Answering Athlete Questions for 23 Minutes
In this 23‑minute YouTube Q&A, elite sports‑nutrition coach Kelsey addresses a wide range of athlete‑focused questions. She begins by diagnosing deep muscle soreness in a soon‑to‑be D‑I athlete, emphasizing that under‑fueling—especially among female athletes—often underlies poor recovery, and she outlines a comprehensive “Performance Plate” model (¼ protein, ½ carbs, plus fruits, veg, healthy fats) with 6‑7 meals/snacks per day. Kelsey then maps out a detailed game‑day nutrition timeline for a college soccer player, working backwards from kickoff to schedule pre‑game meals, high‑carb top‑off snacks, hourly carb intake during play, and post‑game dinner, while also providing fluid guidelines (½ body weight in ounces, 16‑24 oz per hour). She advises a high‑school cross‑country runner on morning fueling, recommending gradual introduction of carbs (bagel, oatmeal, fruit juice) to train the gut. When asked about speed training, she stresses maximal short sprints (≤40 yd) with full CNS activation, 3‑4 min rest intervals, and the importance of pre‑hab and competition. For young female athletes (9‑12 yr), she promotes the “food is fuel” mindset, premium vs. junk fuel, and simple plate ratios, while suggesting accountability tools and role‑model evidence. A high‑school girls’ cross‑country coach receives a template (4‑2‑1‑0 timing) to demonstrate performance gains from proper fueling. For a 14‑yr‑old soccer player who avoids eggs and nuts, Kelsey suggests protein‑rich pancake add‑ins (turkey/chicken sausage, Greek‑yogurt parfait with nut‑free granola) and balances carb needs. She explains gender‑related BMR differences, how to recalculate needs when a girl begins menstruating, and the importance of five‑times‑daily eating for youth. The session ends with a brief, unanswered query about creatine use. Throughout, Kelsey references experts (Coach Darren Hanson, Dr. Andy Galpin, Dr. Andrew Huberman) and provides actionable, example‑rich guidance.
Chapters
What's up guys, I'm Kelsey. I'm an elite athlete sports nutrition coach. You guys submitted your questions, I'm gonna answer them, so let's get right into it.
Hey, uh, I love your videos by the way. I feel I find them very useful, but, um, I'm, I was just curious, um, I am a soon-to-be D1 athlete and I have been, you know, training for quite a few years now, but I was just wondering what you recommend to athletes who get very deep muscle soreness after workouts. I mean, I, I stay pretty hydrated, I stretch quite a bit, uh, I feel like I'm pretty good about my protein and eating solid meals, but I, I never hear my teammates, uh, talking about how sore their muscles are after workouts. And I was just curious what you would usually recommend to those athletes, or if that's just like a genetics thing.
Okay, Maddie, figure out how much food you really need to be eating, because most female athletes are drastically underfueling. So my mind goes to she's a— she's either under-recovered or underfueled, which also plays into recovery. And so recovery, you need to make sure you're sleeping 8 hours a night. We want to make sure that you're eating enough food. Hydration is so important too. And so it sounds like you're doing great in that aspect of things. So those are the two things I'd look at is recovery, so sleep, and then nutrition, as far as like, are you actually eating enough food? Because yes, your meals are solid, but the athletes I coach, they're eating 6 to 7 times a day, 3 big meals a day with other snacks throughout the day to keep you fueled, to keep you ready to roll. And hopefully that will help your muscles recover faster. So what that could look like starting today for you is every single meal you want to have a big plate. 1/4 of that plate you want to be protein, half of that plate you want to be healthy carbohydrates— so rice, potatoes, pasta, any of those things. You want fruits and veggies on that plate, which gives you vitamins and minerals, and it's so good. And then healthy fats as well, so avocado or cheese or nuts or something like that to add to it to help your hormone health and everything like that. So that is one thing that you can start tonight at dinner time to hopefully help kickstart that muscle recovery. As a men's soccer college athlete, what does a nutritional day in the life look like? Like fluids, uh, breakfast, lunch, dinner, pregame meal, pregame snack.
Like, what's kind of a day in the life?
