New research reveals popular advice given to women athletes around hydration, nutrition, and performance is not supported by science

Drink plenty of water, don’t eat carbs, you don’t need fitted gear.

I’m sure that opening sentence resonates with a lot of female athletes as it is something that has been drilled into them since they first took up an interest in their preferred sport.

But what if I was to say, that is all a lie.

New research done by Gatorade Sport Science Institute (GSSI) has found that much of the popular advice aimed towards women surrounding hydration, nutrition, and performance is actually not supported by science and they want to change that.

Whilst interest is rapidly growing in women’s sports, with more eyes than ever on the female game, Gatorade felt it was important to make sure women were consuming accurate and useful information when it came to exercise.

As they recently found that although the interest was growing, the standard of high-quality information was not keeping up with it. So they decided to end that once and for all and debunk so of the disinformation out there.

New research from Gatorade Sport Science Institute (GSSI) reveals advice aimed at women around hydration, nutrition, and performance is not backed by science

The common myths they have busted are only drink water, don’t eat carbs, you don’t need fitted gear

Lie: Women don’t need sports drinks when training – just water.

One of the biggest myths Gatorade found during their research was that drinking water is enough.

Instead they discovered that consuming water by itself, might not be sufficient for a long or intense exercise. 

Female athletes need to also be consuming electrolytes and carbohydrates which can be found in sports drinks like Gatorade to help maintain fluid balance, delay fatigue, and reduce the risk of hyponatremia.

Speaking about the importance of not only drinking water when doing exercise, Dr Rebecca Randell, Associate Principal Scientist at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute said:

So the electrolytes that are in a sports drink like Gatorade often they do help with the fluid retention, it keeps that fluid in your body so that you don’t just like urinate it out 

Brazil international Tamires also spoke on the importance of not only drinking water and her past experience with the myth.

‘When I was younger, ‘we used to train and for two hours and a half we couldn’t have some water or anything.

‘Now things have changed, we know more about nutrition and hydration. But we as athletes, want to know more information so we ask our coaches about it.

‘I play with Corinthians now and when I talk with my nutritionist, she says you have to eat, you have to hydrate, get some electrolytes.

Brazil international Tamires detailed her experience with misinformation surrounding nutrition

Lie: Women should avoid carbs and go low-carb to perform better.

Speaking on the importance of consuming carbohydrates, Dr Randell echoed the importance of women meeting their daily carbohydrate intake as they are essential yo helping athletes perform to their full potential.

Dr Randell added ‘The carbohydrates also has a really important role that makes it absorb into the cells so that it’s going into the right places. 

Carbohydrates help with fuelling, which is particularly important, which is where I think some female athletes don’t see or don’t believe, it becomes important when you exercising for more than 60 minutes, at a really high intensity.

‘So any high intensity movement that you do, like football. Football is full of high sprints and getting back, the jumping, the tackling, every time you do a high-intensity movement, your muscle will primarily use carbohydrate.

‘And fats, carbohydrates are really limited in our muscle, so we actually have relatively small amounts of carbohydrate, which are stored in our muscles. So if we keep doing those sprints, over time, the carbohydrate will go.

‘You can see it like a battery. We start exercise full with our battery full, the carbohydrates full, and then over time, that battery, like our phone battery starts depleting, so we need to make sure that everybody and females specifically are eating or consuming or drinking enough carbohydrate.

One of the most common misconceptions among females who exercise is that carbohydrates are bad for you when in fact they can enhance your performance

Lie: Women nutritional needs change during different phases of your cycle.

Gatorade say: ‘There is currently no evidence to suggest that a woman’s diet should be altered in any way depending on the phase of their menstrual cycle. 

‘Every woman experiences different symptoms throughout their cycle, and they might crave different foods at certain points. 

‘That’s why a “one size fits all” approach to nutrition doesn’t work for women, they need personalised approaches based on individual needs rather than generalised advice that won’t work for everyone.’

Dr Randell also spoke about the importance of fueling your body properly and meeting your calory intake as not doing so can affect the female body greatly.

‘Yeah, I think one of the things for GSSI and for Gatorade is around that education is to make sure that women have the right education, which is specific to them. 

‘And I think not only for performance, but I think also for health, one of the things that is that we see in like, the studies in the research is that some women lose their menstrual cycle when their athletes or when they’re exercising a lot, and that’s sometimes due to not having enough energy. 

‘So our body gives energy to all different functions and when we don’t have enough energy, our bodies, it stops giving energy to a certain function. 

There is no evidence to back the common myth that women’s nutritional needs change during different phases of your cycle

‘So it might say, oh, we don’t need the menstrual cycle at the moment because you’re not looking to have children, we’ll stop that. And so a lot of female athletes who don’t fuel well will not have a menstal cycle, so it’s not just around like having fuelling.

‘We really need to make sure that our female athletes are healthy, because after they stop being athletes, you know, they might want to go on to be mothers. 

‘They might want to have a second career. So, we need to make sure that we’re giving the right information, backed by science, so that they can perform well, and also to have a healthy life.

Lie: Sports bras don’t need special fitting.

Another thing many female athletes may be unaware of, is the fact they should be wearing fitted sports bra. 

Gatorade found that ‘a poorly fitted sports bra doesn’t just cause discomfort; it impacts breathing frequency, makes running techniques less efficient, increases ground reaction force which increases risk of lower limb injury and makes the upper body work harder possibly leading to fatigue faster.’

Another thing many female athletes may be unaware of, is the fact they should be wearing fitted sports bra

Executive Vice President,Chief Consumer and Marketing Officer and Chief Growth Officer, International Foods at PepsiCo Jane Wakely also spoke to MailSport about why it is important to PepsiCo to invest in research surrounding female athletes.

‘I think we can, by acting together, we can bring an unlock, really meaningful development of the sports. 

‘With Gatordae 5V5 and we’ve also got Lay’s replay., Gatorade partner with young people and really help them access not only facilities, but we give them coaching, nutrition, 

‘We help them with training plans, we help them develop their passion in sport, and some of them go on to be professional players, but the reality is the real thing it gives all of those young people who participate is the life skills.

‘So you don’t need to become a professional footballer to benefit from understanding how to manage your life, how to set a goal, how to work towards a goal, how to utilise and develop your network to support you in that goal. 

‘Those are life skills, which I personally feel, you know, life changing, whether you choose sport or not as a professional. 

‘And that is I’m super proud of it. And that’s the sort of programme’ says Wakely.

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