Practical Sports Nutrition

544 pages published: 2007

About the Book

As knowledge and practice of sports nutrition become increasingly sophisticated, there is new appreciation of the fact that basketball players, runners, gymnasts—all athletes—have different nutritional needs. Practical Sports Nutrition is the first text to provide detailed, sport-specific advice enabling you to approach individual athletes and teams with an understanding of their sport and unique nutritional needs.

Unlike other texts on the subject that get caught up with chemistry and science, this book provides information that is applied, practical, and useful. Nutrition expert Louise Burke engages readers with her easy writing style, and she explores a variety of popular sports—road cycling, swimming, sprinting, long-distance running, and many others. Each chapter offers a comprehensive review of competition, training, physique and physiology, lifestyle and culture, dietary surveys, sports foods and supplements—all tailored to the specific sport. Also included are discussions of issues and challenges arising in each sport that provide useful examples of how to successfully tackle sport-specific problems.

Athletes want to know that the person advising them understands their specific needs. With Practical Sports Nutrition, you will learn how to translate the latest ideas on nutrition into tailored recommendations on what athletes should eat before and after practices and competitions. More important, you will learn why those exact foods are beneficial to the athlete. Specific research cited in more than 200 pages of tables backs up the advice given on nutrition, food, supplements, and other topics, so you can feel confident the information is up to date and applicable in the real world.

Practical Sports Nutrition includes the following features:

Chapters organized around specific sport categories

Special elements that provide in-the-trenches insight and help you synthesize both practical issues and emerging research topics

Chapter appendix that includes up-to-date and comprehensive meta-analysis tables for quick comparisons of key research studies

There is no better one-stop guide for dietitians, nutritionists, exercise physiologists, or anyone who needs to know where and how principles of sports nutrition apply to the training and competition of athletes. Not only will you gain a thorough grasp of the specialized nutrition information needed in various sports and exercise activities, but you will also be able to give recommendations with confidence.

About the Author

Louise Burke, PhD, APD, FACSM, is a sports dietitian who has worked with elite athletes for more than 25 years. She is founder of the department of sports nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport and has served as head for the last 18 years. She was appointed dietitian to the Australian Olympic team for the 1996, 2000, and 2004 Summer Olympic Games. She is a member of the International Olympic Committee Working Group on Nutrition and the Medical and Anti-Doping Commission of the International Association of Athletics Foundations.

Dr. Burke is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, Sports Medicine Australia, and Sports Dietitians Australia. An accredited practicing dietitian, she is an editor of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism and is on the editorial board of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. She earned her PhD in 1990 from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Also, a former tri-athlete, Dr. Burke represented Australia in the Ironman Team Cup at the 1985 and 1986 Hawaii Ironman World Championships.