Um, say you have a game around like 6, 7 PM, what would that look like? Thank you. That's a fantastic question. I love that. Okay, so a day in the life of a soccer athlete, obviously it's amount that they're eating is going to depend on their body size and the portion sizes that they need for their body and their goals. However, timing-wise, if you're having a goal or if you're having a game at 6 PM, I like to work backwards, to be honest. It makes it a lot easier. So we're going to start at the game, 4 hours before the game. So that'll be around 2 PM. I want him eating his lunch. Um, you— this might even be a second lunch, um, but some sort of lunch. I call this a performance plate where we want— we talked about that just barely, but we want the carbs, the protein, the fats, the fruits and the veggies. So an easy one that this he could do here is like a chicken and rice bowl with veggies, um, and fruit on the side. That's a perfect pre-game meal. Lots of my athletes love that one. So that's 2 hours before, and then we'd go to— or that's 4 hours before, and then we're gonna go to 2 hours before the game. So that'll be around 4 PM, assuming that the game's at 6 PM. And he's going to do what's called a high-carb snack here. This is the top-off, um, our muscles have like little energy tanks in them called glycogen storages, and we want to top those off. We want to the to get them as full as possible, um, to be able to maintain energy during the game, especially that first half. High-intensity soccer is a very intense sport, so that's, that, that's really important. So high-carb snack, an easy one like this could be like a banana plus dried mangoes. And then 1 hour before the game, usually if it's really hot outside and stuff, I like them having 16 out— sipping on 16 ounces of fluids, um, plus an electrolyte powder. So So Dr. Andy Galpin talks about this in a podcast with Dr. Andrew Huberman, and he talks about this, about 500 milligrams of sodium is great going into it. That being said, for you guys, don't wait until 1 hour before the game to start drinking water. We need to make sure that we're drinking all day long, which we can fill in with this puzzle piece. But to recap so far, we've got 6 PM game, 4 hours before, we're gonna— 2 PM you're gonna have like a lunch, second lunch, 4 PM you're gonna have a snack, 5 PM you're gonna drink your fluids. 6 PM the game starts. Now if we were continuing on like throughout the game, we can go to the morning in just a minute. During the game, every hour, especially with soccer because you're using your body so much, I would recommend that you do at least 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates every single hour. Um, this can be sports drinks, this can be like an applesauce with some honey sticks, it can be dried mangoes, anything like that. A lot of people like energy goos, those are fine too. Um, but those are again going to keep those little muscle energy tanks topped off so that end of second half you're not hitting a wall and feeling super sluggish and, and heavy and slow. Those are really important to keep topped off. Post-game, I'm assuming the game's a few hours long. Post-game, say 8:00 PM or so, that's where you'll have another performance plate dinner before bed. An example of this, you could do some steak and potatoes and fruit and salad on the side. That would be an amazing option. So now that we have the afternoon leading up to the game and after the game done, we just need to fill in the morning. So I'm assuming you'll be up by 7 or 8 AM or so, so I'd recommend eating around 7:30 AM. You're going to have a breakfast, a Performance Plate breakfast. That can be eggs, toast, potatoes, and fruit. Um, you just want those carbs, fats, protein, and color in there. So Performance Plate breakfast is what you do. And then somewhere in between there, probably 11 AM, I'd have a lunch number 1. Um, that can be a smaller— that can be a protein shake, that can be like a smoothie with some chicken on the side. It can be some— anything simple. Again, Performance Plate, following a Performance Plate. If you really can't do 2 lunches during the day, you could do a 9:30 AM snack and then another snack around 11:30 AM to then have your 2 PM lunch later on. So hopefully that, that's helpful. As far as fluids go, You want to be drinking half of your body weight in ounces. So if you weigh 160 pounds, you want about 80 ounces before the game starts. And then during the game, about 16 to 24 ounces per hour is a great place to start. So hopefully that helps with timing before game, during game snacks-wise. You can do the similar thing, similar things on a training day as well. You just replace the game with your training.
Next.
Hi, Coach Kelsey. My name is Lily and I'm a rising sophomore in high school. I do cross-country and basketball as my main sports. I do year-round. And as I've been getting into cross-country recently, I've been running a lot more, especially in the mornings and, you know, like when it's not too hot and, you know, the evenings. But I saw your one video about eating oatmeal before you take a run in the morning. And I've noticed that when I don't eat in the morning, I'm a little more like lethargic and less energized. But if I do eat, I feel gross and like I just like I feel like I'm like being slowed down and it's just like extra weight. And I'm also not really hungry in the morning when I wake up to go run. Do you think I should eat something smaller or potentially, um, you know, just continue not eating but getting up earlier? Is there something you suggest that I do to help with this? Thank you. Um, and other videos, thank you so much.
