Customer Reviews

Advanced Sports Nutrition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First and foremost, this exceptional book is not a "one stop reference"; thats an idea that people often look for in a book, that probably doesn't really exist. Quality books should be added to your library, taken for what they are and what they offer, and compared to other similar books to create a bigger picture or understanding as it applies to you...there is no single perfect "way" when it comes to nutrition, much like training for your chosen sport. This book is no exception, it is well researched and exceptionally useful, written by an author that applies what he knows to Olympic athletes. As a strength athlete most interested in powerlifting and strongman types of lifting and competition, the chapters referring to this type of training directly are limited and mostly bunched up with wrestlers, etc. under "power athletes", so it isn't exactly what I was looking for, but it still fits the bill in alot of ways as the info is there just not set out by itself under that title. Advanced Sports Nutrition covers a broad range of sports and has tons of useful information on everything nutrition that can be useful to just about anyone. It covers alot of unique as well as general topics. Join it up with a few more books like Nutrition Almanac and you'll be on your way to having whatever you need at your fingertips. This book is worth your time and money, although like myself, you might not realize the extent if its usefulness until you open it up and start putting things together.

Organization and topics:

Part I Nutritional Sources for Athletes
-energy nutrients, vitamins/minerals, fluids/electrolytes, and ergogenic aids

Part II Nutritional Aspects of Optimal Performance
-timing, absorption, oxygen, and inhibitors

Part III Factors Affecting Nutritional Needs
-travel, altitude, gender/age, and body comp/weight

Part IV Nutritional Strategies for Specific Energy Systems
-Metabolism for endurance/power (anaerobic/aerobic), and needs for both

Part V Nutritional Plans for Specific Sports
-Power/speed sports, endurance sports, and combined power/endurance sports.

Great read and reference. Provides the right kind of authoritative benchmark behind the "whys" in planning nutrition for sports and then takes things a step further looking ahead to support planning the how and when to eat for peak performance. Detailed enough for the serious elite athlete yet even without having the science at my finger tips it provides an understandable base line for the weekend jock planning specific sports activity and wanting to do the correct thing...Ties together all those helpful "coach-isms" we all heard over the years and dispells several that were not afterall in our best interest. I'd like to have Dr. B available as my personal trainer.

I have a challenge triathlon this summer with someone 20 years my junior and need all the help I can get! I am already using Dr. Benardot's advice in my training. After becoming frustrated with the plethora of books written by wannabes, I found it quite refreshing to read a factual, evidence-based sports nutrition book written by someone with Dr. Benardot's education and experience.

I ordered this book based on an interview with the author that I heard on NPR. Overall it seemed like a very complete book, but it was far to technical and scientific for me to appreciate it. I gave it 3 stars not because it's not a good book - but it's too advanced for me to give it an accurate review. If you are looking for an easy non technical nutrition book - this isn't it. If you are looking for something a bit meatier, with plenty of scientific technical information - it may be the one you want.

If you're not a doctor or professional dietician, this book will be nearly unusable. It reads like a complicated medical journal, at best. This would be fine if it had offered general, practical information for those without a PhD, but it never did. Honestly, if you can understand this book well enough for it to be put into practice, you're likely smart enough to have written it yourself. I have never met an everyday athlete or coach who could have understood this book.

Anyone concerned with proper nutrition should read this up-to-date reference guide. Both the beginning and advanced athlete will find much to learn.

This is a reference book that examines many issues in sports nutrition from technical standpoints. And it covers a lot of ground, including comments on young and older athletes, female athletes, team and endurance athletes, and so on. It isn't a how-to book that offers a few simple instructions, but unlike such books, it steers clear of fads and hocus pocus.

But I wonder about how accurate it is. In some areas where I have expertise, it misses the mark. On hydration for endurance athletes it fails to challenge the marketing spewed out by the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. Admittedly, that's a challenge, but the real science needs to be disseminated to a popular audience. And Dr. Benardot is probably writing before the awareness became widespread that fructose is causing our epidemic of metabolic syndrome. If you take fructose out of sports drinks (remember: athletes in training drink A LOT), and recognize that sucrose (table sugar) is metabolically equivalent to high fructose corn syrup, you're not left with a lot of recipe options: just glucose and maltodextrin for carbohydrate. Ultra-endurance athletes have discovered the WHO oral rehydration salts (ORS) packets; they make pretty close to the optimum sports drink -- except that they taste too salty and not sweet enough for most folks or for commercial success. Benardot fails to mention ORS, that it is the closest thing to ideal hydration in terms of sodium, glucose, and osmolarity, or that the many commercial sports drinks fail to deliver what unbiased science has found to be optimal. (ORS is a fraction of the cost of Gatorade, too.)

On another point, briefly, Benardot discusses the effects of altitude, but he fails to deliver the punch line: live high, train low. Live high so your body will produce more RBCs and other adaptations to hypoxia. Train low to give your body plenty of oxygen to permit maximal stress to your system before you return to altitude for recovery and rest. Muscle, including heart muscle, grows mainly during recovery, not during exercise.

The book also fails to deliver the latest recommendations on vitamin D supplementation. And I found other points on which he could have done a better job.

So if the book didn't nail these topics, I suspect there are others. But if you want to do better and dig deeper, you'll probably have to read research papers, and that will cut into your training time :-). Otherwise, this encyclopedic overview of nutrition for athletes is the best technical reference and broad collection of wisdom that I'm aware of.

Dr. Benardot's Advanced Sports Nutrition is both scientific and extremely practical, a rare and refreshing combination. This book is not only up to date with the latest research (fully referenced), it is also very progressive for an academic and science based text. Dr. Benardot's information on within day energy balance is must-read material; a valuable guide for coaches, fitness/nutrition professionals and athletes alike.

I have read other sports nutrition books, but this book is by far the best. The writing style is simple, and the research comprehensive. The books touches on all aspects of nutrition and how it affects performance. I recommend it for any serious athlete.

As a nutritinal consultant who needed to learn more about sports nutrition, this book really did the job.