Gretzky: Hotdogs As Performance Enhancers?

[CarbAppreciator]

Wayne Gretzky is famous as the best hockey player ever. He has a career total of 2857 points, the next runner up has 1921 points while playing about 250 more games than Gretzky, ie Wayne was dominant.

He is well known for his pregame meal... 4 hotdogs with mustard and onions. Yes, I know, LOL indeed.
Between periods, he drank a diet coke, water, and a gatorade, but my focus is primarily the hotdogs... what is it about that meal, if anything, that could lead to a performance enhancement?

A few thoughts I posit:
1) Four frankfurters have about 2.3g of sodium, that's 1 RDA.
2) Glycine would make up a relatively large proportion of the amino acids in the frankfurter.
3) The highly processed nature of the meat may be expected to lead to a highly digestible protein source, while being relatively low in total protein content. (4 dogs=21g, cronometer)
4) The meal including buns (data from cronometer, in real life, the nutrition and cals from the dogs and esp. buns could vary widely, depending on size, oil content, vitamin enrichment etc...) is about 50% fat cals, fat acts as an insulin suppressor, ie no blood sugar undulations, more total sugar and aminos in the blood for longer. The between period drinks are non-insulinogenic.
5) Meal is reasonably high in B vits (cronometer)

Disclaimer: I'm not a reductionist(Or at least I try not to be!), clearly most of Gretzkys accomplishments stem from his early childhood development. I just thought it's an interesting question as at first, the meal sounds terribly unhealthy to the modern ear, however, it stands to reason that at the very least, it couldn't have been performance inhibiting given the success of Gretzky.

Any thoughts welcome.

 

[Insaneacinamide]

@ 1:55 mentions in high school he would eat steak/potatoes when he got home from school around 4:30-5pm.
His eating times changed when he got into the pro's. But could be eating steak/potatoes for lunch(does not mention what he ate at this time for lunch), hotdogs before games, and also snacked during game. He does mention sandwiches.

If I recall hotdogs in sports arena's are pretty large, so I would say they probably have more than 5grams of protein.
He could also be using things like amphetamines. Maybe hormones. Not sure but those are pretty common in professional sports.

 

[cyclops]

Dr. McDougall eats hot dogs now?

 

[Kunder]

Maybe if he didnt eat crap food, he would have done even better. Maybe much better. We’ll never know.

 

[Such_Saturation]

The McDogall™ diet

 

[Collden]

I once asked Peat about common sausages as protein source, he said the meat scraps used to make them are probably a lot healthier than most muscle meats, but that they usually contain too much fat and preservatives to be considered healthy.

I think much of the nitrates at least can be removed from sausages by boiling them though.

 

[Kunder]

Valid point about the sausages. You can however buy sausages with just salt (regular salt) and spices. There are smaller, often family owned meat producers that do just that, accross europe. It is not even not that much more expensive. The only drawback remains the fat.

 

[schultz]

You can make your own sausage. This is something I aim to do myself as I just got a sausage stuffer and meat grinder. I plan on getting some organ meat in there as well.

 

[Such_Saturation]

What is it about sausage products and AGEs? Can this be alleviated?

 

[Velve921]

Wayne Gretzky is famous as the best hockey player ever. He has a career total of 2857 points, the next runner up has 1921 points while playing about 250 more games than Gretzky, ie Wayne was dominant.

He is well known for his pregame meal... 4 hotdogs with mustard and onions. Yes, I know, LOL indeed.
Between periods, he drank a diet coke, water, and a gatorade, but my focus is primarily the hotdogs... what is it about that meal, if anything, that could lead to a performance enhancement?

A few thoughts I posit:
1) Four frankfurters have about 2.3g of sodium, that's 1 RDA.
2) Glycine would make up a relatively large proportion of the amino acids in the frankfurter.
3) The highly processed nature of the meat may be expected to lead to a highly digestible protein source, while being relatively low in total protein content. (4 dogs=21g, cronometer)
4) The meal including buns (data from cronometer, in real life, the nutrition and cals from the dogs and esp. buns could vary widely, depending on size, oil content, vitamin enrichment etc...) is about 50% fat cals, fat acts as an insulin suppressor, ie no blood sugar undulations, more total sugar and aminos in the blood for longer. The between period drinks are non-insulinogenic.
5) Meal is reasonably high in B vits (cronometer)

Disclaimer: I'm not a reductionist(Or at least I try not to be!), clearly most of Gretzkys accomplishments stem from his early childhood development. I just thought it's an interesting question as at first, the meal sounds terribly unhealthy to the modern ear, however, it stands to reason that at the very least, it couldn't have been performance inhibiting given the success of Gretzky.

Any thoughts welcome.

