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ABC ergogenic aids - Nutritional Ergogenic Aids - What Can I Take?

Various elements are explored, from nutritional requirements to boost energy levels to the pros and cons of caffeine.

An ABC of nutritional ergogenic aids and dietary supplements

ABC ergogenic aids.

An ergogenic aid is anything that improves exercise performance. This therefore includes improved training and equipment, psychological techniques and nutritional strategies among other things.

Nutritional ergogenic aids are foods or food components that can improve performance, and are therefore of special interest to the athlete. While it is clear that a good diet will not in itself make the athlete who lacks talent or motivation into a champion, it is equally true that the talented athlete who trains hard must pay attention to diet if success is to be achieved.

The principles of good nutrition for athletes are relatively simple, but are often misunderstood in the pursuit of short cuts to success. As part of that process athletes are often convinced that it is necessary to supplement their diet with a variety of nutritional compounds.

Nutritional Ergogenic Aids

An ergogenic aid is anything that can improve exercise performance. That includes:

• Normal Foods
• Purified or concentrated food components
• “Nutraceuticals”
• Drugs

The sports food section of most health food shops contains several hundred different supplements, from Arginine to Zinc. Although some of these may be useful, others are definitely not, and some may even be harmful. Of the enormous range of supplements on sale to athletes, all but a few are probably ineffective. The trick is to know which ones.

This series of short articles will look at some of those supplements, and try to clarify the picture.

What Can I Take?

There are several important questions that athletes should ask before buying any supplements. It is important first to look at your diet: adding supplements to a poor selection of foods is not a sensible approach. A solid training base and a sensible diet are the key elements in any sensible diet and no amount of supplements will make the runner who lacks talent or motivation into a champion.

In the right circumstances, though, there is a role for some supplements. The athletes needs to consider these every carefully, and should ask some questions before taking anything. Some supplements have not been proved to be effective in any situation, and others may be effective for one sport but not another or for an individual with a specific nutrient deficiency but not for the average runner. The safety of some supplements has not been fully evaluated, especially in the very high doses that some athletes take for prolonged periods. There are also questions over many supplements that may contain compounds that will trigger a positive drugs test. These may be apparently harmless herbal supplements, but these often contain caffeine or ephedrine, both of which have caused problems for athletes in the past.

The elite runner may decide that it is worth trying a range of supplements, but for most runners they have little to offer and do not repay the money spent on them.

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