Before an early morning training, you want to prioritize as much sleep as possible for recovery. So having something small in volume, low in fibre and fats, and high in carb to give your muscles quick energy and allow easy digestion. Some examples could be banana, fruit juice, cereals, and hot cross bun.

Yes! Diet plays a key role in managing IBS. Tailored nutrition plans can help reduce symptoms, improve gut health, and maintain energy for training. This often involves strategies like identifying trigger foods, timing meals around workouts, and adjusting fiber intake.

A low-FODMAP diet can help many athletes with IBS, but it’s not always necessary for everyone. The approach is usually personalized and done in stages to identify which foods trigger symptoms while ensuring you get enough energy for performance.

Some early signs are increased fatigue, "heavy legs” during sessions, declining or platued performance, extreme hunger in morning. Some more severe signs leading to increased injury risk, are loss or irregular periods for females, loss of morning erection for males, reoccurent injuries or bone stress injurie, increased gut sensitivties, and irritability or mood changes.

Some sports drinks, gels, or energy bars contain high FODMAP ingredients like fructose, inulin, or sorbitol, which can trigger IBS symptoms. Some go to gels for sensitive tummies are Maurten, Precision Fuel, and SIS (no caffeine flavours). With guidance, you can identify suitable products or make homemade alternatives that support performance without discomfort.

For adolescents, they require lots of energy, specifically carbohydrates to support their growth and training demands. For game day, it is important they eat high carbohydrate meals day before. For game day, having something high in carbs and moderate protein such as cereal, yogurt, and honey OR eggs on 3 + slices of toast and fruit juice. Just before games having quick easy digestible carbs before to top up fuel sources such as lollies, sports drinks (powerade), white rice, plain wraps with vegemite, oat slices or LCM bars.