Strength and power athletes

Strength and power athletes create unique challenges for the nutrition service provider given their reliance on readily accessible sources of information, susceptibility to sports supplement marketing, potentially distorted body image, and challenges associated with achieving a specified weight category in some sports, plus the general void of scientific investigation in recent years relating specifically to this unique group of athletes. This chapter reviews the role nutrition plays in three aspects of training for strength and power athletes: (1) fuelling of sport-specific and strength training, (2) recovery from this training, and (3) the promotion of training adaptations. While the nutritional focus of strength and power athletes has been on skeletal muscle hypertrophy throughout the year, this chapter highlights for the sports nutrition professional that greater consideration is needed for an athlete’s broader sports nutrition needs to support optimal fuelling for, and recovery from, sport-specific and resistance training.

© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Adrienne Forsyth, Evangeline Mantzioris, and Regina Belski; individual chapters, the contributors

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