A Crash Course in Sports Nutrition

A low-carb ketogenic diet may benefit runners, but why not weight-lifters?

Refuelling with protein, carbohydrate and fluids is crucial after exercise, but it doesn’t have to be complicated (Photo by me.)

“Nutrition can make a good athlete great, and a great athlete good.”

Nutritional supplements to enhance athletic performance have been used as early as 400–500 B.C, where athletes and warriors are thought to have ate foods such as deer liver and lion heart to improve strength and bravery.

Nowadays, our greater scientific understanding of physiology and metabolism has allowed us to produce a global sports nutrition market valued at over 50 billion dollars USD. Even the widely popular ketogenic diet has made it’s way into the sports nutrition world, where athletes can “up-regulate” fat-oxidation enzymes and improve training outcomes.

But does this mean that you should do it to?

It depends, because nutrition is highly nuanced, and even more when it is applied to sports and exercise, as everyones metabolism, gene expression, fitness level and medical history is different. Therefore, this article will serve as a “crash course” for covering the basics of sports nutrition, including:

• Water
• Carbohydrates
• Protein and Protein Supplementation
• Fat and Low-Carb Ketogenic…