![\"\"](\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/ifnh\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/Unorganized\/drew-price-e1540308589429.jpg\")
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One of the IFNH’s newest members, PhD student Drew Price, has shared his experience of being interviewed by the BBC this summer.<\/p>\n
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Drew was\u00a0interviewed by BBC1 during the summer for their World Cup coverage\u00a0on the subject of Ramadan fasting, and its potential impact on performance.<\/p>\n
Before starting his studies at Reading, Drew worked as a nutrition consultant\u00a0in the Premiership of both football and rugby, as well as with a range of elite athletes.\u00a0Drew says:<\/p>\n
“Ramadan fasting involves\u00a0abstaining from both food and water during\u00a0daylight hours, which presents a number of challenges for the athletes. First and foremost is their\u00a0hydration, and then calorie and nutrient intake. At all times the coaching and support teams are balancing the need to train the players with the impact fasting has on health and recovery. They do this by closely scrutinising\u00a0training volumes,\u00a0intensity\u00a0and timing, the training environment and monitoring health using metrics such as resting\u00a0heart rate data, urine specific gravity and so on.<\/p>\n
The other less obvious impact is the disruption to daily schedules and circadian rhythms. As night time is the only opportunity to feed and rehydrate, the teams must maximise this\u00a0phase of the day while minimising the disruption to the athlete’s\u00a0sleep and\u00a0daily routine.<\/p>\n
All this is a major\u00a0challenge for the medical\u00a0science teams supporting the\u00a0athletes. There’s\u00a0little standard guidance, and whilst there is some interesting\u00a0literature on Ramadan and physical performance, it has to be remembered that elite athletes are, by definition, outliers and that the literature is not always relevant to them.”<\/p>\n
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One of the IFNH’s newest members, PhD student Drew Price, has shared his experience of being interviewed by the BBC this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n