Preface

This book is a comprehensive guide to nutrition for athletes and coaches and the health professionals who work with them. Ultimately, the information in this book should help athletes become healthier and help them understand what it takes to compete at the highest levels. Achieving a healthy state and competing at a top level are considered by many to be impossible. I have found, however, that athletes who have learned how to stay healthy while competing at a top level are nearly always able to have longer athletic careers, consistently improve in their sport, and reduce risks for chronic diseases. Doing the right things nutritionally can make the difference for staying healthy while pushing the body as hard as it can go.

With the expansion of professional sports franchises and the growing number of Olympic sports, the amount of elite athletes competing today is on the rise. Competitive athletes can now be found in most any age group. The Hawaii Ironman Triathlon has athletes in their 60s and 70s who are serious competitors in that age group. The rapidity with which this phenomenon has occurred has created a need for information on sports nutrition that is specialized for these diverse populations. Recognizing the changing demographics in athletics, this book includes chapters addressing the specific factors that affect nutritional needs, such as gender, age, body composition, and weight. High-altitude training also has a particular affect on nutritional needs and another chapter is devoted to this topic. And while superendurance competitions have become commonplace, there continues to be widespread misunderstanding about the nutritional stressors associated with this type of event. To clarify the nutritional aspects for optimal performance, there are chapters on oxygen efficiency, timing of energy intake, digestion and absorption, and fuel inhibitors.

A substantial amount of misinformation exists on the strategies for achieving peak athletic performance and health. Even a casual observer doesn't have to look too far to find "utritional-products that are marketed with the idea that consuming them enhances performance. These products typically lack the research to back their claims, and the sports medicine literature is filled with cases of athletes who have used some of these products with disastrous, or even fatal, results. Investigations into commonly marketed ergogenic aids have discovered that these products frequently include banned substances that can put both the health and eligibility of athletes at risk. Compounding the potential for problems is the tendency for many beginning athletes to try to improve their athletic capabilities too quickly with training programs and dietary supplements that are intended to emulate the regimens of highly trained professionals. This is a formula for disaster that can result in overtraining injuries, malnutrition, and psychological stress - all of which have the potential to take talented young athletes out of a sport.

Given the realities of athletic competition and the enormous rewards that are available to athletes who have reached the pinnacle of their sport, it may be difficult for athletes to be wholly rational about the proper nutritional strategies that will help them best achieve their desired goals. Advertisers for nutritional products know that athletes are susceptible targets. While many products are backed by sound science and research, others are not. How is an athlete to know the difference? Is the health store staff a reliable source of information? There is an incredible attachment in our culture to beliefs about nutrition that long ago were proven false. The connection between high-protein diets and optimal athletic performance has been shown to be incorrect, yet athletes, coaches, and many others persist in advancing this myth. The truth is that most of the money spent on protein and amino acid pills is making someone richer but isn't making athletes any better.

The sports nutrition field is expanding rapidly. More researchers are concentrating on this area now, and an ever-increasing number of articles in scientific journals focus on the relationship between nutrition and athletic performance. As a result of this expanding knowledge base, old paradigms are clarified and new paradigms are created. To some extent, everyone involved in sports must keep their minds open enough to question old beliefs and allow new ones to settle in. Position papers dealing with sports nutrition from the American Dietetic Association and the American College of Sports Medicine are much more specific than they once were about the nutritional factors that enhance performance. Concerns about the short- and long-term effects that athletes face based on their nutrition habits are now emphasized in these position papers. A recent study on hydration emphasizes the importance of precise statements, because a misinterpretation can be lethal. The study suggested that high water consumption in poorly conditioned people competing in the Boston Marathon increases the risk of hyponatremia. However, not all consumed fluids are water, not all events take four hours to complete, and well-conditioned athletes have different sweat rates (both quantitatively and qualitatively) than poorly conditioned athletes. Nevertheless, newspapers translated this finding to suggest that you shouldn't drink much fluid because of the risk of hyponatremia, and they further suggested that the risk of dehydration is not all that serious. Of course, this is not what the study found. Because of the potential these results have for misinterpretation, athletes could be increasing their risk for dehydration and heatstroke.

If athletes follow a sound training and nutritional program, they are likely to be successful and healthy, but mistakes could result in career-ending injuries. Exercise and involvement in a sport can, should, and usually does lead to wonderful things. The underlying philosophy of this book is that involvement in sports should lead to a lifetime enhancement of health rather than a lifetime of problems, and good nutritional habits help make this happen. Doing the right things nutritionally will have a positive effect on an athlete's capacity to train well and compete successfully.