Your body can take a serious beating during the summer months in more ways than one.
If the hard running of pre-season wasn't already bad enough, the urge to give into temptation is even stronger when there's no game at the end of the week to keep you in line.
But by following the right regime, you'll be packing in the right fuel to boss your session – and then look after yourself once it's done too.
"In pre-season the key thing to focus on is your energy intake, because the expenditure in the amount of exercise being carried out dramatically increases," says Emma Stevenson, director of the brain, performance and nutrition research centre at Northumbria University.
"You need to recover well between sessions because of that increased load, so that means high-quality carbohydrates in the 30-60 minutes afterwards and then continuing a fairly high carb diet throughout the recovery phase.
"Protein is also very important as well, because that will help the muscles to recover. It's really about good energy intake as a whole, but with a strong focus on carbohydrates and protein in recovery."
Emma Stevenson was speaking at the Science + Football Conference. This year's conference is on Sunday, April 12 at St George's Park. For more information visit www.scienceandfootball.com.
For more football tips see:
5 foods to boost your performance
How to power up for training
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