As a member of the British Dietetic Association (BDA) Sports Nutrition Specialist Group (SNG) for several years, I had attended their annual study days whenever possible in the past, and always found them genuinely insightful and practical.
So I was particularly chuffed to be one of the SNG’s three bursary award winners this year, covering the study day itself and any associated costs, and I’m very grateful for SNG for this kind gesture. I work almost exclusively with endurance athletes at the recreational (but highly motivated) level, and although this year’s event, titled ‘PRIME: Performance Ready In Major Events’, was focused primarily on athletes and practitioners at the elite level, my bursary application outlined how I was looking forward to learning the elite principles and thinking about how I could apply them to my own clients (and indeed myself).
I don’t always write up reflective blogs like this after CPD, but:
- I thought it was a nice way to show thanks to the SNG for the bursary
- I do tend to write lots of notes during study days to help me stay engaged (especially as this was the fourth of four study days that week), and putting them in some order like this helps make sense of random scribbles
- It was a particularly useful study day, so why not acknowledge that here
With that in mind, here is a brief summary of the day, focusing mainly on some snippets and quotes that I took home with me and in some cases, how these apply to my work at the recreational level:
- Chris Rosimus & Mike Naylor
Men’s Head of Nutrition at the Football Association and Head of Performance Nutrition at the UK Sports Institute, respectively:
‘Finding the tactical fuel advantage’
‘Outfuelling the opposition’
These quotes speak for themselves, but essentially describe the importance of all aspects of nutrition planning being goal-focussed in the England men’s football setup.
They also consider the prioritization and ‘impact factor’ of different nutrition strategies at the individual level, and this is absolutely something I will continue to focus on. In other words, where will I get the most bang for my buck with each client.
‘Match day -1’ was a phrase used a lot in their talk, and I will probably be using ‘race day -1’ from now on!
2. Wendy Martinson
Technical Lead Performance Nutritionist at the UK Sports Institute
Wendy has a formidable history working with GB rowing and has now covered 6 different Olympic games for Team GB. She was also kind enough to lend me her ear and advice back in 2011 when I was first thinking about a career in sports nutrition (long before it came to fruition)!
In her talk, she outlined the differences between being an HQ nutritionist and a sport-specific one, and quite how long and thorough the build up to feeding our Olympians is. This attention to detail became one of GB’s ‘secret weapons’, especially when faced with the challenges of the generic on-site nutrition options in the Olympic village, and I pride myself on leaving no stone unturned when it comes to event-specific nutrition prep with my athletes.
Wendy also commented on the ever-increasing preference for plant-based options among Team GB, and this is of course something that rings true for much of my client base.
3. Abbie Robinson
GB Athlete – Climbing and Trainee Sport Psychologist
Abbie is a decorated GB para-climber, and gave an amazing insight into the potential impact that a good dietitian can have. She shared details of her history of RED-S (something I screen for in all new clients), but her excellent dietitian helped her work through this, as well as questioning ‘where is food becoming a stressor in her life’ and ‘where are the inconsistencies in her nutrition’.
Through asking and answering these questions, they were able to focus on and improve the 10% of Abby’s diet that was poor or inconsistent (often relating to stressful convenience purchases on the go, which were exacerbated by her impaired vision), rather than trying to optimize the other 90% which was already good.
Abby was one of several speakers on the day who emphasised the importance of a dietitian in reducing the number of decisions that she has to make, so that she can concentrate on ‘just’ executing’ her performance. Similarly, she described how a happy athlete is often a more successful one in terms of both fuelling and performance.
4. Chris, Mike, Wendy, and Abbie were then joined by Jessica Mayho (GB athlete – Hammer) and James Moran (who I will come to later), for a panel discussion
This threw up some interesting topics about the navigation of difficult discussions around phenotype stereotypes in different sports and how an individualised and sensitive approach is really important here. The importance of understanding the person and dealing with the athlete as a human being when having these conversations was really underlined. I was interested to hear that in many sports, there appears to have been a shift away from regular body composition testing, partly for this reason.
This panel discussion (as well as previous speakers) also reminded me that, even at the elite level, practitioners and athletes do need to work around competing demands of jobs and family lives, although of course this applies even more with my clients (and something I am only too aware of with my own training!). I reflected that this is actually an element of the role that I really enjoy, as it allows me to truly get to know my clients and put plans in place that can actually be followed.
There was also a good question and discussion about choosing when and how to educate athletes rather than simply telling them what to do. This is something I have often wrestled with, and in my experience, it is a very individual decision.
5. Aimee Ellen O’Keeffe
Performance Nutritionist at England Red Roses and Williams Racing
Aimee gave us some really practical examples of how she has overcome team anxieties (e.g. regarding overeating), and sub-optimal fuelling practices within the Red Roses. Two good quotes and examples I liked were ‘how to win the low day’, in other words how to periodise properly on rest days (which is something I am often reiterating with clients), and ‘the other 21 hours’, i.e. putting the onus back on the players to take responsibility for ‘improving their asset (body)’ when not being watched by the staff.
6. James Moran
Registered Dietitian & Performance Nutritionist with Uno-X Cycling
The final practitioner presentation was the one I had been looking forward to most, since James, like me, works in endurance sport, albeit at an elite level. I had met James the night before at the SNG networking event, and he’d shared with me a few surprising stats from his talk (which focused mainly on Tour de France nutrition), so I made sure I kept quiet during the talk when he asked for guesses…some of the carb numbers among his group were astounding.
Some interesting take-aways here were the different phenotypes of different types of riders, from time-triallists to climbers, and how data-driven the sport is; much more so than other sports discussed today. I think I would have already assumed this to be the case, but it was also interesting to hear James emphasise that nutrition decisions are often a compromise between this data, and what the riders themselves are telling him.
He also explained that ‘fatigue resistance’ or ‘robustness’ is a less well appreciated determinant of success in his sport (in addition to, for example, power to weight ratios), but that nutrition can be key in building this, through training consistency and promotion of good overall health. I am increasingly hearing this in regard to running too, with ‘durability’ emerging as the fourth physiological determinant of running performance.
Linked to this, James explained the importance of peaking at the right times in terms of weight and body composition, to avoid injury / illness by being too lean throughout the year, and yet again this is something that I discuss with my clients and will continue to do so.
And as well as sharing some of those amazing individualised plans and reports from some of his riders, above all, James once again explained it was about delivering ‘maximum impact, minimum brain cost’ for the team.
So, there’s my potted summary of a day that also included some interesting sponsor sessions and of course loads of networking with like-minded folks (the room was packed). Roll on 2025, and thanks again to SNG.
