We often get asked are smoothies healthy?
Smoothies are a big part of the health and fitness routine of top sportsmen and women for good reason. They enable your body to absorb ingredients quickly in abundance to give your body the boost it needs.
We have assessed the top 100 smoothies specifically for football professionals and created a top list to save you researching.
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Healthy Smoothies For Footballers
Enhance your football fitness by arming your body with the right food at the right time with out recommended healthy smoothie recipes. At Player Scout we have finalised a list of ten smoothie recipes to work around your football training.
Pre-training Energy – Banana & Walnut Booster Smoothie
When to drink:Give your body a boost of energy just before football training or a match with this energising banana and walnut smoothie.
Research shows that eating a banana before or during a workout has just as much benefit as turning up with a sports specific drink such as a protein shake, but is fresh and a lot cheaper.
Bananas have a range of beneficial nutrients such as antioxidants and potassium, and the added walnuts are a super food stacked with protein and healthy-fats for burning calories without running your body low on fuel.
To make:
- 1 large banana
- 1/3 cup of walnut pieces
- 2 cups skimmed milk
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1/4 tablespoon vanilla extract
Nutritional benefit: Makes 2 servings. Each serving has 227 calories
Weight Loss & Shape Up – Cocoa & Oat Slimdown Smoothie
To make:
- 1 small frozen banana sliced and frozen
- 3/4 cup skimmed milk
- 1/2 cup (125 mL) plain low-fat yogurt
- 1/4 cup breakfast oats
- 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- A sprinkle of ground cinnamon
Nutritional benefit: Makes 2 servings. Each serving has 350 calories
Preventing illness – Vitamin C Blasted Baller Smoothie
To make:
- 1 grapefruit (peeled and seeded)
- 1 cup pineapple chunks
- 1 cup strawberries
- 1/2 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
Nutritional benefit: Makes 2 servings. Each serving has 175 calories
Mental strength – Blueberry & Avocado Brain Food Smoothie
- To make:
- 1/2 ripe avocado (peeled and pitted)
- 1 cups blueberries
- Juice from 1/4 lime
- 1 cups low-fat greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup skimmed milk
Nutritional benefit: Makes 2 servings. Each serving has 285 calories
Optimum Muscle Performance – Built like an Ox Smoothie
To make:
- 2 big handfuls of fresh spinach
- 2 frozen bananas
- 1 cup apple juice
- 1 sprig of fresh mint
Nutritional benefit: Makes 2 servings. Each serving has 200 calories
Pushing through tiredness and pain barriers – Beetroot & Strawberry Stamina Smoothie
To make:
- 6 beetroot
- 2 cups coconut water
- 2 cups strawberries
- 1 whole lime juiced
Nutritional benefit: Makes 2 servings. Each serving has 145 calories
Liver Detox – Spinach Hydration Smoothie
Being alert and agile on the football pitch can make a footballers career. Agility of the mind and body are critical in adjusting your style of play and direction at a fraction of a seconds notice. Whilst you can train to improve and work on your agility by teaching your mind to help you physically respond in certain game situations at lightening speed, this can be enhanced by preparing your vital organs, so that they function at optimal levels.
This is where the ultimate liver detox smoothie for football fitness comes into action.
This tonic will work directly on your organs and digestive system to improve their functionality, which in turn will have a direct impact on your agility for football.
Don’t be fooled by other green smoothies on health and fitness sites. Most of them focus on the benefit of giving you iron and healthy energy, whilst this recipes aims to detox your liver. By doing this your body will improve in your agility performance since your internal organs will be functioning at optimum levels of responsiveness.
It is also not a smoothie to drink in one sitting. You make this recipe as a tonic green water and drink it throughout the morning up until lunch time in place of water. It’s really cheap to make too so won’t leave your pocket short of change.
- 1 cup fresh spinach
- 6 cups of water
- 1/4 cucumber
- 2 sprigs of fresh mint
- 1 large slice of lemon without the rind
6 Tips for improving your Smoothie
- Freeze chopped banana – Many smoothies for football include bananas for the potassium benefits. Rather than add them from fresh, adding frozen banana keeps your smoothie cool and thick
- Always add ice as the last ingredient. This enables you to fully blend your other ingredients without completely crushing up all the ice, and by adding ice last prevents the ice from melting too quickly and diluting your smoothie. Some smoothie makers have settings just for crushing ice.
- Using frozen fruit such as summer fruits and berries are cheaper to buy than fresh fruit, last longer and are easy to portion out without wasting any ingredients. Plus they help keep your smoothie cool to drink, perfect for training.
- Choose fruits that are in season – This will also save you money if you wish to buy fresh fruit. During the summer choose berries like strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, and in the autumn choose fruit like apples, blackberries and plums.
- Add your protein powder to your smoothie to get an extra boost of nutrition.
- Add a little water – With all smoothies, if you add around a half cup of water to your ingredients, you can thin out the thickness making it easier to drink, and reducing the amount of sugar in each glass. This is because all fruit contains natural sugars.
