By Mike Roussell, PhD

Nutrition is a funny thing for your athletes. They don’t pay enough attention to it. You don’t have the time or resources to address it and it could arguable make the biggest impact on their performance. So how can you use the little time you have to talk nutrition and make the biggest impact possible.

Talk actions and behaviors.

Nutritionist love to talk about grams of this, percent calories of that…try telling a 18 year old running back that he needs to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. It doesn’t work. It isn’t tangible enough for them. So they’ll end up saying ‘okay coach’ going home and continuing doing what they always do. Fortunately breaking the nutrition barrier with your athletes isn’t that tough if you give them specific actions and things to do. Here are 3 simple and actionable things your athletes can do.

Have something right after exercise – A sports drink is good. A sports drink with a little protein is a little better. This is the highest impact single thing they can do. Fortunately sports drinks are easier to find than water in some places so no one should have trouble doing this. Getting in liquid nutrition right away will

Eat Breakfast that contains protein – Many young athletes skip breakfast and then when they do have breakfast, they’ll opt for a bagel or cereals – both less than idea. Have your athletes 1. Eat breakfast and 2. Make sure it has some protein. This will improve the quality of what they are eating (eggs, greek yogurt, etc).

Eat a fruit or vegetable at every meal - If you look at the top 5 sources of calories in the American diet, vegetables are non-existent. Have your athletes commit to eating a fruit or vegetable at every meal. It is a very simple thing for them to do and it will make a big difference in the quality of their diets.

Have you athletes do all three or just get them to do one for a week and then add one more. Simple actionable changes that they can stick to will make a difference and improve their performance.

If this kind of action based approach rings true to you then check out my newly released Peak Diet & Training Design home study course while also grabbing 2.0 NSCA CEUs.

Mike Roussell, PhD
Science Advisory Board: LiveStrong.com
Columnist: Bodybuilding.com, Shape.com

For more information on Mike Roussell and his programs Click Here

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If you didn’t compete as a hurdler, you probably struggle teaching the event more than you do with the sprints.

OK, I’m talking about myself…

But, even if you were a hurdler, as my mentor told me the day he hired me many moons ago,

“Just because you ran fast doesn’t mean you know how to teach people to run fast.”

Those felt like harsh words when I was 22, but no truer words were ever spoken.

There are a ton of drill based hurdle DVDs out there. And I’ve got a lot of them.

But, as I’ve learned, drills alone aren’t the answer. And there is a fundamental lack of information out there aimed at running a quality hurdle program, especially if you coach at the high school level.

So I decided to fix that problem. Last year I sent a survey to Complete Track and Field readers asking them for their questions about the hurdles. Then I had one of my hurdle mentors, Tony Veney, create a resource that covered all of the topics you want to know about.

So, long story short, here it is – Training the Sprint Hurdler

I’m taking a slightly different approach with this email. I’m not going to give you a thesis on why you should get it. I’m not going to lay out all the features and benefits of the program. The type of coaches who will invest in this resource don’t need it.

You know we put out good information here at Complete Track and Field. Coach Veney’s program is no different.

If you’re the type of coach who likes to learn things, apply them at practice and make track more fun for your athletes, you’ll check it out.

I’ll be basing my hurdles program on it. It’s half price for the rest of the week. It’s digital so you can start watching it in about 3 minutes. And Coach Veney will answer your questions.

Here is Tony Veney’s ‘Hurdling Training Program‘.

To your success,

Latif Thomas

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