Protein powders typically contain 10—25 g of protein per scoop, making it easy and convenient to consume a solid dose of protein. Research suggests that consuming a protein supplement around training can help promote recovery and aid in increases in lean body mass.

For example, some people choose to add protein powder to their oats to boost their protein content a bit. Carb supplements may help sustain your energy levels, particularly if you engage in endurance sports lasting longer than 1 hour. These concentrated forms of carbs usually provide about 25 g of simple carbs per serving, and some include add-ins such as caffeine or vitamins.

They come in gel or powder form. Many long-distance endurance athletes will aim to consume 1 carb energy gel containing 25 g of carbs every 30—45 minutes during an exercise session longer than 1 hour.

Sports drinks also often contain enough carbs to maintain energy levels, but some athletes prefer gels to prevent excessive fluid intake during training or events, as this may result in digestive distress.

Many athletes choose to take a high quality multivitamin that contains all the basic vitamins and minerals to make up for any potential gaps in their diet. This is likely a good idea for most people, as the potential benefits of supplementing with a multivitamin outweigh the risks.

One vitamin in particular that athletes often supplement is vitamin D, especially during winter in areas with less sun exposure. Low vitamin D levels have been shown to potentially affect sports performance, so supplementing is often recommended.

Research shows that caffeine can improve strength and endurance in a wide range of sporting activities , such as running, jumping, throwing, and weightlifting. Many athletes choose to drink a strong cup of coffee before training to get a boost, while others turn to supplements that contain synthetic forms of caffeine, such as pre-workouts.

Whichever form you decide to use, be sure to start out with a small amount. You can gradually increase your dose as long as your body tolerates it.

Supplementing with omega-3 fats such as fish oil may improve sports performance and recovery from intense exercise. You can certainly get omega-3s from your diet by eating foods such as fatty fish, flax and chia seeds, nuts, and soybeans.

Plant-based omega-3 supplements are also available for those who follow a vegetarian or vegan diet. Creatine is a compound your body produces from amino acids.

It aids in energy production during short, high intensity activities. Supplementing daily with 5 g of creatine monohydrate — the most common form — has been shown to improve power and strength output during resistance training, which can carry over to sports performance.

Most sporting federations do not classify creatine as a banned substance, as its effects are modest compared with those of other compounds.

Considering their low cost and wide availability and the extensive research behind them, creatine supplements may be worthwhile for some athletes. Beta-alanine is another amino acid-based compound found in animal products such as beef and chicken. In your body, beta-alanine serves as a building block for carnosine, a compound responsible for helping to reduce the acidic environment within working muscles during high intensity exercise.

The most notable benefit of supplementing with beta-alanine is improvement in performance in high intensity exercises lasting 1—10 minutes. The commonly recommended research -based dosages range from 3. Some people prefer to stick to the lower end of the range to avoid a potential side effect called paraesthesia , a tingling sensation in the extremities.

Sports nutritionists are responsible for implementing science-based nutrition protocols for athletes and staying on top of the latest research. At the highest level, sports nutrition programs are traditionally overseen and administered by registered dietitians specializing in this area.

These professionals serve to educate athletes on all aspects of nutrition related to sports performance, including taking in the right amount of food, nutrients, hydration, and supplementation when needed. Lastly, sports nutritionists often work with athletes to address food allergies , intolerances , nutrition-related medical concerns, and — in collaboration with psychotherapists — any eating disorders or disordered eating that athletes may be experiencing.

One of the roles of sports nutritionists is to help debunk these myths and provide athletes with accurate information. Here are three of the top sports nutrition myths — and what the facts really say.

While protein intake is an important factor in gaining muscle, simply supplementing with protein will not cause any significant muscle gains. To promote notable changes in muscle size, you need to regularly perform resistance training for an extended period of time while making sure your diet is on point.

Even then, depending on a number of factors, including genetics, sex, and body size, you will likely not look bulky. Another common myth in sports nutrition is that eating close to bedtime will cause additional fat gain.

Many metabolic processes take place during sleep. For example, eating two slices of pizza before bed is much more likely to result in fat gain than eating a cup of cottage cheese or Greek yogurt.

