Three Games, One Day, Seven Players: The Tournament Protocol

Three Games, One Day: The Flag Football Tournament Nutrition Protocol | Ljubljana Frogs 2 Nutrition Series · Part 2 of 4 Three Games,One Day Seven players. Zero rotation. You referee between games. This is the hardest nutritional problem in our sport — and almost nobody solves it. 🥤 Carbs 1.0–1.2 G/KG/H ☕ Caffeine 6H CUTOFF 💸 Cost ≈ €5.70/GAME Target EventDüsseldorf 2026 PartnerLaPrimaFit CodeFLAGFOOTBALL · 30% 🥤 Sideline · Game 2 Ljubljana FrogsReplace this div with 90g The Problem Cyclists Have Team Buses. You Have A Bag On The Grass. Seven-player roster. Zero rotation. Three games in one day. Between games you referee someone else's game — so your "recovery window" is spent standing in the sun making decisions. Then you do it again tomorrow. Every sports nutrition product in Europe was built for someone riding for five hours. Nobody wrote the protocol for a wide receiver playing three games before dinner. So we did. 40Max sprints per game 90gCarbs needed per hour between games 1h+Sleep lost to an evening caffeine dose The Number The One Number That Decides Your Tournament 1.0–1.2 g of carbohydrate per kg bodyweight,per hour, in the first four hours after a game Established in the ISSN nutrient timing position stand For an 80 kg receiver: 80–96 g of carbohydrate per hour between games. Not "a banana." Not "a protein bar." Eighty to ninety-six grams, every hour. Almost nobody hits this. Which is exactly why almost everyone is slow in game three. What 90 g actually looks like SourceCarbs 1 bottle isotonic drink (500 ml, mixed properly)~40 g 1 energy gel~25 g 1 banana~27 g Total~92 g ✅ That is your hour. Bottle, gel, banana. Repeat next hour. The protein detail everyone gets backwards At 1.0–1.2 g/kg/h of carbohydrate, adding protein does nothing extra for glycogen. Protein only helps when your carbohydrate intake is below target — it partially compensates. So: hit the carbs first. If you cannot, then add protein to cover the gap. Do not add protein instead of carbohydrate and think you have done the job. You have not. The Reality The Problem With Your Stomach Here is where it falls apart in practice. After a hard game in August heat, your appetite is gone, your gut has shut down, and someone hands you a chicken sandwich. You will not eat it. Liquid solves this. In the window between games, drink your carbohydrate. Amacx Energy Drink 320g Best value in the shop for our sport €14.95 → €10.47 Servings per tub~10 Cost per bottle€1.50 Single sachet price€3.20 CertificationInformed Sport Buy the tub, not the sachets. Six sachets cost €19.20. The tub is €14.95, gives you ten servings, covers an entire tournament, and is batch-tested. Sachets are a convenience tax. Isotonic drinks — carbs, fluid and sodium in one bottle. You can drink it while refereeing. Energy gels — two gels plus water is 50 g in under a minute. Energy chews — when you want something to chew but cannot face a meal. 💡 Last-Resort Trick Carbohydrate mouth rinse Swill a carb drink for ten seconds and spit it out. Receptors in your mouth signal your brain and high-intensity performance improves — without swallowing anything. It will not refuel you, but it works centrally when nothing else will go down. The Trap The Caffeine Mistake That Ruins Day Two Caffeine is the best-evidenced performance supplement in existence. The BJSM umbrella review — a review of reviews — found it improves strength, power, endurance, jumping and speed. And for a defensive back, the killer application: it improves reaction time and vigilance. It sharpens the exact thing fatigue destroys first — your ability to read and react. 🚨 Here Is The Trap Caffeine half-life: 5–6 hours Drake and colleagues found that 400 mg of caffeine taken SIX HOURS before bed still cut objectively measured total sleep time by more than one hour. Read that again. Six hours before bed. Still cost over an hour of sleep. You win game three and lose the semi-final tomorrow. The caffeine budget — treat it like ammunition GameDose (80 kg)Why Game 1Full: 3 mg/kg ≈ 240 mgMax effect, plenty of time to clear Game 2Low: 1–2 mg/kg, or gumYou are still carrying game-one caffeine Game 3 — day 1 of a multi-day eventMinimal to ZEROProtect tonight's sleep. This is the discipline that wins tournaments. Game 3 — final dayWhatever you needNo tomorrow. Spend it all. 