Nutrition and ergogenic aids prescription for competitive athletes

Abstract

Appropriate nutrition support can help sustain an athlete in consistent intensive training without succumbing to chronic fatigue, illness, and injury, and can also help to promote the adaptations in muscle and other tissues that occur in response to the training stimulus. Special strategies before and during competition can be employed to achieve short-term objectives. Energy intake, relative to energy expenditure, will influence body mass and can be modified to influence proportions of lean and fat mass. Carbohydrate and protein recommendations for athletes are extensively researched from a performance and body composition perspective and vary according to many factors, including the size of the athlete, the training load, and their training and competition aims. The available evidence favours a high carbohydrate diet for most athletes in training and prior to competition. Protein recommendations are typically about 2–2.5 times higher than for sedentary individuals: the need to distribute protein intake over the day may be as important as the total intake. Water and electrolyte losses can be significantly increased as a result of sweating, especially in prolonged exercise in hot and humid environments during exercise. Performance will be negatively affected if losses are high and are not replaced. Nutritional supplement use is widespread in the athletic population, although not all supplements are supported by evidence of efficacy or safety.