AFC Bournemouth’s Gemma McGuiness is a registered performance nutritionist with a BSc in Food & Nutrition and an MSc in Sports Nutrition, alongside her playing career with the club.
In her role, she supports athletes, teams and high performers to build nutrition strategies that are practical, sustainable and performance driven.
Ahead of the club’s Adobe Women’s FA Cup fourth round proper tie this weekend, Gemma discussed the importance of wellness in her field, coinciding with launch of the FA’s Make Your Move campaign.
Make Your Move is a creative space for positive movement, community connection and mindfulness where you can find curated wellbeing resources designed to support your mental and physical health.
Movement
How does movement play a role in your overall wellbeing, not just your performance on the pitch?
For me, movement is huge. I look at the four pillars of performance, so I try to integrate nutrition, movement, mindset and recovery, and instead of looking at the pillars of performance in isolation, it’s that movement fits within them all, so movement, like going out for a walk in the morning, helps get your mindset in the right place for the day ahead. It also helps from a digestion point of view, it helps just to support nutrition, and movement also helps to even just decompress after a heavy day. It’s not just about exercise for training or for performance, it’s actually something that fits into so much more when it comes to health and mindset, so it all connects together.
Outside of the football environment, how do you like to move your body?
Going out for a walk in the morning – that to me is huge. It helps just to get moving and get active, to focus on the day ahead. And then outside of training, like physical training, it’s between yoga and mobility work, trying to incorporate that into my days, both the start of the day and if I can get kind of ‘exercise snacks’ or ‘movement snacks’ in throughout the day. I work largely online, so it’s getting up, getting movement in between meetings and then after training trying to prioritise recovery too, so getting on the bike for 20 minutes, and then getting some mobility or yoga done in the evening. There’s small pieces throughout the day.
How do you listen to your body and know when to push versus when to rest?
I’m checking in on myself regularly, so I’d try to have some kind of weekly reflection, but I try to make it so much more informal where I’m just asking myself how am I getting on throughout the day, if I’m setting clear boundaries of work times, when to switch off, prioritising time to prepare for training and time to recover from it as well. I am very conscious on if I am pushing it too far. I’m also checking my sleep scores and just generally checking in with myself on how I’m feeling physically and mentally. So physically, muscles are sore, so I need to prioritise rest, nutrition, hydration. If I’m mentally fatigued it’s switching off and maybe reading a book, calling friends, having a laugh and making sure that when I look at my calendar it’s not just all work and football.
Nutrition
As a nutritionist, what's a pre-match meal you go back to that you'd recommend?
I focus on high carbohydrates – light and easy to digest and for me that’s either cereal or pancakes, where it’s just simple, it’s easy, it doesn’t take a huge amount of prep time and it just ticks all the boxes of what you need for a match which is high carbohydrates, low fibre and low fat.
What does ‘fuelling well’ mean to you?
Fuelling well means health first, so fuelling the body for what it needs to function and thrive outside of sport and then looking at sport as an addition that you need to fuel extra for. You have to prioritise the foundations first and then all the extras that you need to allow you to get on the pitch and support your energy levels and recovery as fast as possible.
How does food support both physical energy and mental focus?
Food plays a huge part. When I look at what the body needs, physiologically, just even to function and thrive well it needs all the key nutrients. It’s about having regular meals and prioritising how you feel in your day just from an energy and focus point and then looking at the types of food, you need then to go into training and then come out of training and have the nutrients in your body to support the recovery process as well, so regular balance meals that are focusing on all the key nutrients.
What’s one nutrition habit that has made the biggest difference to your wellbeing?
The food shop – making sure that every week I do a food shop or a couple of food shops. If I have the ingredients at home, it makes the choices kind of fall into place. That’s one big habit that allows others to follow throughout the week.
Mindfulness
How do you manage pressure, whether it’s football or daily stresses?
Planning ahead is a big thing, so if I know that a particularly pressurised phase or time or the week is coming, then it’s putting myself in the best position by just being more organised and thinking ahead of time. And then self-talk is a big thing, so just talking myself through, if it is a particular thing in football, am I prepared for maybe the game ahead, or a couple of meetings that might come up, and I talk myself through to ensure that I am feeling good, I am organised and that I can do this and that it’s going to be okay. Also talking to people that I know support me throughout that, whether it’s coaches or my team. Those are the main things, but also just prioritising the pillars of performance, so when it’s stressful, it’s not neglecting nutrition, movement, mindset, actually prioritise them, do them in a different way, they certainly allow you to show up your best when there are high pressure moments.
What do you do to mentally recover after games?
After games I usually have to spend time on my own just to wind down. Our games are usually at 2pm, so it’s using the rest of the evening to switch off, switch off my phone, social media, watch a movie or read a book and get into bed early. That allows me to recharge my batteries, and I’ve got a lot of people to talk to throughout the week, so I need plenty of energy for that.
How important is mental recovery compared to physical recovery?
Incredibly important, but I’d say equally as important as physical. Your body and your mind work together and it’s important that we’re taking care of both and prioritising ways that we can support both our body and mind and just recognise that they impact each other. If we aren’t taking care of one, we will notice a knock on effect, whether it’s physically or mentally.
