SPAN Athletics

10/07/2026

Quick myth-buster for sports families: a cramp on the field usually means your athlete needs more salt....

The salt idea goes back to 1930s studies of laborers sweating through full shifts in extreme heat. When researchers tested athletes who cramped during marathons and Ironman races, their blood electrolytes and hydration were about the same as athletes who didn't cramp.

The bigger factor was fatigue. A worn-out muscle's nerves fire too much and relax too little, so it locks up, which is why cramps show up late in games and early in a season.

In the moment, a gentle stretch is the best-supported fix.

For prevention: steady fitness, real sleep, eating enough (and enough carbs!!) and drinking fluids through the day. Water and electrolytes still matter. It's just not the whole story.

Has your athlete dealt with cramps this season? What helped?

10/05/2026

Parents, here's an easy win this week: the snack after practice.

In the hour after a hard practice, your athlete's muscles are ready to restock energy and repair. A snack with carbs and protein, plus something to drink, helps them recover for tomorrow.

Think chocolate milk and a banana, or a wrap. If dinner is right after practice, dinner does the job. If dinner is two hours away, keep a snack in the car.

Tony Castillo and I wrote Unfollow the Noise (out this October) for exactly these everyday questions: https://forms.gle/7UwfoN3vMURRmqtH9

What does your athlete usually eat on the drive home from practice?

That's a Wrap: Chicken, Avocado and Greens Refuel Wrap
**Makes 1 wrap (10 minutes, no cooking required)

Ingredients:
- 1 large whole-grain or whole-wheat wrap (10-inch)
- 1/4-1/2 ripe avocado
- Squeeze of lemon or lime juice, pinch of salt
- 1/4-1/2 cup cooked chicken, chopped (leftovers work)
- 1/2-3/4 cup chopped greens: a mix of whatever's in the fridge
- 1-2 tablespoons shredded or crumbled cheese (your pick!)
- 1 tablespoon light dressing or Greek yogurt mixed fav, flavors
Optional: chopped apple or pear slices for crunch and sweetness

Steps:
1.) Smash the avocado with the lemon juice and salt. Spread it over the center of the wrap, leaving about an inch of border all around.
2.) In a bowl, toss the chicken, greens, cheese and dressing
3.) Pile the mixture in the middle of the wrap on top the avocado.
4.) Fold the left and right sides in over the filling.
5.) Fold the bottom edge up and over the filling, tucking it snug.
6.) Roll forward tightly to the end, seam side down. Press to seal.
7.) Slice in half on the diagonal. Eat now, or wrap in foil .

09/02/2026

The most common thing I see in young athletes isn't overtraining. It's under-fueling and almost none of it is on purpose.

It starts innocently. A growth spurt. A second sport. A schedule that quietly became three practices and a tournament weekend.

Demand goes up. Intake doesn't follow.

Leave that gap open long enough and the body starts making cuts: hormone production. Bone building. Immune function.

Sports medicine calls it RED-S or Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. It shows up in boys just as much as girls.

What parents notice first:

→ Fading late in games
→ Getting sick constantly
→ Recurring injuries or stress fractures
→ Always cold, or hair shedding
→ Periods that got irregular or stopped

No single one looks like an emergency. The pattern is the signal.

When 30–40% of adult bone mass is built during adolescence. Growth is an invisible extra workout happening every day, whether your athlete trained or not.

Our job isn't to fuel the sport. It's to feed the growth that has to last a lifetime.

If a few of those signs sound familiar, don't wait it out: https://www.spanathletics.com/span-athletics


Stacy Bates

09/01/2026

Better fuel starts in the grocery aisle, not on the competition field.

Ever wish you had a Dietitian with you while grocery shopping? 🛒

If you're on a GLP-1 and also raising a competitive athlete, you know the cart problem: you need protein-forward, lower-added-sugar options that work for you, and your athlete needs enough carbs and calories to train, recover and grow. Same store, same budget, two very different plates.

I've been working with FoodHealth Co on an app built for exactly this. Scan the whole shelf, see how every product scores, and get the best pick for each person's goals. Set your profile for protein, fiber and fewer added sugars. Set your athlete's for fuel and recovery. The score adapts to whoever you're shopping for, so one trip covers the whole family.

Tried it earlier this year? Come check it out again:

✅ Now FREE
✅ Completely refreshed app experience
✅ New Coach feature: ask what to buy, what to cook, what to eat for you AND your athlete
🔜 COMING SOON: Score your whole pantry + fridge so the healthy choice is the easy one for everyone at home

Download link is below and in the comments. Tell me what you think, what's working, and what we need to add 👇

Download: https://shorturl.at/hfpID

Stacy Bates SPAN Athletics Lindsay Werkhoven Patrick

Built by dietitians and data scientists, the FoodHealth app turns your phone camera into a GLP-1 shopping coach. Snap a shelf, a product, or your fridge & get an instant answer on what to buy or swap.