I worked as a strength coach in the NHL/AHL for 7 years and now developing professional hockey in Hungary. Nutrition and Off Ice Performance development in ice hockey has only started progressing in the last 10 years. During the time of Gretzky all players ate terrible food, drank alcohol, and did not correctly perform 'Off Ice Performance support'; in other words, during the 80s the standard for performance was poor due to unknown resources. The game is different today as nutrition and 'Off Ice Performance' support is at a much much higher standard. I would not diagnose his eating regimen to seek answers for his greatness; think more about the evolution of performance support and that we live in a different era...the game is far faster, stronger, and creative. Simply look at a 1980s hockey game on Youtube for 1 min and compare to a 2018 game for 1 min; one of the largest difference is performance support in a hollistic fashion that has improved cellular energy for a hockey player.

Hope these thoughts can be helpful based on my experiences.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

@ 1:55 mentions in high school he would eat steak/potatoes when he got home from school around 4:30-5pm.
His eating times changed when he got into the pro's. But could be eating steak/potatoes for lunch(does not mention what he ate at this time for lunch), hotdogs before games, and also snacked during game. He does mention sandwiches.

If I recall hotdogs in sports arena's are pretty large, so I would say they probably have more than 5grams of protein.
He could also be using things like amphetamines. Maybe hormones. Not sure but those are pretty common in professional sports.

Nice, I also read a story where his coach in Edmonton got the bright idea to have the team switch from eating steak potatoes and ice cream to eating chicken and brocolli. Gretzsky went to the kitchen and told the cooks to make steak and that was the end of that lol.
You could be right about the size of the dogs.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

I worked as a strength coach in the NHL/AHL for 7 years and now developing professional hockey in Hungary. Nutrition and Off Ice Performance development in ice hockey has only started progressing in the last 10 years. During the time of Gretzky all players ate terrible food, drank alcohol, and did not correctly perform 'Off Ice Performance support'; in other words, during the 80s the standard for performance was poor due to unknown resources. The game is different today as nutrition and 'Off Ice Performance' support is at a much much higher standard. I would not diagnose his eating regimen to seek answers for his greatness; think more about the evolution of performance support and that we live in a different era...the game is far faster, stronger, and creative. Simply look at a 1980s hockey game on Youtube for 1 min and compare to a 2018 game for 1 min; one of the largest difference is performance support in a hollistic fashion that has improved cellular energy for a hockey player.

Hope these thoughts can be helpful based on my experiences.

Appreciate the thoughts. The same is true for pretty much any sport nowadays. Gretzky's play style was definitely ahead of its time, he was a small build for back then, he was wiry and quick, he only got away with it because there was an unspoken rule in the league not to hit him. Now there are a lot of guys like that, smaller guys that don't get involved in checking and fighting.

The fact that his meal was highly routinized was definitely significant, but I personally can't look past the fact that he had four hot dogs in his small intestine while performing at the highest of high levels.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

I think there may just be something about sausage type meats. They are definitely a food people seem to like in the mornings, before they go out to work/perform. One notable commonality between the breakfast stables of eggs, sausage and bacon is the high sodium content. I personally suspect that's the most significant performance factor in the dogs.

 

[Attakai]

Histamines perhaps.

 

[ddjd]

Wayne Gretzky is famous as the best hockey player ever. He has a career total of 2857 points, the next runner up has 1921 points while playing about 250 more games than Gretzky, ie Wayne was dominant.

He is well known for his pregame meal... 4 hotdogs with mustard and onions. Yes, I know, LOL indeed.
Between periods, he drank a diet coke, water, and a gatorade, but my focus is primarily the hotdogs... what is it about that meal, if anything, that could lead to a performance enhancement?

A few thoughts I posit:
1) Four frankfurters have about 2.3g of sodium, that's 1 RDA.
2) Glycine would make up a relatively large proportion of the amino acids in the frankfurter.
3) The highly processed nature of the meat may be expected to lead to a highly digestible protein source, while being relatively low in total protein content. (4 dogs=21g, cronometer)
4) The meal including buns (data from cronometer, in real life, the nutrition and cals from the dogs and esp. buns could vary widely, depending on size, oil content, vitamin enrichment etc...) is about 50% fat cals, fat acts as an insulin suppressor, ie no blood sugar undulations, more total sugar and aminos in the blood for longer. The between period drinks are non-insulinogenic.
5) Meal is reasonably high in B vits (cronometer)

Disclaimer: I'm not a reductionist(Or at least I try not to be!), clearly most of Gretzkys accomplishments stem from his early childhood development. I just thought it's an interesting question as at first, the meal sounds terribly unhealthy to the modern ear, however, it stands to reason that at the very least, it couldn't have been performance inhibiting given the success of Gretzky.

Any thoughts welcome.

arent they full of PUFA?

 

[CarbAppreciator]

arent they full of PUFA?

Cronometer says 4 dogs have 9.3 g of pufa, out of 53.6g of fat, a person with a high metabolism will probably be able to handle that amount.