enhancing drugs, dream on.

As evidence, I offer the Olympics. This organization has MUCH stricter testing guidelines and tougher penalties than MLB, yet we regularly hear stories of another failed drug test by an Olympic athlete. Tough testing procedures and penalties reduce the number of drug cheats, but they do not eliminate them. It ultimately comes down to what is in a person’s mind and heart, and there’s no way to regulate that.

This much we do know: steroids and drugs in general provide very powerful effects on those who take them, often in a relatively short period of time. This is often a good thing for someone suffering from a condition that a drug helps while under appropriate medical supervision.

But too often, these same drugs have side effects that create new problems. It is not uncommon for the side effects generated by Drug A to require yet another drug (Drug B) to deal with the original side effects. And Drug B may introduce yet more side effects! While this doesn’t happen in all cases, it happens more than you might think.

Steroids are particularly damaging to younger athletes. Among the problems they introduce*:

·         Steroid use can close the growth plates of the long bones and prevent the adolescent user from growing to full height

·         In a black market riddled with foreign veterinary steroids and other substances of questionable content, teens are more likely to be scammed by shady dealers with dubious and potentially dangerous products

·         Teens are typically less inclined to admit their steroid use to disapproving physicians, leading to an increased risk of health consequences for failing to monitor liver and cardiovascular health markers

·         Teens may be more likely to use steroids in excessive dosages, erroneously thinking "If a little is good, more must be better."

·         Kids who start juicing without having built any natural foundation may get big fast but then shrink just as fast when the cycle ends, resulting in a reluctance to ever "come off" the juice

Advantages of Nutrition/Supplements Over Steroids

Nutrition, diet and supplements, on the other hand, have comparatively few side effects of any kind, making the “natural” approach preferable. But there is one potentially huge downside (at least in some people’s minds) to the nutritional course of performance enhancement: there is no food or supplement whose effects are as powerful as a drug, including steroids.

On the other hand, nutrition and supplements provide another significant advantage over steroids: they are not illegal. Unlike using steroids, you’ll never go to jail for eating the optimal diet for your sport!

How Can Diet/Nutrition/Supplements Help Ball Players?

All things being equal between two athletes in terms of ability, coaching, and other resources, which athlete will most likely perform better, Athlete A or Athlete B:

  Player A – eats often at various fast food outlets, eats lots of sugary/white flour junk food, and is generally not very careful about their diet.

OR

Player B: eats a well-rounded diet of fruits, vegetables and good quality fats, proteins and whole grains, minimizing their consumption of junk food.

The answer is obvious, of course. Nutrition is an important way for any athlete to enhance their on-field performance. But every athlete, at every age and ability level, needs to understand this key point:

BENEFIT #1

Anabolism: simply defined as a the metabolic process that results in tissue growth; for our purposes here, muscle growth. The human body is in a constant state of trade-off between growth, breakdown, and repair. When the body is in an optimal state of balance between training, eating and resting, an anabolic state exists.

Hormones that promote anabolism include insulin, insulin-like growth factor, growth hormone, and testosterone. Proper training, eating, and supplements can safely and naturally enhance these hormonal factors.

BENEFIT #2

The other potential benefit of Gatorade is that it contains a lot of sugar, in the forms of sucrose syrup and glucose-fructose syrup. This can be beneficial to endurance athletes (runners and cyclists) but less so for ball players. In the course of a 2-3 hour game, ball players will not ordinarily deplete their store of glycogen. What is metabolized is easily replaced by post game meal(s). For ball players, aside from any “refreshing” effect this drink may have, it will do little to enhance on-field performance.  An alternative drink recipe which uses Gatorade as the base, and includes amino acids, is a better choice for ball players.

The primary benefit of this recipe is that by introducing an anti-catabolic nutrient (amino acids) into the blood stream during competition, the post-game recovery process is enhanced. While  electrolytes and sugar ordinarily do not need to be supplemented during competition, consuming them during a game or training doesn’t hurt.

