Nutrition practices
Historically, skaters have spent no more than 4–8
weeks at one location, and often not even that
long; thus, proper and balanced nutrient intake
was not always easily obtainable. Also, as skaters
spend a lot of time in training (as described
above) and sharpening skates, not much time is
generally spent on food preparation. Thus, food
choices end up not always being what they could
or should be. Also, as a great deal of exercise is
performed every day by speed skaters, glycogen
depletion can be a significant problem. In 1983,
skaters’ diets consisted primarily of fat (50%)
with rather low levels of carbohydrate (30%)
(Snyder & Foster 1994). Through much effort
devoted to education and the addition of carbo-
hydrate supplements, by 1989 the diet of com-
parable groups of skaters consisted of 63%
carbohydrates for the women and 56% carbohy-
drates for the men (Snyder et al. 1989). Thus, in
general, speed skaters do not consume sufficient
carbohydrate to meet the recommendation
(Costill & Miller 1980), although this canskating 649
Fig. 50.3Long-track speed skater
performing light resistance/
endurance resistance training.
From Snyder and Foster (1994),
with permission.
Fig. 50.4Long-track speed skater
performing dry skating.