Nick Lemke, RD | Sports Nutrition for Athletes

Just saw something RARE at an ECNL tournament here in Seattle.

Very tense game between two great teams with one barely winning over the other. The team that lost was on the ground, clearly bummed out.

While nearly every player on the winning team were jumping and cheering with their teammates, one player didn’t.

She went over and shook the hand of every one of those players on the losing team.

It took a minute, but all of her teammates eventually followed suit.

Found out that girl is committed to the University of Florida.

Success leave clues.

Tournament weekend coming up? Here's your Costco snack list.

Screenshot it and send it to the parent on snack duty.

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He was 6'1" and 140 pounds when we started. Nobody was calling.

He was eating 2 real meals a day. 3 if his mom made breakfast. If she didn't, he'd grab some cereal.

But hey, he was drinking 2-3 protein shakes a day, so you'd think he was gaining weight, right? WRONG. Protein shakes don't add many calories and they don't make up for a breakfast that isn't happening.

We fixed it by:
→ Making sure he ate every 3 hours.
→ A real breakfast that he made himself. Not one he waited on.
→ Lunch, plus actual food to get him through the school day. Trail mix, bars, stuff that fit in his backpack and could be eaten between classes.
→ PB&J and applesauce before he trained.
→ Dinner. Then a second dinner.

That's it. No tracking, no stuffing himself, no 5,000 calorie challenge. Just food at times he wasn't eating before.

And he did it on the days nobody was checking. Weekends, off days, the days he wasn't hungry. That's where most athletes lose it.

After his D1 commitment, he added another 20 pounds over the next two years before he ever set foot on campus. That's the part I'm proudest of. The habits held long after our calls ended.

If you or your athlete is undersized and stuck, this is fixable. It just takes a plan you can actually run every day, not a month of trying harder.

That's what I built the Athlete's Muscle Building Roadmap for. 8 weeks of meal plans built around training days, a grocery list, and a progress tracker. Same structure Drew ran.

It's $29. Comment ROADMAP and I'll send you the link.

Don't make a 6am workout harder than it has to be.

Two mistakes athletes make here:
1️⃣ Eating nothing before, so you've got no energy for the workout you just woke up for.
2️⃣ Eating nothing real after, so you feel that workout way longer than you should. Dragging by third period, sore the next day.

And a protein shake or a bar doesn't count as the meal after. That's 150-200 calories with almost no carbs, and carbs are what your body is actually asking for right after you train.

BEFORE (5:30-ish, keep it small)
You're not eating a meal at 5:30. Just something quick that won't sit in your stomach.
- Banana
- Cereal
- Toast or rice cakes with honey
- Pretzels
- Oranges
- A few sips of a sports drink if nothing else goes down

AFTER (this is the one that matters)
Protein and carbs, and it has to travel because you're getting straight in the car or into the classroom after the workout.
- Breakfast burrito made ahead on Sunday
- Greek yogurt parfait with granola and fruit
- Bagel with peanut butter and a chocolate milk
- Overnight oats or a protein oatmeal cup
- Protein smoothie made the night before
- Kodiak pancakes from a batch you made earlier in the week

If the next real food after a 6am workout is lunch at 11, you're getting a fraction of what that workout could give you.

Something small before. Something real after.

Want to know exactly what to eat and when around training?

Comment SIZEUP and I'll send you my free Muscle Building Starter Pack for athletes.

You've probably gotten three different answers on this from three different people.

Here's mine.

The International Society of Sports Nutrition, the group that reviews all of this research, says creatine is safe for teen athletes as long as a few things are in place. Their words, not mine.

The adult research is huge. Hundreds of studies, some running five years, and the only side effect that consistently shows up is weight gain. The kidney and liver stuff you've heard came from a handful of old case reports that better studies haven't backed up.

In teens there's less research, and I'll be straight about that. The studies done on teen athletes were looking at performance, not safety. The studies that tracked blood work closely were mostly in kids with medical conditions, taking way more than a teen athlete would, for years at a time. Nothing showed up in either group.

So nobody has run the study that would settle it. But nothing has turned up anywhere anyone has looked.

I'm on board with athletes taking it IF:

1️⃣ They're past puberty and training seriously
2️⃣ The food is already handled. Eating every 3-4 hours, protein at every meal and snack, carbs around training, sleeping enough.
3️⃣ They'll actually stick to 3-5 grams a day instead of thinking more is better
4️⃣ It's a brand that's third party tested. Look for NSF Certified for Sport or Informed Sport on the label.

Remember, you can't out-supplement a diet.

Creatine adds to a foundation. It doesn't build one.

Food first. Always.

Comment RESEARCH and I'll send you the studies I'm pulling from.