Coffee gets a bad rap for being dehydrating. While sports nutrition is quite individualized, some general areas are important for most athletes. Choosing the right foods, zeroing in your macros, optimizing meal timing, ensuring good hydration, and selecting appropriate snacks can help you perform at your best.

Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available. When it comes to eating foods to fuel your exercise performance, it's not as simple as choosing vegetables over doughnuts. Learn how to choose foods….

Athletes often look for diets that can fuel their workouts and help build muscle. Athletes may need more protein than less-active teens, but most get plenty through a healthy diet. It's a myth that athletes need a huge daily intake of protein to build large, strong muscles.

Muscle growth comes from regular training and hard work. Good sources of protein are fish, lean meats and poultry, eggs, dairy, nuts, soy, and peanut butter. Carbohydrates are an excellent source of fuel. Cutting back on carbs or following low-carb diets isn't a good idea for athletes.

That's because restricting carbs can make you feel tired and worn out, which can hurt your performance. Good sources of carbs include fruits, vegetables, and grains.

Choose whole grains such as brown rice, oatmeal, whole-wheat bread more often than processed options like white rice and white bread. Whole grains provide the energy athletes need and the fiber and other nutrients to keep them healthy.

Sugary carbs such as candy bars or sodas don't contain any of the other nutrients you need. And eating candy bars or other sugary snacks just before practice or competition can give athletes a quick burst of energy, but then leave them to "crash" or run out of energy before they've finished working out.

Everyone needs some fat each day, and this is extra true for athletes. That's because active muscles quickly burn through carbs and need fats for long-lasting energy. Like carbs, not all fats are created equal. Choose healthier fats, such as the unsaturated fat found in most vegetable oils, fish, and nuts and seeds.

Limit trans fat like partially hydrogenated oils and saturated fat, found in fatty meat and dairy products like whole milk, cheese, and butter. Choosing when to eat fats is also important for athletes. Fatty foods can slow digestion, so it's a good idea to avoid eating them for a few hours before exercising.

Sports supplements promise to improve sports performance. But few have proved to help, and some may do harm. Anabolic steroids can seriously mess with a person's hormones , causing unwanted side effects like testicular shrinkage and baldness in guys and facial hair growth in girls.

Steroids can cause mental health problems, including depression and serious mood swings. Some supplements contain hormones related to testosterone, such as DHEA dehydroepiandrosterone. These can have similar side effects to anabolic steroids. Other sports supplements like creatine have not been tested in people younger than So the risks of taking them are not yet known.

Salt tablets are another supplement to watch out for. People take them to avoid dehydration, but salt tablets can actually lead to dehydration and must be taken with plenty of water.

Too much salt can cause nausea, vomiting, cramps, and diarrhea and may damage the stomach lining. In general, you are better off drinking fluids to stay hydrated. Usually, you can make up for any salt lost in sweat with sports drinks or foods you eat before, during, and after exercise.

Speaking of dehydration , water is as important to unlocking your game power as food. A problem surfaces when this becomes a ritual.

Micro-logging and readiness scores are good ways to see if a small indulgence is becoming a problem. Let athletes have treats as long as eating them does not turn into reward eating. Other athletes naturally fast as they respond well to skipping breakfast and having a light lunch without consequence.

They catch up later in the day. As with eating rhythms and nutrient timing, the sequence and temporal eating patterns are very individual and require evaluation. Just because one athlete succeeds with a particular meal plan does not mean a similar athlete will.

Fasting works. And athletes who forced higher food intakes during the season can experience massive benefits when they fast in the off-season to reset their body. The goal of an off-season fast has nothing to do with losing mass or body fat.

If you decide to fast, you need to have a purpose for doing so. This and the decision about what form the fast takes should be guided by a registered dietician who creates a plan. Summary: Fasting needs to be done for a reason that matters, not because other athletes are doing it.

If you choose to have your athletes fast, make sure they fast the right way—sport makes the changes hard to manage. Athletes need to increase calories other than protein if they want to grow more. For your athletes, think about the resources needed to build muscle. We not only need to fuel the body to function normally, but be we also need extra fuel for workouts to prepare for competition and additional energy to lift weights.

