Excellence never occurs by accident.
Dr Michael Colgan - Sports lecture series 2000
Why use it?
The fundamental aim of sports nutrition is to fine tune an already healthy body by providing it with precise levels of nutrients to deliver peak physical and mental performance. This is achieved by specifically altering the intake of fatty acids, carbohydrates, proteins and other adjunct nutrients thereby allowing different physical characteristics to be enhanced. In conjunction with the right physical training, strength, endurance, reaction speed, flexibility and cardio-respiratory function can all be improved, in many instances dramatically.
Sports nutrition is in many ways a natural progression of nutritional medicine, the basic concepts with regard to the diet and supplementation being broadly similar and it is often more effective if a person's health is improved through the primary nutrition programme before it is applied. Although sports nutrition can be used on its own, the results are frequently more impressive if the organs and systems of the body are able to more efficiently utilise the greater variety and quantity of nutrients that this type of nutrition provides.
Those who tell you that your nutrition needs are the same as the next person's, have no appreciation of the scale of genetic individuality. Without such an appreciation, they have no understanding of the nutrition needs of anyone.
Dr Michael Colgan
What benefits can I expect?
The consistent application of sports nutrition can help you to prepare for any physical activity that you wish to perform. It helps you to exercise or train harder/longer, recover quicker and attain greater levels of health and fitness whilst reducing the likelihood of injury. It is most often used in conjunction with a sporting activity, but it can also be related to a particular hobby, job or interest that demands increased levels of physical and mental health to be done well. It can also be used just to build a stronger more robust body that will greatly help you to deal with the challenges of everyday life as well as maintain an excellent level of fitness as you get older (you don't have to be into sports to benefit from sports nutrition, just active).
How does a sports nutrition programme work?
A sports nutrition programme consists of a primary health questionnaire in order to assess a person's current state of health. This is completed and returned before the first consultation in the same way as the nutritional medicine programme. The initial consultation can either be face to face or over the telephone and typically lasts about 60 minutes. In this time the client's goals are established and a plan of action is discussed. A programme is then developed that alters diet and makes use of extensive supplementation in order to maximise results in the shortest possible time taking into account the unique circumstances and physical make-up (biochemical individuality) of every person.
The initial consultation may be all that is required for the client to achieve their desired result and is complemented by telephone and e-mail support. If a person decides that they require further meetings because the goal is more long term or the nutritionist thinks it may be beneficial, these can be arranged at whatever interval suits the individual.