The Competitive “Nutritional” Advantage

In a game where every inch counts, teams will do anything and everything to find some sort of competitive edge. Those who achieve championship status tend to have a lot going for them, from elite talent and superior strength, to masterful coaching and elaborate execution. But all of those are table stakes at the highest levels of competition. The question is, what besides luck will provide a boost in an unconventional way? To create that separation from the pack, something the “other guys” haven’t thought of, or been able to implement successfully. These undiscovered tweaks can very-well be the spark that ignites a trip to Titletown and deliver that trophy waiting at the end of the road. But first, lets look into what traditionally brings a team to championship caliber…

The Pedigree

Elite teams are unique, there’s no one factor that makes them great, it’s a compilation of many variables. To make the math even more distorted, the respective weights of these variables can be totally different, it usually comes down to a “perfect storm” scenario or what broadcasters often classify as a “Date with Destiny”. What are a few of these variables….

• Individual Talent
• Coaching
• Leadership
• Chemistry
• Strength and Speed
• Preparation
• The Ability to Avoid Injury
• Resilience
• Luck (the bounces, the calls, etc…)

I can probably list 100 more if you held $100 bill in front of me. But it’s clear that simply having the best players doesn’t stamp your ticket to Titletown USA, it’s a complex equation in which The Limit does not Exist (where my mean girls peeps at). This leaves coaches, general managers, athletic directors and team executives looking for “this years” magic variable that will get them that bonus trophy they always wanted.

The Connection

In many cases these “X” factor variables feed each other, they become a cohesive blob that slowly devours all in its path, at least until victory is imminent. Take the example of a squad participating in “voluntary” player-led lifts/practices. At first glance it clearly covers the strength & speed variable, but is there more to this? What you may overlook is the leadership and respect it takes from particular members to draw the attendance to this voluntary event. Don’t forget the Chemistry that’s actively formulating on the bunsen burner beneath them – The Trust, The Commitment, The Dedication –  all building the foundation for that magical run each team dreams about.  As new techniques are adapted by the top squads around the world, the desire to find the next X-Factor becomes an annual practice.  Something can always be improved, whether big or small, it can have a dramatic impact.

The Food Advantage

I’ve played on many teams in my life, on several occasions I’ve had the privilege to lead these aforementioned teams, through all the sweat, tears, laughs and sorrows. I’ll tell you that there is one absolute guarantee – Things will NEVER go as planned. It’s funny, you probably have most control over the “On the Field” aspect, however it’s usually “everything else” that can build a team up or slowly break them apart.   You often hear the phrase “they lost the locker room” to describe a team that has lost all hope for the season. In my personal experience, this is when a team has under-preformed in competition AND doesn’t have the right “off the field” variables (i.e, leadership, resiliency, etc…)  to overcome that adversity, it’s a common problem.  I’ve been on teams that have excelled (unfortunately not to championship level) and ones that have struggled. Interestingly, in both cases, we never adjusted our focus from the normal core variables.  Each year was simply a change in their standard deviations, or difference (high or low) from the norm.

Six years out from my D1 collegiate life and onto this new journey of optimizing health and longevity, I clearly see there was a variable that we missed. Not because its importance wasn’t recognized (although it was misunderstood), but because of the difficulty to govern it across 15-100 athletes.  Nutrition is an X-Factor that has not been implemented across the masses, it’s benefits are substantial but deployment is a nightmare. Properly fueling a teams “collective body”  provides obvious direct benefits as well as multipliers on every other variable out there. It…

• Increases Individual Performance
• Enhances Mental and Physical Strength
• Lowers Risk of Injury
• Speeds Recovery
• And when deployed in a team atmosphere – Builds Chemistry, Commitment and Dedication

Take the recent 2018 National Lacrosse Champions – Yale. A few years back their coach Andy Shay realized the untapped potential that nutrition presented, and if he could capture a piece of that, it could take his “Good” team to “Great” status. His coaching staff worked up individual strength and nutrition plans for their squad and found a way over the biggest hurdle…The Deployment. How would they track this, especially during the off-season?  They cleverly utilized Facebook (and other app) groups to created an online forum, the idea was to post  pictures and comment on the daily fuel each player was consuming. This created a “Health” standard that the team was held accountable for throughout the year.

But did it do more?

This strategy brought a plethora of unquantifiable benefits on-top-of tackling the “nutritional” gap. It created a constant community of positive reinforcement, a persistent dialog while not on campus, a chance for every player to lead-by-example and of-course a place to rag on everybody’s cooking skills.  Brilliant if you ask me, and their record over the past four years speaks for it – A  Collective 51-16.

This was a masterful execution of a trend that we’re seeing become a focal point among individual athletes at the profession level. For them, personal health and well-being play a critical roll in preforming over a long prosperous career. It’s just bad business not to leverage any advantage they can, especially ones which have the potential to pay dividends from a financial and longevity aspect.  Nutrition is a vital component to building the durable athlete and a strong well-oiled team. The information is the commodity, the trick is the deployment and governance model, but Great Teams tend to figure that stuff out …