Sharks Access: Nutrition

Sharks Access: Nutrition

wanted to introduce everybody to team nutrition for the Sharks and Barracuda. This is Christina Jax and Ryan Thomasson. I’ve said your names, but I actually don’t specifically know your titles, and I want to make that very clear about what each of you do and what that looks like on a day-to-day basis. So, Christina, you first. Yeah, I would love to be introduced to to what we do to help fuel the sharks. So, I’m director of nutrition for the Sharks and the Barracuda. Uh both Ryan and I have been with the team. This is our fourth season. So we’re super excited to introduce the sort of behind the scenes that fuel the sharks. Yeah. And my name is Ryan Thomasson. I’m the nutrition specialist. Like she said, we’ve been here for four seasons. We work with sharks and barracuda. And Ryan, you and I have the San Jose State Connection going on. I don’t think Christina does. So sorry to exclude you, but Spartans for life. Um so let’s talk about what actually the job entails. What are you doing um week to week, day to day, season to season for the Sharks and Barracuda? Right. A lot of it is directed by the players that we have and also what the front office um finds important for this season in this focus. So, we’ve really got to watch it grow and develop. We’ve had a remodeled facility. So, we’re really able to be involved in what is the next level for fueling the sharks. But, so what do we do on a daily basis? um a daily basis sometimes just really glamorous stuff like what what’s your favorite thing that you do on a daily basis? I love making smoothies. I love consuming smoothies. I got you. I can stop by. So sometimes it’s that glamorous but when you look globally at what um all sports dietitians do in some capacity is we do performance and nutrition planning. This is a lot where people think, oh, do you meet with the players one-on-one and go over their diets? Yeah, absolutely. Right. But not not all the time. it’s maybe right at various times at various times and also it’s uh it’s sometimes player driven sometimes it’s coach driven on meeting with us but some of them are really already dialed in and so we’re just there to help facilitate the good stuff that they’re already doing. Um we also work with players on body comp and weight goals. So again this is a really competitive sport and a very competitive field out there. So making sure that they’re in the right zone body comp and and um and for their position too. So, not every position needs to have a certain body composition or weight goal. So, we really evaluate that. I feel like Ryan, we’re talking about the finest details here because these are athletes that are kind of like machines to the to a certain point. Um, and so they’re they’re looking for every single edge they can possibly get. What’s the feedback you get of when it’s working? When you’re doing your job, right? What’s the reward that what are you what are you hearing back? Well, it’s it’s in the the feedback off the ice, right? like when we try something new or we test out a new product and we get that immediate feedback, I think that’s when you can see the players really respond well. They’re like, “Oh, that worked well. I want to stick with that.” Um, so like she said in the beginning, it’s player dependent. So we really are here to serve anything that falls under the umbrella of nutrition for them. So I think that it’s it’s case dependent. I mean, if you if you put the wrong fuel in your car, it’s not going to work the right way, right? So, is it that simple of an analogy for what you do for these hockey players? Absolutely. And some of them have got away with it for a long time of not fueling the best because they are just these elite machines which is great. That’s what I was trying to say before like it they thought it didn’t matter and then they realized after working with you then they’re like wait I can be this much better then of course they’re interested. Right. Right. And you know sometimes I let’s let’s be honest this is a a profession where every little margin matters. I’m getting that next contract too. So, the margins are really tight. Um, we also do work with food service on planning menus and work in a great collaboration with them. Um, I actually plan the menus um and catering when they’re out of town, too. Okay. So, there’s a lot of that coordination that goes along with this job as well. So, what do they even need to do food-wise besides eat it? Do you take care of literally here’s what you should do? You plan meals that the team provides and to your point also meals that they might consume on their own time too, right? Yeah, we have a lot of players that’ll reach out to us. Um Ryan did a great job of putting together um some materials on how to eat out the healthiest in San Jose. This could be also another segment that we do. How to eat healthy in San Jose. Um I’ll be the test dummy. I’ll I’ll eat everywhere. And then I love you could talk a little bit about what you’re going to do. We did it with the Cuda last year, but what you’re planning on doing again this year? The grocery store tour. Yeah. Yeah. So, with our development guys, we will take them to the grocery store and what we’ll do is we’ll teach them how to we actually have a a grocery list that we use. So, based off of the staples, we’ll teach them how to maneuver the grocery store because it’s it’s pretty much the same across the board. You’ve got the produce on the outside and then you’ve got your staples in the middle. So, we’ll take them there. We’ll print out some recipes of things that they can take home and just teach them how to create them and how to be the best grocery shopper possible. I mean, some players may have a little resistance to just like, you know, I I I already have this taken care of, but other players, they must they must eat this up. They must I like to pun they must they must be so passionate about doing this the right way because they they know it can help them. Yeah, absolutely. And what’s really been encouraging, I love to see it, is the younger players. I don’t know if it’s because of um social media or or TV or anything that’s brought to light cooking. So, they’re really interested in it and I think they’ve been brought up with the fact that cooking can be cool, but a lot of them don’t have the tools yet to do it. I used to work in collegiic sports, too, and a lot of them are also not knowing how to really cook for themselves. So, we really love that because it’s a legacy of health. We’re not just feeding our players now. We’re we’re helping them fuel themselves for a lifetime. All right, we’ll do other segments by the way here that you’ll eventually see on what exactly to eat, some tips and tricks and all that stuff for adult players and junior players. But I also want to focus on this the industry, right? It’s not just the Sharks and Barracuda that are utilizing your expertise. A lot of teams in a lot of sports are probably very invested. I mean, athletes are an important part of what a team is. So, they’re very invested on making sure that they’re healthy and performing. So, this is a big industry now, right? It’s a huge industry and there’s actually um specializations within sports nutrition now, which I’m an older dietitian. I’ve been around a while. Um I kind of say I’m a dinosaur in sports nutrition. We kind of just pushed our way in and said, “Hey, it’s important for athlete performance, but now it’s really something that is sought after by young nutrition professionals.” And also, I think it’s because of the competitive nature of youth athletics that has really brought to light parents saying, “Oh, wait a second. I want my athlete to also understand how to fuel themselves. Absolutely. I I would say from my experience, it’s it’s a little bit different. It is very impacted nowadays. It it is like this glamorous thing to work with athletes. Um and because it is such small margins, it is a really interesting area of nutrition, at least for me and I know a lot of other people because you’re working with people who are already in tip-top shape and it’s that puzzle piece of how do I get you 1% more optimal, which is really fun. Yeah. Makes you think. Ryan, going back to the smoothie thing, my wife makes a smoothie for her and I every single day. Wonderful. So, you’re saying we’re on the right track? I am. What’s in it? We’ll talk later about the recipe. We should talk later. Straight fruit. No. No. No. Yeah. No tricks. No tricks. Yeah. All right. All right. I love it. Appreciate this. Can’t wait for the rest of the series.

Brodie Brazil welcomes Sharks Director of Nutrition Christina Jax and Nutrition Specialist Ryann Thomison to discuss what it takes to fuel an NHL player.