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Every developed and developing country is teeming today with manufacturers and distributors of nutraceutical products that cater to professional sportsmen and women and sport-minded ones alike. Health products of every type, size and taste have abound. Today, the nurtraceutical industry is estimated to be worth $80 billion (U.S.) Just what are the factors of success in this highly competitive field of sports nutrition industry?

The biggest sports nutrition players have come up with keywords to success:

Keyword: Research

Company efforts to advance the field of supplement products for sports nutrition are the backbone of any industry. By supporting clinical research and trying to foster a relationship with science advisory boards, the field of sports nutrition is advanced. Eventually, consumers are able to receive innovative, scientifically-based, safe and effective products.

Advisory boards have funded research projects on nutrition and sports performance including research on creatine, HMB, CLA and glutamine among others. Research grants are also provided to young scientists early in their careers.

Large-scale sports nutrition industries commit over $500,000 every year to independent analytical analysis to ensure that sports nutrition products meet specifications. Investigations are also warranted. There should be rigorous vendor certification or re-certification auditing program that helps companies adhere to industry quality standards.

Keyword: Innovation

New products and technologies should be developed to provide the best quality on existing products.

Consumers have a preoccupation of trying out something “new,.” There should always be innovation whether it means new forms of delivery (gels, effervescent tablets, functional beverages) or new applications of or combinations with existing products.

Keyword: Price

For Sports Nutrition consumers, price is still everything. In the U.S. for example, even though people were getting laid off and the economy has been unstable after 9/11 people still wanted to work out and stay healthy. This coupled with higher oil prices has lead people to look for deals and good prices.

Products must be extremely competitively. Sport Nutrition giants for example rely on increased sales volume in exchange of lesser profit margins on each product sold.

Quality, certification and taste matter but in the final analysis, consumer want good deals on great products.

Keyword: Variety

What should retailers do to become their customers’ first choice for sports nutrition products? Carry a variety of lines that will offer clients with options in supplements.

Retailers often opt not to sports supplements when they carried only one line or one brand. Sports nutrition customers are varied and are everywhere. There are more women as well as men buying supplements and at different ages and varied income brackets. Retail stores should therefore be able to offer a selection products or else buyers will look elsewhere, like the internet or shop somewhere other than these local vitamin stores or pharmacies.

Keyword: Safe

There are regulatory agencies to protect consumers. Sports nutrition companies should engage in top of the line research and development and prove the efficacy and safety of their nurtraceutical products. Products that are based on false or misleading marketing should be and are banned and condemned.

It is thus the responsibility of manufacturers and marketers to provide sports nutrition products that are safe, effective, easily used, and completely understood by both retailers and consumers.

Today, natural product retailers can provide consumers safe alternatives to potentially harmful chemical stimulants (fenfluramine, dexfenfluramine), fat-chelating agents, cosmetic surgery, and a life of inactivity or painful exercise Natural, science-based exercise nutrition products that promote energy, fitness, and weight loss are now available.

Keyword: Information

Consumers are becoming more and more intelligent. They rely on scientific and hard facts rather than recommendations and endorsements from celebrities and sports personalities. Aside from vigorous research, sports nutrition companies should invest in a sound information dissemination and product communication strategy to stay ahead of the game.

Product information should be detailed but fairly understandable. Also, information should be readily available on product packets, posters, print and TV advertisements and the internet. Consumers can believe only what manufacturers communicate well.

Everything focuses around education for the consumer — an educated consumer is the industry’s best friend.

These principles helped sports nutrition companies boost the industry as a whole. If remembered and adhered to, these keywords will spur more gains in the industry as large portions of the world’s population now put priority to fitness and health.

Believe it or not, sports nutrition and exercise have been part of man’s life and his culture since the earliest time. Of course, sports during this time was known as athletics. Earliest forms of athletics, however, were part of man’s basic need for survival, either to gather food or protect his family from physical harm.

To a simple cave man who knows nothing about martial arts, a sturdy bone from his last dinner may serve as a weapon against wild animals. This bone remnant, coupled with some sharpened stone chips from his cave, is used for hunting. Eventually, his regular hunting activities had developed into some form of physical acts, without so much need to hunt.