No one's gonna like eating in the morning until your body gets used to it, especially athletes. Um, if you've never done it before, don't be surprised if your body doesn't really like it. It takes time. The gut is trainable. Um, marathon runners have to learn this a lot. A lot of people don't like eating while they're running, but marathon runners, on the hour, every hour, you're having to eat something, some type of carbohydrate, maybe a banana, a goo, a gel, something like that, to keep the carbohydrates— like we talked about, those muscle energy tanks— um, going. We, we need, we need to keep those full, or else that's when we hit walls, we underperform. So in the morning, throughout the night, your body actually uses carbs, uses carbs, your brain uses carbs. So the, the energy tanks, even if they're full going to bed, they'll be a little depleted in the morning, and we want to fill those up, especially before a long intense run. So my answer would be, of course, yes, still eat, but just start smaller and let your body adapt to it. So oatmeal is an easy thing to start with. If you're not ready for oatmeal, you can try like half of a bagel. That's pretty easy. You could try some orange juice with an apple, um, something if, if If anything, just have carbohydrates beforehand. It gives you that quick, easy energy to have a good run. And then what I would say is over the course of a few weeks, as you get— say you start with the bagel with a banana, you get used to those and say, okay, I'm gonna graduate up a little bit. I'm gonna do a banana with a small bowl of oatmeal. Okay, that works great. Like, how am I feeling? Do I want a little bit more carbs during my workout? Okay, let me put some honey on that oatmeal or some berries on that oatmeal. So you can just slowly build up your tolerance to it. Um, yeah, the gut, the gut will be trained. Just like it takes time for your muscles to adapt, or when you started running, like, you, your miles weren't super fast and you had to adapt and learn how to get faster. Your body will do the same with food.
I was wondering, like, could you maybe do a video on getting faster?
Because, like, I think many athletes struggle with getting fast, like, not explosive, but actually, like, faster. Like, just, like, can you kind of go through speed, if you know what I mean? That'll be great.
Thank you.
I love that question. Speed. I have a big background in exercise physiology as well, and so I used to work as a speed and strength coach. At an athletic performance center, and I worked under a coach. His name is Coach Darren Hanson. He's so good at speed work. So if you look him up on Instagram, he'll have a lot of tips and tricks, and we're starting to collaborate a little bit more together as well. So that's my first piece of advice to follow, is what he does. Um, but what I know and what I've coached and what I've learned from him is the best way to get faster is by sprinting fast. And so what I mean by that is a lot of people think that conditioning or running ladders or suicides is going to make you faster, but that's just going to kind of— of course there's a time and a place for it, for conditioning, but it's not going to help increase your speed. It's really cool. Your brain's really cool. So there's something called the central nervous system. It's basically your brain sending messages to your muscles saying to move. When, when you're sprinting— sprinting is the fastest thing the human body can do— it's going to force the brain to communicate with the muscles faster and send the messages faster, which allows you to get faster. So the easiest way to train getting faster is by running fast. It's as simple as that sounds, it is very simple. You want it to be less than 40 yards. Um, 40-yard dash is probably the max that you'd want to sprint. So what you do is obviously you need to warm up, you need to prehab, follow Coach Darren, um, for those things. But after you've warmed up and you've had what's called tissue prep, prehab, to make sure you're not going to get injured, don't go straight into sprinting. Then you're going to start sprinting and you sprint as fast as possible, 110%, and then the amount of yardage you So say you go 40 yards, you're gonna want to rest for 4 minutes in between that each set that you run. So you sprint 40 yards, even if you don't feel like you need the rest, you're gonna rest for 4 minutes. If you spent sprint 30 yards, you're gonna rest for 3 minutes. And then the best thing here too is to figure out how to time yourself and make it competitive or to be racing other people because that's gonna push you farther than you might be able to push yourself. So hopefully that helps and gets you started. Again, Coach Hanson is gonna be a great resource for you.
I have 9 and 12-year-old young ladies that we're starting to train for soccer, trying to help them understand the importance of accountability, hard work, and more importantly, diet. What you put in is what you get out. What's the best ways and types of foods to help kind of help them understand? We don't use the words dieting, but how to eat cleaner, put clean fuel in your body and you perform your peak. What are your thoughts about what types of food for young ladies training for sports such as volleyball, soccer, cheerleading, and so on? Thank you. And keep up that awesome, great content.
