Nutrition plays a huge part within Boxing, even more so than other traditional sports, due to the weight classification aspect. Boxers are required to monitor and regulate their weight to stay within the guidelines in order to compete. Many competitors have their own methods in ‘making weight’, most of these athletes aim to meet the bottom end of the weight class to weigh in as light as possible as it’s thought it will give a slight advantage over the opponent (Langan-Evans, Close & Morton, 2011).
Timings of when and when not to eat along with choice of foods also play a massive role in ‘making weight’ and fuelling those intense training sessions. There are different types of foods which are more beneficial than others when it comes to various training sessions. For example, with carbs, there are simple and complex carbs, which all have different glycaemic index (GI) values. GI indicates the rate at which blood glucose levels will rise after consuming a certain food. Simple carbs are commonly known as sugar carbs, and complex are more starchy carbs.
Here are a few examples of low and high GI foods…
References:
Langan-Evans, C., Close, G., & Morton, J. (2011). Making Weight in Combat Sports. Strength And Conditioning Journal, 33(6), 25-39. doi: 10.1519/ssc.0b013e318231bb64
SiB 