Galway senior football manager Padraic Joyce gave an eye-opening account into the role of nutritionists in inter-county GAA, detailing the lengths players go to from a diet perspective.
Joyce says 'carb-loading' is an important thing for modern day inter-county players, whether it's before training or leading up to games.
He says that if there's a match of a Sunday, players involved consume up to huge amount of food on the Friday and Saturday as a means of preparation.
The Killererin club-man says between players and their nutritionist, they try to strike the balance between consuming enough food so as to promote recovery but also managing weight gain at the same time.
Camogie All-Star Niamh Mallon became the Galway senior football team's nutritionist last year and Joyce hailed her role in the team.
He admitted that 75/80% of players in the Galway panel manage their nutrition to the nth degree, conceding that it can be time-consuming.
"The nutrition has been taken to a whole new level," Joyce says.
"I would look at the plan but basically, they're trying to fuel before training and for training, then to not put on too much weight, then they'd have to lose it after training. Then if they're not training hard enough, they'll keep weight on.
"Then if they're playing a game of a Sunday, then the Saturday and Friday are down as two carb-loading days and the stuff they have to eat.
"They basically have to eat five dinners on the Saturday to load up stuff."
"It's amazing. Then they've to break that dinner down then into whether it's protein or carbohydrate to suit their body mass or body muscle.
"It's phenomenal. Do lads do it? I think the majority, 75/80% would do it to the letter of the law. It's really hard to monitor but it makes such a difference."
Joyce spoke on the Meghann Meets podcast with host Meghann Scully where, among other things, he discussed his issues with the current GAA calendar.
He thinks too many games are squeezed into a short period of time, and called for the inter-county season to be extended to the end August.
He feels inter-county players don't get enough of a break at the minute.
He also hailed the Dublin senior football team for their grace after losing to Galway in the All-Ireland senior football quarter final last year, praising them for staying out on the field to congratulate Galway on their win.
Joyce also explained how celebrating big games has changed from his day, with players no longer partaking in 'Monday clubs' which he admits were the done-thing in his time.
"The pint drinkers nowadays are nearly gone. It's nearly an old thing," Joyce said.
"The players are big into the body fat, big into how they look, they're kind of watching the calories they take in. The drink culture in the squad definitely wouldn't be what we were in our time.
"In our time, you played a game on a Sunday, and there was a session after the match, pints, and you would go again on the Monday club. They watch themselves a bit more now."
"From my time playing, we used to train Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday morning and Sunday morning and we'd do a bit of gym work at Christmas time but we wouldn't do it later in the year.
"Whereas now, I'm nearly lost with it. As a manager, you're still learning, it's down to such specifics, that you've to train as you play, high speed running, gps stats all the time..."
Watch/listen to the full show here.
