Vegetarian Rugby Player

[BillBrownley]

Rip--maybe you can help or direct me to someone who can. I am not a vegetarian--more like a basic carnivore. However, I coach a D2 college rugby team currently ranked 9 nationally.

One of my best players--tough guy, great leader, tremendous player--became a vegetarian over the summer. My best efforts at intervention have failed. While he has dropped weight--his performance has not yet suffered on the field, but it will as we hit the higher levels of competition.

Is there anyone with experience relating to vegetarians and lifting--how to make the best of a suboptimal diet?

By the way thanks for what you do--I have many of the players working on your program, and those that do the work show strong results in the gym and on the field.
Which hopefully encourages the rest of the nimrods to do what they should. Or it will as more of them lose their positions to stronger players.

Thanks, Bill

[Mark Rippetoe]

Since I do not attempt to relate to them, I can't help you. We'll ask.

[PressesPeople]

I'm a vegetarian. Long as he doesn't go full vegan it should be fine. Don't worry about diet as much as training (and of course adequate calories). His body will adapt.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Lots of my top athletes have the crappiest diets. My strongest female swimmer is a multiple time state champion who just accepted a full ride to Arizone State. She lives on crackers, cookies, and pizza. Fortunately most of them have great genetics so they get by okay. Don't keep yourself up at night worrying about it. Your job isn't to force anyone to do anything when they are outside of your control. All you can do is provide them with information and instruction and hope that over time you will EARN their trust enough to where they will listen to whatever you have to say.

I'm trying to think of some high level athletes who are vegetarians...they do exist I just can't think of any off the top of my head. John Fitch, is a top welterweight in the UFC and has competed for the title once or twice. He turned vegetarian a few years ago and is still a very dominant powerful wrestler with tremendous cardio. Doesn't seem to have hurt him too much.

[Domjo54]

Carl Lewis and Prince Fielder both are, and I've heard Tony Gonzalez only eats meat sparingly (I know he tried a vegan diet for a while before realizing he sucked at football with it). All I know of off the top of my head, I'm sure some stupid organization has put a page together before though.

[cpbellavia]

What year in his eligibility is he? He'll probably be fine for a little while...for your sake, hopefully as long as he's on your squad. But eventually he will crumble. There's plenty of accounts of people who run marathons/ultra marathons on vegetarian or even vegan diets. Oxidative stress is adaptive. But the tackles he'll have to make in a game are not the same as trotting on your feet at a walking pace or bobbing along in water. The body doesn't adapt to that without red meat. It might take a while to show visible signs but something will snap one day and won't heal as quickly as it's supposed to. He'll end up giving up before he's thirty because the "sport" just causes too many injuries...even though plenty of average joe 40-50 year olds still call every Saturday a rugby day. Hopefully, his body holds up till his done playing for you so you don't have to deal with that nonsense.

[Tapeworm]

Lifelong vegetarian here (hippie parents). As mentioned a vegan diet could cause issues. As a vegetarian having done The Program, including of course GOMAD has ensured that progress did not stall. This has been equally applicable in other physical training pursuits.

Apart from GOMAD, eggs are almost a daily feature (though I just read a "study" which indicated that egg consumption can lead to type II diabetes... I'll keep eating the eggs) as well as lots of fruit, nuts, seeds, veges. Not big on soy products.

I cannot state that I would not be better by eating meat, but certainly performance and improvement has not been wanting through my diet. Yet.

FWIW blood tests have always been spot on. YMMV.

[Gunnhild Bruno]

Bill, does your player eat eggs and dairy? If so, have him eat at least a dozen eggs a day and consume plenty of full-fat dairy. I have done the dozen eggs a day in the past when my budget didn't allow for red meat regularly. He should be fine. He'd mostly likely do better eating beasts, but eggs are good nutrition. Note that I'm a 5'2" female, so a male athlete would do better to eat more than a dozen eggs a day. But a lot of people have problems eating that much of the same food.

[PressesPeople]

I find burritos have worked well for me (with cheese, obviously). They're delicious if you mix up the sauces you put on them, and I've had great strength results with them (literally, JUST burritos for 2 years, pretty much). Although there's always the possibility that I'm just genetically talented, but I don't feel like that's the case.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It's also possible that you're measuring with a short yardstick. Red meat might reveal genetics you never knew you had.