08/28/2026

🎉 Y’all. This one feels big. 🙌

SPAN Athletics is teaming up with Texas Twelve to bring a FREE nutrition & mindset webinar to Twelve athletes and families across the entire state.

📅 Sunday, September 20 | 6:30–7:30 PM CT
Location: Virtual Zoom Webinar
👉 Register: https://bit.ly/3UhJ7pp

(Can’t make it live? Every Texas Twelve family gets access to the recording!)

Lindsay Patrick, M.Ed. and I will cover what actually fuels performance and how to tune out the noise your athlete is receiving every day. Plus a few special incentives for joining us live.

Here’s the part I keep getting emotional about: a few years ago this was me, a laptop, and a whole lot of “I think athletes deserve better information.” Now it’s four books published, a nonprofit foundation, coaches and organizations all over the country supporting our work through the podcast, and a partnership that puts this in front of an entire state’s worth of families! 👏

Stacy Bates Lindsay Werkhoven Patrick

08/02/2026

Great sports nutrition reminder from ’s Kitchen.

The nutrition advice parents hear most often isn’t the advice their athletes need.

It’s frequently the exact opposite.

General wellness messaging says cut carbs, limit snacks, eat less. A 15-year-old training 12+ hours a week needs the reverse: consistent carbohydrate, more frequent eating, and enough total energy to fuel growth and performance at the same time.

Underfueling rarely announces itself. It shows up as slower recovery, nagging injuries, mood swings, and stalled progress and it’s easy to misread as “not working hard enough.”

If you’re a parent, the better question isn’t whether your athlete is eating clean. It’s whether they’re eating enough.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19EXzsKN1L/?mibextid=wwXIfr



SPAN Athletics

08/01/2026

Frank Sinatra: 1,200 songs, 209 hits. 17%.
Babe Ruth: 8,399 ABs, 714 home runs. 8.5%.
Picasso — thousands of works, a fraction remembered.

The math of success is brutal.

Here’s what we tell the athletes we work with: you don’t get to be great without being bad at something first, publicly, for longer than feels comfortable.

The gap between the people who make it and the people who don’t usually isn’t talent. It’s tolerance for missing, for looking foolish, for showing up the next day anyway.

Failure hurts.

That’s exactly why most people stop.

Keep swinging. 💪

07/14/2026

🎉 What a way to finish the season! 🎉

SPAN Athlete, Clay Bates, saved his best for last, hitting not one but TWO home runs in his final weekend of summer play! 💪⚾

And here’s what makes it even sweeter: these weren’t just his first home runs of the season. They came after months of grinding through a tough stretch, battling back from a .100 batting average. Clay never stopped showing up, never stopped swinging, and never stopped believing.

That’s what resilience looks like. The scoreboard doesn’t always tell the story, but character does. Setbacks aren’t the end of the story; sometimes they’re the setup for the best chapter.

Mindset matters. Resilience is a life skill, and Clay just showed us all how it’s done.

Congratulations, Clay! We can’t wait to see what you do next. 🙌 Stacy Bates

06/14/2026

Want to know one of the biggest myths in sports nutrition?

👉 If an athlete isn't losing weight, they must be eating enough.

But that's not how physiology works.

The body is incredibly adaptive.

When energy availability stays low for too long, it starts making trade-offs to protect survival:

→ Metabolism slows
→ Hormones shift
→ Recovery declines
→ Performance suffers

And all of this can happen while body weight remains completely stable (or even going up a few pounds!).

In fact, some of the athletes struggling the most with REDs have:
✔️ Stable weight
✔️ A "normal" BMI
✔️ No obvious signs of underfueling

Yet they're experiencing fatigue, GI issues, poor recovery, hormonal disruption, and declining performance.

This is exactly why we need to STOP using weight as our primary marker of athlete health.

In my newest article, I explore why weight stability does NOT equal adequate fueling, the hidden adaptations that occur with REDs, and the signs providers should be looking for instead.

👇 Read the full article below and let me know: Have you seen athletes whose symptoms were missed because they didn't fit the stereotypical picture of REDs?


Lindsay Werkhoven Patrick
Stacy Bates

Kudos to McConville for this excellent post.

One of the most common misconceptions in sports nutrition is that if an athlete’s weight hasn’t changed, they must be eating enough. At first glance, it seems logical.

06/02/2026

WHOOP! 🙌 Let’s go Cammy! 👏