What does it take to fuel Brent Fikowski in training and competition?
Brent’s nutrition over the last two years, to be honest, has not changed dramatically. Brent has remained very consistent in his daily routine and knows how to fuel his body to support the training he’s done. He does not know his macros or how many calories in a day he consumes unless I tell him.
It is all about eating the right food at the right time of the day. I have found this has really helped with Brent’s body composition changes and also recovery from training. If you struggle reaching your ideal body composition or find it hard to recover from training I’m sure I can help you find workable solutions too.
I focus on periodisation – which is looking at each meal in its own breakdown of carbs/protein/fat content and manipulating these numbers according to training times/physical activity. Periodisation is not really macro counting, because even if you consume the right macros in the day but the timing is out, your recovery and body fat levels may not change!
So if Brent trains in the morning; he consumes more carbs then. If there is no activity at night choose lower carb options and a little higher in fat. Protein intake never changes.
So at the CrossFit Games what happened?
I thought I would give a little snapshot of what Brent consumed on the first day of the CrossFit Games.
Brent found a company to deliver some pre-prepared meals for him so he didn’t have to prep as much food. I ensured these were low in fat and based on white meat/fish so it wasn’t sitting in his gut digesting for too long. We added rice to all of these meals to increase the carbohydrate content.
Thursday – The first day of the CrossFit Games.
On this day Brent consumed approximately 5200 calories, breaking down into 235g protein, 70g of fat and a whopping 850g of carbs. To give you an idea of the difference to a normal home day of training, Brent consumes around 4200 calories – 220g of protein, 160g of fat and 400g of carbs.
Breakfast rarely ever changes in competition. It is 3/4 C of cooked oats, cinnamon, 1/2 tb of honey, berries, banana, and 3 eggs + 1 C of vege and sometimes a rasher of lean bacon.
Post Workouts involved his protein, and dextrose powder from Mission 6 Nutrition, along with dried dates and the pre-prepared meals with rice. These were pretty consistent throughout the whole day.
Before bed it was oats with honey and cinnamon and some kind of casein protein – either quark yoghurt/cheese.
Fluid intake was also high, and he also consumed electrolytes to ensure he was well hydrated.
A few things have been taken out though because I cant give away all the tricks to the trade 😉
Brent’s energy levels where high all weekend and his recovery was on point in all aspects. I know his nutrition played a huge role and helped ensure his spot on that podium.
In Summary – my biggest tip for sports nutrition is you need to change your food intake according to your activity level. Some workouts go for 10 minutes and others go for minutes. You will need more refuel your body according to each workout! Don’t fall into the trap of eating the same thing day in and day out!
If you need help with your training nutrition, energy levels or body composition change, please contact us today.