Lets examine a few different sports and their energy system requirements:

Basketball:       High                   Moderate to High                      -

Soccer:            High                         Moderate                        High

Football:           High                         Moderate                        Low

Track,
long distance:     -                             Moderate                        High

Marathon:           -                                  -                               High

Baseball
Softball:           High                               -                                  -

Track,
field events:      High                               -                                  -

Weightlifting:    High                                -                                  -

Note that the activities most similar to baseball are weight lifting and the track field events. The activity most dissimilar to baseball is the marathon.

So, as a ball player, you would not condition as do these dissimilar sports. And, while there can be some overlap in this regard, you should not eat and supplement as other sports do either.

One well known example of eating for performance is the carbohydrate loading that long distance athletes do prior to competition. This works very well for them, but would do little for ball players.

Guidelines For Eating & Supplementation

These general guidelines will help ball players of any age to properly perform nutritionally at their peak:

1)  Eat a well-balanced diet consisting of:

Fat, 30% of daily caloric intake - 20 % monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats; 10% saturated fat. In addition, strive to maintain a ratio of Omega 6 fatty acids to Omega 3 fatty acids of 4:1.

Carbohydrates, 55% - The more complex, the better (whole grain flour products instead of white, for example).

Protein - The RDA for adults is 0.8 gm per kilogram of bodyweight for both males and females, 0.5 gm per kilogram for youngsters up to 120 lbs. 

Protein recommendations for athletes are 1.5 to 2.0 g/kg of body weight.  If you’re a really big (250+ lbs) hard training ball player, you can up this to 2.5 g/kg.

These requirements can be met by consumption of protein sources of high Biological Value (BV). These include lean cuts of beef, poultry, fish, legumes, eggs, cottage cheese, and nuts. 

2) Vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) make the aforementioned macro-nutrients work effectively in the body. They provide other key benefits to ball players, e.g., acting as anti-oxidants which aid post exertion recovery. This includes such nutrients as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, selenium, and Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA).

3) MAXIMIZE the benefits you can obtain from a well balanced diet before using supplements. Understand that unlike the usually quick and noticeable benefits drugs can provide, nutritional benefits/results can often take weeks and even months before they manifest.

Natural substances such as those obtained by diet and supplements are generally not as “potent” or concentrated as the average drug. But they can provide many significant benefits nonetheless, as listed above.

The “hard gainer” who has been told s/he needs to put on weight is a good candidate for supplementation, or any athlete whose diet is deficient and not well-rounded as suggested above.

4) I suggest as a good age to begin considering the use of nutritional supplements is when a player begins more rigorous strength and conditioning work, beyond the usual schedule of practice and games.

As you can see, there’s a lot ball players can do nutritionally to enhance their on field performance. We’ll examine this in more detail in future issues of LINE DRIVES.

Perhaps some of you are asking, “Does all of this really matter? Can diet and supplements really make a difference for ball players?”

Consider what Tom Glavine had to say about Roger Clemens in the 4/17/2006 issue of USA Today titled, "Clemens Leaves Mark On Many Fellow Hurlers."

This is certainly a case where “doing what the pros do” is solid advice for ball players. For these guys, it means a lot of $$. What can a similar approach mean to you?

Finally, I’m pleased to announce a special new feature available exclusively for subscribers to LINE DRIVES called “Ask The Doctor.” (And yes, if someone wants to suggest a better name for this service, I’m listening.)

World famous conditioning and nutrition expert Dr. Eric Seranno is making himself available to answer your tough questions on any aspect of nutrition and conditioning.

Dr. Seranno regularly works with professional athletes from the NHL, NFL, MLB, and the Olympics. He’s the guy athletes go to who want to stay clean and play within the rules while enhancing their performance.

We’ll periodically select a question which Dr. Seranno will answer and we’ll publish through this forum. You can submit questions to me and they will be forwarded as required to Dr. Seranno.  This is a real opportunity for all of us to learn from a true expert, so don’t hesitate to submit your questions!

               *www.steroidlaw.com/steroid-law-37.html