🚨 Hard ruleNo significant caffeine within 6 hours of sleep 🏈 Use The Gum At Tournaments 6d Caffeine Chewing Gum · €4.30 Caffeine gum absorbs through the cheek in 5–10 minutes instead of 60. Kickoffs slip. Referee assignments run long. With gum you dose when the game actually starts, not when you hoped it would. A coffee cannot do this — and you have no idea whether it is 80 mg or 200 mg. You cannot budget what you cannot measure. The Protocol Hour By Hour: The Tournament Day Day BeforeBank the fuel. Bank the sleep. Load and shut down Carbs: 8–10 g/kg across the day. Pasta, rice, bread, potatoes — go heavy. Hydrate steadily. Urine pale. Last caffeine by early afternoon. Sleep is a performance supplement. Game Day AMBreakfast and the first dose Wake — 3h+ before game 1 Hotel breakfast plate: toast, honey, banana, cereal, juice. See our pre-game food guide. Creatine, if you take it. 60 min before game 1 Caffeine 3 mg/kg. 300–500 ml fluid with electrolytes. Ice slurry if hot. The WindowThis is where tournaments are won and lost ★ Critical Between game 1 → 2 Start drinking carbs immediately. Do not wait until you "feel like eating" — you will not. Target 1.0–1.2 g/kg/h: bottle + gel + banana per hour. Fluid and sodium to replace measured sweat loss. Caffeine: small top-up only if genuinely needed. Refereeing? Drink while you referee. You have a bottle. Use it. Between game 2 → 3 Same carb target. If the window is long and you cannot hit carbs, add ~20 g protein. Body-mass check — are you keeping up with fluid? RecoveryDay two starts tonight ★ Priority window After game 3 The first 4 hours are the priority window. Carbs at ~1.2 g/kg/h, then a recovery drink. Rehydrate to ~150% of your fluid deficit — you lose some to urine. Zero caffeine. Sleep 8–10 hours. The highest-leverage recovery tool you have, and it is free. Day 2 Total 24-hour carbohydrate matters more than precise timing now. Get to 8–10 g/kg. Repeat. Heat — Düsseldorf in August: Know your sweat rate. Weigh yourself before and after a game in minimal clothing; the difference is fluid lost, and it is wildly individual — one player loses 500 ml a game, another loses 2 litres. Replace with sodium, not just water: drinking large volumes of plain water dilutes blood sodium, which is genuinely dangerous. Do not overdrink — gaining weight during a game is not hydration. And an ice slurry before and between games is a cheap, legitimate pre-cooling strategy with real evidence in heat. The Money What A Tournament Actually Costs Nobody publishes this. So here it is — a real basket for one two-day tournament, six games, 80 kg player. ItemQtyRetailCost Amacx Energy Drink 320g — covers the tournament1 tub€14.95€14.95 Amacx Drink Gel6€2.55€15.30 Electrolyte caps8€1.00€8.00 6d Caffeine Gum1€4.30€4.30 Bananas, white bread, honey—supermarket~€6.00 Total (retail)€48.55 With code FLAGFOOTBALL≈ €34 ≈ €5.70 per game Less than a beer at the tournament bar. You spent more than that on the entry fee, the fuel to get there, and the round afterwards. ApproachPer tournamentPer game Supermarket only (bananas, squash, salt, chocolate milk)~€12~€2 Essential~€34~€5.70 Complete (adds recovery)~€43~€7 Complete + season supplements~€60~€10 Honesty Are There Cheaper Alternatives? Yes. We are a sponsored team writing on our sponsor's product. So here is our honest answer: a lot of this can be replicated from a supermarket. ProductSupermarket versionDoes it work? Isotonic drinkSquash + salt + sugarMostly, yes Energy gelBanana, honey sachetFor carbs, yes Recovery drinkChocolate milkGenuinely yes — ~3:1 carb:protein ElectrolytesTable saltYes, but you are guessing the dose Protein powderChicken, eggs, Greek yogurtBetter, actually So why buy the real thing? Your stomach at hour six. This is the honest number one reason. On game three of day two, in 30°C, you will not eat a banana. You will not face chocolate milk. You will drink something cold that tastes good — or you will eat nothing at all. Taste is not a luxury at a tournament. It is the difference between fuelling and not fuelling. Gut tolerance. Engineered to absorb without cramping while you sprint. Squash and sugar is not. Precision. You know the dose. "Some salt" is not a dose. Portability. A gel fits in a sock. A bowl of rice does not. Batch-testing. If you have national-team ambitions, this is not optional. See our supplements guide. Our actual recommendation: real food for everything you can. Products for the tournament window where food genuinely fails. That is the 10% worth paying for — and it is the 10% that decides games. 