Players must be careful not to over-indulge at Christmas

According to Pauric Grimes one of the most common problem issues he sees during this time of the year is players over eating because they think that’s what they have to do to bulk up.

Grimes points out that bulking up is too simpistic an approach to diet.

Instead, he suggests that smarter thinking should be adopted.

“Adding too many festive pounds is the most recurrent challenge I see GAA players facing in the off season.

“More often than not they become their own worst enemy as they think that they need to ramp up their eating if they want to make their gym work count.

“So straight off you are creating a calories surplus which is all good, as if you want to create muscle mass then that is what you need to do to allow the body to build and repair muscle, but, and it is a big but, the training load usually drops because there are no longer any pitch sessions or games therefore the calories won’t drop.”

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