A few times in my life I have found myself in the right place at the right time. I am happy that this happened again earlier this month when I was invited back to attend the training camp with the USA wheelchair rugby team. Not only was I so thankful for the opportunity to learn from the best of the best in wheelchair rugby, but I also got to meet a few amazing dietitians!
If you read my post about attending the national team tryouts here, this training camp was much less intense. That doesn’t mean it was easy by any means, just much more manageable with only two sessions a day. I was also much more comfortable in this training camp than I was during the tryouts. I don’t do the best in new situations, so having that prior experience at the facility and the opportunity to have already met the majority of people there was very helpful.
There were a couple additional things about this camp that, as a dietitian, I may have been a little too excited about. All of the athletes (including me) were able to have DEXA scans completed for body composition analysis, as well as hydration testing done (please tell me I’m not the only one that gets excited about being in a cup!-At least when it’s not to test for UTI). I thought it was great how much emphasis was placed on nutrition throughout the entire training camp.
In addition to morning and afternoon training sessions, we had meetings with the strength and conditioning coach, sports psychologist, and dietitians. While all of these were incredibly important, the dietitian in me was most excited to hear from Liz Broad who is a senior sports dietitian with the United States Olympic Committee. There aren’t many dietitians working with adaptive athletes so this was an awesome surprise when I found out she would be the camp.
Liz and some of her colleagues had been working on a research study last year with many of the rugby players and she was able to present her findings to the team. Something they were looking at was if consuming an ice slurry prior to exercise had any effect on core body temperature later on in the activity. This is particularly important to athletes with higher-level spinal cord injuries who may have lost the ability to sweat. Even though the research study is completed, Liz brought a specific ice pop to the camp for everyone to try and see how it made them feel. For me, I definitely felt cooler! But I look forward to reading her study and sharing the info later. It was a great opportunity to see how interested everyone was in the role that nutrition plays for athletes. Everyone seems so open to trying new things.
It was such a great experience to be able to attend one of the training camps with USA wheelchair rugby. I definitely have a lot to learn about rugby, but I’m doing my best to absorb everything I can. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens next.
And as always, if you have any questions or topics you’d like me to discuss please post a comment below! Thank you so much for taking the time read this, it really means a lot to me!