Sports Nutrition - Factors Influencing Nutritional Requirements

Factors Influencing Nutritional Requirements

Differing conditions and objectives suggest the need for athletes to ensure that their sports nutritional approach is appropriate for their situation. Factors that may affect an athlete's nutritional needs include type of activity (aerobic vs. anaerobic), gender, weight, height, body mass index, workout or activity stage (pre-workout, intra-workout, recovery), and time of day (e.g. some nutrients are utilized by the body more effectively during sleep than while awake). Most culprits that get in the way of performance are fatigue, injury and soreness. A proper diet will reduce these disturbances in performance. The key is to get a variety of food, to get all the macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals. According to Eblere's article (2008), it is optimal to choose raw, unprocessed foods such as oranges instead of orange juice. Eating foods that are natural means the athlete is getting the most nutritional value out of the food. When foods are processed it normally means that nutritional value is reduced.

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