Alterações na composição corporal e capacidade aeróbia de jogadores de futebol profissional submetidos ao acompanhamento nutricional durante a pré-temporada

Abstract

Introduction: Soccer players need to have high levels of physical fitness to be able to withstand the great demands of training and competitions. With this, sports nutrition has been consolidated as an important tool to improve the performance of athletes through nutrition, whether through body composition, injury prevention, acceleration in recovery or through the correct use of nutrients, generating energy more efficiently. Objective: To evaluate the effects of nutritional support on body composition and physical capacity of professional soccer players during the pre-season. Methodology: A total of 26 professional soccer players from a top-flight club in the Minas Gerais championship had their nutritional knowledge and previous nutrition assessed and then started nutritional monitoring throughout a pre-season, with the anthropometric assessment being carried out in which to establish. the percentage of fat by the skinfold measurement technique using the Pollock protocol, in 5 moments during the pre-season and the VO2MÁX evaluation in 2 moments by the incremental treadmill test, measurements performed over 5 months. In the statistical analysis, normality was tested using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to validate the use of the parametric test and to compare the percentage of fat and VO2MÁX the paired t-test was used. To assess whether there was a significant difference, ANOVA was used considering a significance level of p<0.05. Results: The evaluated athletes consumed a hypocaloric (2021 ± 663 kcal/day) and hypoglycemic (3.20 ± 1.45 g/kg/day CHO) diet before the nutritional intervention when related to the recommendation for this audience. After the prescription of food plans appropriate to the modality and individualized, they had good food acceptance (3725 ± 543 kcal/day; 8.2 ± 1.1 g/kg/day CHO), showed a significant decrease in the percentage of fat [11.35 vs 10.34%] and significant improvement [52.22 vs 53.77 ml(kg.min) -1] in aerobic performance over the pre-season. Conclusion: Individualized nutritional intervention with professional soccer players during a preseason can contribute to promote a significant improvement in body composition and aerobic performance.