How to fuel Nick Woltemade (and other footballing ectomorphs)

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When Nick Woltemade was spotted eating a banana on the substitutes’ bench against Barcelona last month it sent the internet into a meme-making frenzy.

Since then, the 6ft 5in forward — already a cult hero on Tyneside after scoring four goals in his first seven games, and possibly soon in Germany after scoring his first goal for the national team this week — has been photoshopped by various social media accounts scoffing sausage rolls and drinking cans of lager on the bench, and photographed at a variety of local dining spots, from the famed Newcastle city centre Indian restaurant, Khai Khai, to the Italian Fratelli Ristorante.

So far, so trivial. Yet the question on how to fuel footballers with Woltemade’s unusually tall, thin physique — comparable to former Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur striker Peter Crouch, who is 6ft 7in — is a real one and requires careful calibration.

“For someone of that sort of stature, who’s nearly at the ‘two-metre club’, they probably need from 3,500-4,000 calories per day – it’s a huge amount,” says performance nutritionist Emma Tester, who was head of nutrition at Tottenham Hotspur and now consults for Arsenal as well as elite level boxers and golfers.

Players as tall as Woltemade and his team-mate Dan Burn (who is broader in build) are most likely ectomorphs in terms of their body types, meaning that building muscle is incredibly hard, and hanging onto it even harder. If training demands are high and they aren’t able to match it with their calorie intake, they are more susceptible to dropping weight through the season than athletes of other body types.

Under-fuelling can make athletes more susceptible to picking up minor illnesses and injuries. “Because of their height, from a biomechanical point of view they’re probably exposed to a lot of different angles and torsion in terms of their limbs” says Tester. “So they need to sustain a good muscle mass.”

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Fitting in the amount of calories necessary to fuel athletes like Woltemade and Burn each day can be challenging, when simply scoffing a large pepperoni pizza and a few doughnuts is not an option.

Athletes need to make sure they are getting the right nutrients out of those calories, which means plenty of carbohydrates. How much? That depends on body mass.

“The ideal should be six to eight grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body mass,” adds Tester. “So for a player who’s around the 90kg mark (Woltemade’s reported weight, although that figure is unverified), that works out at 500-700g of carbohydrate. For context, a 40g bowl of porridge contains around 22-27g of carbohydrate.”

Protein is also key for muscle repair and recovery. Tester estimates that for an athlete of Woltemade’s build, around 160g per day would be a good target (around 1.8g per kilo of body mass).

Woltemade does not eat meat, so his best sources (providing he eats them) would be fish and eggs. Beans, pulses and lentils are all good plant-based protein sources for those who do not eat any animal products. Protein supplements can also be useful but Tester says that because Woltemade’s overall calorie intake is so high, it’s likely he is getting enough protein.

A nutrient that often gets overlooked, but which can play an important role for athletes, is fat. Each gram of fat contains nine calories, over twice as much as protein and carbohydrates. It’s also a really important nutrient in terms of immune function, says Tester who lists avocado, salmon and nuts such as almonds, walnuts and cashews as good sources of fats which are beneficial for heart health.

Foods which contain lots of omega 3 fatty acids (fish like mackerel, sardines and salmon, flaxseed and chia seeds, and walnuts) are not only beneficial for heart health but also from a cell protection and cell recovery point of view.

The tricky thing about fat for athletes is getting it in at the right time. Before training and matches, players will benefit more from meals that are higher in carbohydrate (the main energy source they’ll use) than fat, but away from those times, they should try to get a good amount in to help hit their calorie target and support their health.

Another challenge when to fit in all this calorie intake. If they’re training in the morning, a really full stomach can be detrimental to performance so breakfast needs to focus on fast-digesting foods that are easy on the gut and stomach — smoothies, for example. Porridge and cereal can also be fairly high in carbohydrate, and fruit juice too.

“It’s all about when the training session is and what you want that meal to look like”, says Tester. “If they were training later in the day, then they might be able to get a bit more protein in at breakfast and more slow release carbohydrates that will sustain them later in the day.”

A hard training session can negatively impact appetite for some players, who can’t stomach much afterwards. In these cases, Tester uses smoothies or a protein-based recovery drink, not only to help start the recovery process, but also because the sweetness can help to kick-start their appetite.

The size of each meal is important, too. While it might be tempting to pile plates high in order to hit that large calorie target, it’s not the most effective strategy because having a huge volume of food in the stomach means players are less likely to be able to eat much at the next meal. Tester’s approach is to eat more “normal” sized plates of food — perhaps slightly bigger than the average person’s — and add in snacks throughout the day around those meals to bump up the calories.

On a match day, keeping carbohydrate stores topped up is crucial, and those stores are sizeable for players like Woltemade.

“The average person probably has stores of 400-500g of muscle glycogen (the body’s storage form of carbohydrate),” says Tester. “The heavier, two-metre club guys probably have the capacity to store 600 grams of glycogen in the muscle. Plus a bit more in the liver. It’s a challenge for them to get it all in and keep it topped up.”

Players who are on the bench will often use the opportunity to top up their stores throughout the game. Woltemade’s choice of a banana is the classic option, says Tester, offering an easily digesting 30g hit of carbohydrate that doesn’t sit heavily in the stomach. Other options might include a sports drink which can offer between 25-40g of carbohydrate depending on the brand as well as sports gels and jellies which can offer 20-30g.

“All these options are really rapidly absorbed,” says Tester. “It’s not the time for slow release options because you need it released quickly and in the system, especially if you’re coming off the bench at any time. You don’t have time to warm into the game; you are an impact player and you need to be ready.

“If you have a banana, a gel and sports drink you’re probably able to get in around 100g of carbohydrates in a very short window but it’s not going to sit heavy in the stomach or give you a stitch. The rugby players I worked with used to love a Jaffa Cake but I think with the footballers we’ve moved to what can we get the most bang for our buck from. Though if I offered them a Jaffa Cake, I’m sure they’d take it.”

Dressing rooms are filled with these types of snacks and Tester says that many players who are on the bench will take on as much as possible before heading out for kick off. A big part of the team nutritionist’s role on matchday is then to make sure players stay topped up, including offering players something when they are warming up.

“During a game I’m staring at what players have their hands on and whether they eat it? I’m making mental checklists and if you haven’t seen them pick up something before the game or at half time then you need to target them and make sure that they get something on board,” she says.

While some players might be advised to lower their carbohydrate intake slightly on a lower load day or rest day, Tester says that for the likes of Woltemade the advice would most likely be to keep the numbers high. “If they’re a younger player, they’re quite elastic at that point, so they might be able to put on some muscle, but they can lose it pretty quickly. Whereas as you get older, that variation tends to slow down.”

At 33, Burn is 10 years older than Woltemade, meaning he has likely accumulated mass over a number of years and naturally is “more stable” and has built good habits around how much food he needs.

“But with that very ectomorph-type you’re probably just wanting them to keep pushing in the calories and carbohydrate to make sure that muscle mass does stay on,” says Tester. “These are probably the most challenging guys to get it right with.”