🐸 Tournament-Ready FLAGFOOTBALL 30% off at LaPrimaFit · Basket €100 → you pay €70 → ships free The €100 threshold is on the retail price, before your discount. So it is easier to clear than it looks. Tournament kit (~€48) + creatine (€29) + tart cherry (€6) = €100 retail → you pay €70, ships free. Or: one team order. Six players × €65 = €390 retail. Everyone pays €45.50. Nobody pays shipping. Nobody on this roster should ever be paying shipping. Build Your Tournament Kit → The Frogs Take What Separates Good Teams From Teams That Fade 🐸 Ljubljana Frogs Eight years on the European circuit Nothing here is exotic. Nothing is expensive. The teams that fall apart on day two do not lose because they lacked a secret supplement. They lose because they did not eat between games, and they drank coffee at 18:00. That is it. That is the whole thing. We have watched it happen to good teams at Copenhagen Bowl, at Adria Bowl, at Capital Bowl — and we have been that team. Once. FAQ Questions Players Actually Ask How much should I eat between games? 1.0–1.2 g of carbohydrate per kg of bodyweight, per hour. For an 80 kg player, roughly 90 g per hour — one bottle of isotonic drink, one gel, one banana. Every hour. The reason this number matters is that glycogen resynthesis has a ceiling rate: your muscles can only rebuild so fast, so if you miss the window you cannot make it up later by eating more. Miss it between game one and two, and you arrive at game three with a debt you physically cannot repay. Why can't I just eat a big meal after the tournament? Because glycogen resynthesis is both time-limited and rate-limited. The first four hours after exercise are when your muscle is most receptive — glycogen synthase activity and insulin sensitivity are elevated. Eat nothing for six hours and then a huge dinner, and you will rebuild some glycogen, but you will have lost the fastest window. On a single-day tournament, that window is the only thing standing between you and a flat game three. Should I take caffeine before every game? No. Front-load it: a full dose before game one, taper down, and take minimal or zero before an evening game on day one of a multi-day tournament. Caffeine has a 5–6 hour half-life, and research shows 400 mg taken six hours before bed still cost over an hour of sleep. You would be trading tomorrow's semi-final for today's group game. Why does sleep matter more than the recovery products? Because sleep is when almost all of the actual repair happens — growth hormone release, muscle protein synthesis, and the neural consolidation that keeps your reaction time sharp. In elite basketball players, sleep extension improved sprint times and shooting accuracy by around 9%. No supplement on the market produces a result like that. If you have to choose between a recovery protocol and an hour of sleep, sleep wins every time. What if I genuinely cannot eat between games? Drink your carbs — isotonic drinks or gels. If even that is impossible, use a carbohydrate mouth rinse: swill and spit. It will not refuel you, but the oral receptors signal your brain and high-intensity performance improves anyway. It is a fallback, not a plan. Is water enough in a hot tournament? No. With heavy sweat losses you need sodium. Drinking large volumes of plain water dilutes your blood sodium — that is hyponatremia, and in extreme cases it is fatal. Sodium also helps you retain the fluid you drink rather than urinating it straight out. What does a proper tournament kit cost? Around €34–43 with the FLAGFOOTBALL code — roughly €6–7 per game. A supermarket-only version costs around €12. The gap buys you gut tolerance, precise dosing, portability, and — most importantly — something you can actually stomach in game three. The Series Flag Football Nutrition Part 1 Fuel The 5-Second Sprint Part 2 · You are here Three Games, One Day Part 3 Supplements: What Works Part 4 Recovery: What's Theatre Flag Football Nutrition Tournament Nutrition Carbohydrate Loading Caffeine And Sleep Between Games Recovery WC26 Flag Football Düsseldorf 2026 Ljubljana Frogs LaPrimaFit LA28 Flag Football Disclosure: LaPrimaFit is a sponsor of the Ljubljana Frogs. We receive support from them, and product links in this article are affiliate links. That is exactly why we also tell you which of their products not to buy — see our supplements guide, where we advise against four products they stock. Every claim here is sourced to peer-reviewed research, and we link it so you can check us.

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