Good stuff, man. For young female athletes, tricky. Young athletes in general, any athlete in general, my number one piece of advice is if you can teach them that food is fuel first and foremost. Food is fuel. That's the biggest hurdle to get over because a lot of times female athletes will hear that you need to eat cleaner, which they interpret as, oh, food is going to make me fat, food is like, this food is not good for me. And like, and then it can kind of turn into more disordered eating, fear of food, and stuff like that. And so that's something I'm really trying to spearhead and break the stigma of in this world that we are living in. Strong over skinny. So if you can instill that, like, we wanna be strong, our bodies deserve this fuel and deserve this food. And so never limit food for your female athletes, even if they might be struggling with being maybe a little bit overweight. The best thing for them to still learn is that food is fuel. And then you can start breaking it down and talking about the different types of fuel. There's premium fuel, there's not as great fuel, there's kind of the crappier fuel. I will never say never to anything. Like if someone loves a Twinkie, there's a time and a place that you can eat the Twinkie. That being said, if we fill our gas tanks with not so great fuel all the time, again, like you said perfectly, you get out what you put into it. So we want to look for premium NASCAR, F1 race car fuel, and that's how you're gonna perform, and they're gonna feel a really good difference. Too. So an easy way to start is to start small, like start one meal a day saying, okay, like, what do you like? Like, what fruits, what vegetables? Like, let them kind of take accountability of it. Follow the Performance Plate method that I talked about earlier in this video, which means you have a fourth of your plate of protein if they're in a high training period, half of your plate of carbs, add fruits and vegetables and some healthy fats to the plate, and that's a great place to start. Whole foods are, are just an easy option and way to make it enjoyable to eat. And you know you're getting the good stuff, you know you're getting nutrients in your body. So, and then as far as like training goes, if, if it's pre-training— I know they're only 9 and 12, but if 9 and 12-year-olds are training a lot too right now, that's where they can have maybe more of the granola bars and the fruit snacks and stuff, is like right before training. And so if they have snacks that they really love and enjoy, just time them in the right windows to help increase their performance. So good luck. That's amazing. I love that question.
Hi, my name is Tennell Smith. I am a big fan of all your work and I am constantly, um, using your information to drive nutrition into my athletes. I am a mom, but I'm also a high school cross-country coach for the women's team and getting them to understand that food is fuel and they're not going to get abs by not eating. They're going to get abs by fueling more and doing strength training. I'm trying to help them understand how important this is for their training and how much stronger they can be. So how can I drive into these teenage girl brains? Um, and if you have a template for that. Thank you for all your work.
Yeah, I've worked with some amazing high school female cross-country runners. I love cross-country girls. They're so driven, so amazing. I had a girl who was about to commit to UCLA. She came to me and she was running like an 18-minute 5K, and throughout the season we were able to cut it down to a 17:30. And the biggest thing that was the driver of that for her is she started seeing fruit from the labor she was putting in. So for instance, I just— I asked her, I was like, just trust me this one This one race, follow this, follow this meal plan. Um, do the 4-2-1-0 protocol. So 4 hours before you, before your event, say you're running at 5:00 PM, at 1:00 PM we want you eating a full performance plate meal. At 3:00 PM, so 2 hours before you race, we want you eating a high-carb snack. 1:00 PM, I want you being able to sip on fluids and electrolytes, and then you're gonna race. And, and she made sure to do that. She made sure to obviously be eating breakfast and snacks leading up to that 1:00 PM as well. And she started to crush it. She took 30 seconds off of her time throughout that entire season, which is insane. And so my biggest piece of advice would be show 'em evidence of that girl, of what female athletes are doing it already. Show them maybe role models that they have who are fueling their bodies and doing what you want them to be doing. And then ask them to buy into it for 1 or 2 races. Then they'll see the difference they feel in those races and how much better they are. With that fuel inside of them, and then there's no turning back after that. They know they're leaving— they know they're leaving potential and gains on the table if they're not fueling. So that would probably be my biggest piece of advice for parents or for coaches when approaching that with athletes, because you can't force it. If it's not athlete-led, then it's not sustainable.
Hi, my name is Tori, and I am sending you a message from New Zealand. I have a son, he is 14, playing Premier League football. He doesn't eat eggs or granola bars or any kinds of nuts, which cuts out a lot of the really good stuff. Preparing for games in the morning, I tend to make him a lace pancake, which is flour, 1 egg— it's 1.5 cups flour, 1 egg, 2 cups of milk, 25 grams of butter, which you whisk and then you make pancakes from that. And he has Nutella and sliced banana on it, or a bagel with some bacon, deresa, and lettuce before a game. Are there other ideas that you could come up with, or anything else we should be doing, or is a pancake an okay thing? He does have the applesauce, he does have the mangoes, He is having the chocolate milk, but we'd love any feedback you have. Thank you.
