Championship nutrition mistakes | Avoiding heavy legs | Truth about carb-loading

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What should carb-loading actually look like for a GAA player? Can dehydration really explain calf cramps? And what should you eat after a late training session when you have no appetite?

Performance dietitian Eva Hoey (@evahoeynutrition) joins Kevin to explain how players can fuel properly during the club championship.

Eva has worked with Dublin hurlers, Ballyboden St Enda’s, Scotstown and other top sides, while also supporting athletes individually through her online nutrition practice.

She explains why many players focus too heavily on match day while under-fuelling throughout the rest of the week, leaving them flat for training and struggling to recover between championship games.

In this episode, we also cover:

• Why nutrition information is useless without practical application
• The most common fuelling mistakes made by GAA players
• How work, travel and late training affect a player’s nutrition
• What carb-loading should look like in the 24 hours before a match
• Why eating considerably more food can leave players feeling heavy
• How nerves can affect appetite and digestion before championship games
• The possible causes of calf cramping
• Whether regular coffee drinkers still benefit from caffeine on match day
• The best half-time fuelling options
• Sports drinks, gels, wine gums and Jaffa Cakes
• What to eat after a late training session
• Eva’s path from clinical dietetics into performance nutrition
• What she learned while working with Daniel Davey
• The realities of delivering nutrition support within a county setup

Whether you are preparing for a championship match, struggling with energy at training or unsure how to recover between games, this episode offers a practical approach to fuelling your performance.

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