Nutrition Aspects

Abstract

Nutrition is very important for maintaining good health but also for the optimal preparation of the athletes and for injury risk management in sports. It can seem to be only a detail, because probably no one trust that a good diet can help to win a match or a race, but it is sure that a bad diet can affect negatively the final athletic performance, including a bigger risk of injury in certain situations or environments (e.g., dehydration). Some food matching and nutrition strategies allow the athlete to train and recover better and faster, other can help to prepare the body to the right adaptation to training stimulus and imposed demands. Accurate energy consumption must be calculated knowing sport-specific training request in order to obtain the adequate amount of energy from the best combination of meals. In most cases, foods are enough to provide all micro- and macronutrients, but in some case, with a specific supervision, a small number of dietary supplements may benefit some athletes. Recent researches suggest that the strategic combination of exercise training and nutrition, so-called “periodized nutrition” or nutritional training, can be the new frontier of the sport’s nutrition, with the overall aim to obtain adaptations that support exercise performance. For example, training with low- or high-carbohydrate availability means different effects in terms of signaling and transcription in the cells, but to date, few studies have been able to show any effects on performance.