Save talk about essential amino acids and genes regarding muscle growth for discussions with the protein experts. Also, protein calorie intake often poses a problem in the United States because athletes understand weight in terms of pounds and not kilograms.

The old bodybuilding adage of one gram of protein per pound of weight for muscle gain is easy to understand and follow because it uses simple math.

Using pounds requires math that is not so simple. Protein quality is easy to rate, but fats are more complicated and athletes need guidance.

The real magic is in small things that cumulate over time. Marginal gains used to be a buzzword. Recovery with nutrition means making the right choices every day.

While each meal and snack matters, healthy gains occur over the years. There are many methods of nutrition to improve recovery, and they receive a lot of attention.

Keep the big picture in mind because too much focus on a few tricks of the trade will not be as effective. You have to do a lot of things correctly to see nutrition show up on the stopwatch or the final score.

Summary: Instead of placing a high value on a small set of superfoods or recovery techniques, do many small things right consistently. Make the small things easy and consistent rather than doing a set of small things perfectly.

Today we see too much overthinking about nutrient timing. In the past, we got caught up with megadoses of antioxidants, and then we got scared that nutrients would blunt adaptations from training. If an athlete or coach is concerned about adaptations to mitochondria and muscle, for example, juice away with tart cherries and take supplements before bed.

Summary: A few cool studies on cranberry and blackcurrant juice show that other options besides tart cherry juice exist, which is key because athletes get tired of drinking the same thing.

By timing the intake of caffeine and beetroot juice, my athletes get the performance benefits from caffeine during practice and the health and relaxation benefits from the juice later in the day. Before training, my athletes drink coffee. Instead, they drink beetroot juice two hours before bedtime and the results are fantastic.

Since sport is too often high octane and full throttle, most athletes need to take a nap or learn to be ready to nap. It seems the best athletes are the ones who know how to chill out and conserve their energy for when they need it.

Summary: Stack various fruit blends with beetroot juice to encourage relaxation and parasympathetic reactivation. Timing it a few hours before bed can help those who need help driving their mood into regeneration and recovery.

Canned mackerel and sardines are trending. I used to hate the idea of fish in a can, and now I feel like a fool for not jumping into the underground world of canned fish lovers.

Wild, fresh sardines are loaded with omega-3s and make great snacks for athletes who want food but also want a break from traditional options. They also provide so many other nutrients they deserve to be in the same category as salmon.

Mackerel, a fish I thought was unexciting, is more nutrient dense than sardines. Relying solely on omega-3 supplements is a bad idea because athletes will miss out on the other nutrients their bodies need.

Instead, we recommend a blend of sources. Summary: Omega-3s are very important for total body health, and natural whole food sources are a great way to complement supplementation. Canned fish is practical, and chia seeds are convenient because small amounts provide health benefits.

As a protein, animals are effective for athletes due to the obvious—we eat their muscle to repair our own. High-quality beef, chicken, eggs, lamb, and pork are everything to serious athletes. Not only are they more nutritious, but they also taste better. This means eating a lot of meat each day, averaging about two pounds for large athletes and one pound for athletes under 80 kilos.

My solution is using a meat share, and other options like local farms and Walden are awesome. Understanding the process of raising cattle and how each part of the animal is used is educational, and we need more of that.

Summary: With meat, you get what you pay for. Put your money on quality protein sources from good suppliers. The nutritional content and taste are worth it, and the process of selecting the right animal protein is a great lesson in health promotion.

Eating more vegetables and fruits requires discipline and shopping. And it means eating true servings a day. To me, this is three servings per meal, or one serving every other hour. I find that at least half the servings need to be whole and raw. You can include juice, but only one serving.

First prioritize plants with your athletes. It will dramatically control their eating and remove the temptation for junk food.

So what is the trick? Start with a weekly plan to eat servings by creating a checklist and staying loyal to it. Farmers markets are not just for food enthusiasts. They offer a nicer social experience than going to a store. Summary: Planning fruits and vegetables into your daily nutrition requires shopping effort, so create a checklist and stick to it.

Keep in mind that produce tends to be the most wasted food because of spoilage. Measuring heart rate is easy, measuring vertical jumps is simple, measuring speed is straightforward, but measuring nutrition is hard.