Nutritional habits of professional team sport athletes: an insight into the carbohydrate, fluid, and caffeine habits of English Premier League football players during match play

Kasper, Andreas M, Allan, James, Hodges, Daniel, Catterson, Paul, Mason, Liam, Fitzpatrick, John, Grantham, Nick, Morton, James P, Hearris, Mark A and Close, Graeme L (2024) Nutritional habits of professional team sport athletes: an insight into the carbohydrate, fluid, and caffeine habits of English Premier League football players during match play. Journal of Sports Sciences, 42 (17). pp. 1589-1596. ISSN 0264-0414

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Abstract

To better understand the in-match fuelling practices of elite football players and compare against current guidelines, we quantified the carbohydrate, fluid, and caffeine intake of players from an English Premier League club (n = 22) during 90 min of competitive match-play. Mean carbohydrate intake across match-play was 17 ± 11 g.h−1 with players demonstrating a preference towards CHO-containing fluids (58%) when compared with semi-solids (38%) and solids (14%), respectively. CHO intake was significantly lower than reported by players (17 ± 11 vs 24.8 ± 11 g.h−1, p < 0.001) during initial consultation. Fluid was ingested at a rate of 0.45 ± 0.14 L.h−1, with 54, 40 and 6% of ingested fluid coming from water, carbohydrate, and electrolyte-only solutions, respectively. The majority of players (91%) met the UEFA guidelines for fluid consumption. Of the players who consumed caffeine across match-play (55%) the average dose was 233 ± 148 mg (2.8 ± 1.1 mg.kg−1 body mass [BM]), which meets the UEFA consensus guidelines for caffeine intake. Caffeine capsules (42%) and caffeine containing fluids (30%) were the preferred format prior to the warm-up whilst caffeine gum was exclusively used prior to kick-off and during the half-time period (100%). We conclude that 81% of the total playing squad failed to meet the current UEFA CHO intake recommendations of 30–60 g.h−1, which may be attributed to the preference towards fluid-based CHOs as the chosen format of delivery. Highlights Soccer players demonstrate sub-optimal in-match fuelling practices, with 81% of players failing to meet current UEFA CHO intake recommendations of 30-60 g.h−1 Players demonstrate a preference towards fluid as the primary mode of CHO delivery over the use of semi-solid and solid formats. These data highlight the need for future research to test the efficacy of lower doses of CHO on elements of both physical and technical soccer performance in a dose-response manner. Future research is also necessary to investigate the impact of traditional guidelines and recommendations within football-specific contexts to assess their effectiveness and relevance in practical applications.