What is Sports Nutrition?
Sports nutrition is a discipline which applies principles derived not only from nutritional but also biochemical and physiological scientific knowledge for the purpose of promoting optimal performance while remaining healthy. As you read on, you will realize that sports nutrition blends knowledge from different fields like biochemistiy, exercise physiology, physical anthropology etc.
Before we talk about sports nutrition and its components, it is very important to understand that sports nutrition does not restrict itself exclusively to sports, but also applies its principles to exercise in general. Let us be clear that times have changed and almost everybody today is concerned about health, fitness and longevity. Therefore, the goal of sports nutrition is not only to enhance performance of athletes but also to widen its scope for non-athletes by providing good health and physical fitness for all individuals.
Health and physical fitness centres are mushrooming. As you must have noticed, there is a gym at every nook and comer and people from all walks of life are joining them. There is a diehard competition amongst these centres to provide state of the art services to load muscles and burn off excess fat. Understanding of sports nutrition is essential to make these programmes successful. If we talk about sports today, it is becoming increasingly competitive. More and more stress is being placed on how well one performs and wins medals. Along with training and motivation, adequate diet is equally important component for an athlete. Mere good nutrition may not generate good athletes but inadequate nutrition would reduce the ability of an athlete to play to his maximum potential. Without the right food, even physical conditioning and expert coaching are not enough to achieve the best results.