Metabolic health, body composition and sports performance
If you’re an active individual, or keen athlete, read on to learn more about how metabolic and body composition testing may be able to support your sports performance.
- Fuelling to support your training
One component of metabolic testing includes the measurement of your resting metabolic rate (the number of calories your body is using at rest). This can be used to personalise your dietary intake to make sure you’re eating the right amount to support your training. It can also be used to develop safe and effective strategies to modify your body composition without compromising your performance.
Relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) is common amongst athletes. It occurs when dietary intake does not meet the energy requirements to maintain health and wellbeing, in addition to fuelling for a high training load. This low energy availability can impact many aspects of an athlete’s health including metabolic rate, menstrual function, bone health, immunity, injury and cardiovascular fitness. Measuring resting metabolic rate can provide insight into whether an athlete is under-fueling, allowing the development of a personalised nutrition plan to improve this.
- Improving diet quality
Optimising the quality of your diet can also help to support training adaptations to ensure you’re getting the most out of your sessions. This may involve adjusting the timing and composition of your meals around your training schedule and ensuring you are consuming all the nutrients your body needs.
Metabolic testing allows the monitoring of your mitochondrial efficiency (how effectively your cells are getting oxygen out of the air you breath in). This can provide an insight into the adequacy of your intake of key vitamins and minerals such as iron, omega-3s, B-vitamins and CoQ10.
Additionally, monitoring your fat burning capacity may provide an indication of both the quality and quantity of carbohydrates you’re consuming. Improving your fat burning capacity can also support the efficiency of optimising changes in body composition.
- Monitoring changes in body composition
Another component of metabolic testing is monitoring changes in body composition. The importance of this varies between sports, however for many athletic individuals, there are benefits to increasing muscle mass and reducing fat mass to optimise performance. Measuring body composition allows athletes to monitor the impact of their training and dietary intake on muscle and fat mass, which can be used to guide future strategies.
Whether you’re an active individual who is wanting to optimise their sports performance, or simply curious about your metabolic rate or body composition head to our website to book in a one-off metabolic and body composition testing appointment now!
References:
Burke, L.M., Close, G.L., Lundy, B., Mooses, M., Morton, J.P. and Tenforde, A.S., 2018. Relative energy deficiency in sport in male athletes: a commentary on its presentation among selected groups of male athletes. International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism, 28(4), pp.364-374.
Dave, S.C. and Fisher, M., 2022. Relative energy deficiency in sport (RED–S). Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care, p.101242.
Severi, S., Malavolti, M., Battistini, N. and Bedogni, G., 2001. Some applications of indirect calorimetry to sports medicine. Acta diabetologica, 38, pp.23-26.
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