Athlete nutrition and performance: fuelling the work

A training plan is a set of demands. Nutrition is the supply that meets them. When the supply matches the demand, hard sessions become fitness, damaged tissue rebuilds, and the athlete shows up tomorrow ready to work. When it falls short, the same training schedule quietly turns into a deficit the body pays for in lost adaptation, suppressed immunity, and broken bones. The joint position stand of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine puts it plainly: performance and recovery are enhanced by well-chosen nutrition strategies. This is a guide to the strategies that matter most across a squad.

Energy availability comes first

Before macronutrients, before timing, before any supplement, comes the total energy budget. Energy availability is the energy left to run the body's basic functions after the energy spent on training is subtracted from the energy eaten. When it drops too low, for too long, the body downregulates the systems it treats as non-essential, reproductive hormones, bone formation, immune function, metabolic rate, to protect survival.

The 2023 IOC consensus statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) is the current authority on this. Its key conceptual shift is that low energy availability sits on a spectrum, from adaptable, where short or mild shortfalls are tolerated, to problematic, where the deficit drives the cluster of health and performance impairments the syndrome describes. REDs affects both male and female athletes across many sports, and the statement is clear that awareness among athletes and their support staff remains low. Persistent under-fuelling is not discipline; it is the most preventable cause of stress fractures, repeated illness, and stalled progress in an otherwise well-trained athlete. Adequate energy is the foundation everything else in this guide is built on.

Carbohydrate: periodise it to the work

Carbohydrate is the dominant fuel for moderate-to-high-intensity work, and the position stand frames intake not as a fixed daily number but as a target that should track the day's training load. Its general guidance scales roughly from around 3 to 5 grams per kilogram of body mass per day for light training, up to around 8 to 12 grams per kilogram for the very high volumes of extreme endurance programs, with moderate and heavy training days sitting between. The principle is fuel for the work required: a hard double-session day and a recovery day should not carry the same carbohydrate target.

Around prolonged exercise, the position stand supports topping up intake during the session itself for efforts beyond about an hour, with intake rates rising as the duration extends. For a mixed squad the operational point is that carbohydrate is the lever you periodise day to day, matched to the session, rather than a habit held flat across the week.

Protein: enough, and spread across the day

Protein supplies the amino acids for repair, remodelling, and adaptation. The position stand recommends a daily intake in the range of roughly 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of body mass for athletes, higher than the general population, with the upper end relevant during intensified training or energy restriction. As important as the daily total is its distribution: spreading protein across several meals and including a serving in the recovery window after training supports muscle protein synthesis better than loading it into a single meal. For most athletes this is achievable from whole food, with supplemental protein a convenience, not a requirement.

Hydration: individualise, do not guess

The ACSM position stand on exercise and fluid replacement sets the principles: begin exercise well hydrated, and replace fluids during and after exercise in a way matched to the individual's sweat losses rather than to a generic volume. Sweat rates vary widely between athletes and conditions, so a one-size target either underdoes it or risks the opposite problem. For prolonged or heavy-sweating sessions the position stand notes that sodium-containing fluids help maintain balance and reduce the risk of exercise-associated hyponatraemia, the danger of drinking plain water to excess. The practical method is to estimate individual sweat rate from body mass change across a session and build each athlete's plan from there.

Recovery nutrition: close the loop

Recovery nutrition is where the day's training is converted into readiness for the next. The position stand's priorities after a demanding session are to refuel glycogen with carbohydrate, supply protein for repair, and rehydrate to replace fluid and electrolyte losses. The window matters most when the next session is close, an athlete training twice a day, or backing up matches, benefits from prompt refuelling, whereas an athlete with a full day to recover has more latitude. Recovery is not a separate routine; it is the same three inputs, carbohydrate, protein, fluid, timed to the demand ahead.

Supplements and anti-doping governance

Supplements are the area where nutrition stops being a performance question and becomes a safety and compliance one. The 2018 IOC consensus statement on dietary supplements is direct: nutrition typically makes a small contribution to elite performance, and supplements a smaller one still, and that small potential upside has to be weighed against real risks to health, performance, and an athlete's livelihood and reputation. The statement's position is that performance supplements should be considered only where strong evidence supports them as safe, legal, and effective, and only after sound dietary practice is in place.

The governance point is the one a program cannot skip. The supplement market carries a documented risk of contamination with substances banned under the World Anti-Doping Code, and under strict liability an athlete is responsible for what is in their body regardless of intent. That makes a supplement record a safety record, not a logging convenience. Every supplement an athlete takes should be deliberate, recorded, checked against the banned-substance list, and sourced through a recognised third-party testing program where possible. On Strong this is treated as governed data: a supplement entry is audited and screened, distinct from an athlete's open meal log, because the consequence of getting it wrong is measured in suspensions, not calories.

The squad-level view

Individually, each of these is a known practice. The hard part is doing them across thirty or a hundred athletes, and keeping the picture joined up. Energy availability is only legible when intake and training-load expenditure sit on the same athlete record. Recovery nutrition only works when it is timed against the actual session that just happened. Supplement governance only protects the athlete if the record is complete and screened. Fuelling for performance, at squad scale, is less about any single number and more about keeping nutrition, training, and availability on one unified record where the gaps are visible before they cost an athlete a season.