So no eggs, no nuts, that can be tough. I get it. Um, I love the pancake option. I think that's a great option. My one thing is there's not a ton of protein in there, so if you can add some turkey sausage, chicken sausage, bacon's totally fine. If it's super close to match their matches or games, you might not want a ton of bacon just because it's super high in fat and takes longer for the body to digest. List. But carbohydrates are your number one priority in the morning before games anyway, and so the pancakes are a great option. My other mind— my mind went to, you could home make some granola as well that are— that's nut-free. I'm sure you can find it at the, the grocery store as well, but you could do some Greek yogurt with banana and granola in it too and make like a big kind of yogurt parfait. So that's going to give you protein and good carbohydrates too. So that's, that's, that's a good option is what I'd say.
I was wondering if gender matters when it comes to food and recovery. Um, I have a male and a female children. The female is not, um, on a cycle yet. She's only 9 years old. And I wondered if that changes once her cycle starts. She dances. And then I have a 12-year-old male soccer, like high soccer, ACNL level. So I was just wondering if that matters. I know the type of exercise matters based on recovery cuz dance is probably more cardio to a point than the soccer, just endurance-wise. But I just wondered if once her cycle comes, if that's an issue that we need to address when it comes to pre and post-fueling?
That's a great question. The addressing the gender first and foremost, males have more muscle and they're typically bigger, which means they have a higher basal metabolic rate. Basically their body burns more calories at rest than a female body's probably will. Um, so BMR is pretty easy to calculate. You can Google a BMR calculator online and put their age and their height and their weight in, um, and their gender, and it will give you a good baseline of what their body is burning at rest, which means like if they were sitting in this chair all day long, that's what their body would burn. And then you factor in their training, um, of like, okay, they're probably burning at least 300 to 500 calories during intense training periods, so they need even more than that. They might need 600 more calories in this, or 1,000. And no, you don't have to like have them track calories. They're way too young for that. And I don't even have my— I don't even have my pros do that. That. But my biggest thing would be like that, that would be an easy way for you to just visualize the difference in eating for them. So when your daughter gets her cycle, um, you can just recalculate her basal metabolic rate, and that's going to give you a really good idea of how much base food she needs even on rest days. And then add on— usually there's like an activity level calculator there where it will give you a good guesstimate, um, to what her body would be needing with the activity and the workouts that she's doing. So yes, gender, it plays a difference from like a 9 to 12-year-old, probably not huge, maybe just a little bit more rice or potatoes on the 12-year-old's plate than the 9-year-old. But their kids are pretty good at listening to their bodies as well. So, um, obviously make sure that you're having them eat at least 5 times a day and And, um, they're pretty good at listening to their bodies up until they're older, and then they just start not listening to them as much. Last one. This has been fun.
I was just wondering, where do you get your nails done?
They're always just so perfect.
And what are your thoughts on creatine and the use of that pre-game and pre-workout?
Thank you. I get them done where I live at a salon here, so I like having fun nails. Creatine. I wish I knew how old you were. Debunking myths: creatine, unless you have a pre-existing kidney issue, creatine is not going to cause any kidney issues or overload the kidneys as long as you're drinking enough water, which is at least half of your body weight in ounces. So if you weigh 130 pounds, then you need about— what is that, 65 ounces of water? And then about 16 to 24 extra ounces per hour that you're working out. Out. If you're doing that with hydration and you're taking creatine daily, that's amazing. If you're like— for young, young kids, if you really want to be safe, wait till they hit puberty and then have them start taking creatine. Kids don't need more. I mean, 12, 13, 14-year-olds don't need more than probably 3 to 5 grams. And then most athletes don't need more than 5 grams, which is one scoop of creatine a day. Um, but creatine's awesome. It, it it— creatine is a source of energy in the body. It creates energy very fast. So anytime you're doing explosive movements like sprinting, jumping, you know, like cutting or, um, juking or whatever that might be, creatine is fueling that movement. So without creatine, or without like a big kind of reservoir or storage of creatine, you won't be able to be as fast or as powerful. But with it, um, it allows you just to have a little bit more power and a little bit more oomph in your performance and in your training, which then leads to better performance and winning games more and outperforming people. So it's really fun. So creatine is definitely one of those that is very well studied and very safe. I recommend it. That was really fun, guys. I loved it. This is amazing. If you want to submit questions, I'll put the link in the description below and you could submit yours so I can answer it next time. Bye, guys!
