Posted Aug 4, 2010
Quietly walking past blocking sleds, Amy Bragg was lost in the crowd at Tuesday afternoon’s Crimson Tide football practice.
Hydration was likely her main concern as the furnace that is August in Alabama made life between the lines a chore yet again. Preparing the 100-plus combatants for another day’s work is the life of the UA athletic department’s new hire.
Her title: director of performance nutrition.
Her role: Keep Tide athletes fueled and hydrated so they can perform at the highest level.
Hired in June, it’s up to Bragg to craft the menus that kick-start Alabama athletes before and replenish after practices and games. She’s one of about 20 in her line of work nationally and new to Alabama after performing the same job at Texas A&M for the past six years.
“I’m here to coach the players on eating for performance, first and foremost,” she said.
Given the record temperatures thrown Alabama’s way this August, Bragg’s value rose faster than the thermostat. The preseason is already the most intense segment of the year with the most energy expended, but this heat pushes athletes to the brink. How well they prepare for workouts in a kiln makes all the difference.
Replacing fluids, electrolytes and sodium take precedent in the evenings just as designing the menu for the rest of the day. Bragg as seen athletes burn through as many as 7,000 to 8,000 calories a day while the average during a football preseason is closer to 4,000 or 5,000 daily.
Diets also vary greatly from one player to the next.
The skill positions — receivers, running backs, defensive backs — require more carbohydrates, while linemen consume much more protein “to be massive and not get pushed around,” Bragg said.
A typical day for football player begins with breakfast options including an omelet bar, cereal, toast, oatmeal, ham steak and fluids. For lunch, there is a salad bar, deli bar and two entries.
The linemen will get a higher-calorie option such as a brisket while the others get something on the lean side like a chicken breast.
Managing body composition was one of her main directives upon accepting the job. She said that, for example, a lineman who weighs 300 pounds with 75 pounds of body fat is in good shape. Add an extra 25 body fat pounds, and performance suffers and endurance drops.
Offensive tackle D.J. Fluker is a model of a player who drastically improved his ratio, although most of his progress was made before Bragg’s hire. He weighed close to 400 pounds when arriving in Tuscaloosa last summer, but the 6-foot-6 lineman dropped 75 pounds and now carries a manageable 23 percent body fat.
Every week or so, Bragg meets with head coach Nick Saban to talk progress. He’s taken an interest in the body composition data that Bragg calls “the body’s scoreboard.”
Saban said that hiring Bragg filled one of the major gaps he saw in the program.
“I think we’ve already started to change habits when it comes to eating. I think we’ve had some really positive effects,” Saban said. “… We’ve had some guys make some significant improvements in improving their body fat, muscle mass, hydration to be more geared toward consistency and performance, and really fueling you and having the kind of energy they need to perform.”
There have been fewer cramping issues and heat-related injuries this August, Saban said.
Part of that could be attributed to the recovery process that Bragg stresses. Upon exiting the practice field, players find Bragg with several options for their return to normal. Everything from watermelon, plums, orange sections and pickles on ice for those needing sodium are available. Smoothies are new to the menu this year.
Bragg also played a role in Dont’a Hightower’s return to playing shape after going down with the season-ending knee injury in September. She kept him away from the fried foods and pushed the vegetables to help return to a manageable 260 pounds from a weight he laughingly withheld from reporters Tuesday.
Mark Ingram called Bragg “a tremendous asset” to the program that stressed nutrition in the past, but not the same way.
“It’s just more taking action than anything,” Ingram said.
Now that the two-a-days of early August is history, the nutritional focus turns in part to the all-important pregame meals.
Bragg couldn’t reveal that secret menu, in part, because it is still under construction.
“I need a few games under my belt with this team seeing them eat in a game situation,” she said. “I can tell you about my previous team all day long. I know general volumes and eating habits, but in a game weekend situation, every team is different.”
On the Net: Read a little more on the job of the Tide’s nutritionist on The Daily Bama Blog
To see more of The Decatur Daily, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.decaturdaily.com
Copyright © 2010, The Decatur Daily, Ala.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.