Athletics was thus born. Athletics eventually developed into a contest of strength, speed, and other skills. Sports would later developed out of this, with the simple contest developing into a more complicated form of physical activity, and with it the need for sustenance, completing the equation of sports nutrition and exercise.

But even during the earliest time, athletics or sports was never a monopoly of the male sex. In the Heraen Games for instance, women raced in honor of the goddess Hera. The Egyptians had their acrobatic gymnastics for their temple related activities. And, of course, the sports dance had evolved from religious related dance performed in every major temple in antiquity.

To the early Greeks however, belongs the honor of elevating the sports into an art form. The Olympic Games is the strongest argument for this. Also, the Greeks, apparently knows that sports nutrition and exercise are two important factors in any physical exercise. Even during this time, the Greeks had special set of foods for their athletes.

Nutrition patterns of the early Greeks

In the Mediterranean world, Greeks particularly, goats is the most common source of meat, and occasionally, beef from sacrificed cattle. Just like in the modern day, milk was also considered as a must for a good meal, especially for the athletes. Sports nutrition and exercise among the early Greeks meant also the inclusion of other source of protein, fish for instance, which the seas of Mediterranean is known for in the ancient times. Poultry was also part of the early Greeks’ diet.

Vegetables and carbohydrates were also considered as important element of sports nutrition and exercise among the ancient people. Even among the soldiers of the Roman Empire, a balance diet is important to maintain their strength, both in the battlefield and during exercise.

Alexander the Great was known to have discovered the nutritional value of onions that from Egypt, he brought some specimens and had these planted and later cultivated in other parts of his empire. The Romans, just like the Greeks, used cabbage not only as food, but also as antidote for their drunken soldiers. Beets, turnips, artichokes, and radishes also form the long list of edible vegetables cultivated and used during this period.

The ancient athlete’s diet

Just like today’s coaches, trainers during the ancient times occupied an exalted place among their people, and also among the athletes themselves. They not only provide exercise regimen for their athletes but also directly involve in the preparation of foods for their charges. Sports nutrition and exercise apparently, is a concept not lost to the early coaches and athletes.

From the foods that consisted the regular diet of the ancient athletes, such as cheese, figs, and meal cakes, the attempt of the ancient trainers to developed special meal for their athletes were apparent.

Though meat was not consumed in large quantities by the athletes during originally, it was observed later that athletes who are given regular dosage of meat for protein source, had more long lasting strength. It was in the fifth century BC, when meat became a craze among the ancient athletes.

During this time, Slymphalos, an Olympic champion in the in the long-distance race, introduced the meat diet to help athletes in their exercises. It was the earliest attempt of a professional athlete to come up with a systematized sports nutrition and exercise. Milo of Croton, won five Olympic awards from 536 to 520 B.C., was reputed to have consumed 9 kilogram of meat during his training period.

Lots of people dream of becoming world-class athletes. They know that becoming one takes lots of patience and training that can test one’s physical and emotional limits to the outmost. Since the business of sports has become more and more lucrative, the concept of sports nutrition has grown into Herculean proportions.

It is a good thing then that those resources such as sports nutrition articles have proliferated in cyberspace. It gives people endless amount of information on how to make their bodies fit for competition.

Here are the summaries of some several of the sports nutrition articles that can give Internet researchers gems of information on athletic fitness.

From one of the most authoritative web sites on anything under the sun, About.com, columnist Elizabeth Quinn talks about the importance of when people should take their meals.

Citing a press release from the IDEA Health & Fitness Association, the article states that the timing and duration of one’s eating is as important as the content of the food itself. This holds true especially for athletes. A recent research indicates that the kind of food athletes consume prior, after and during the course of the training matters a lot when it comes to recovery and general athletic performance.

The experts from IDEA shared some key information regarding the subject, such as:

-To enhance performance, nutrients should be ingested in ideal combinations in the most optimal frequencies. This also aids in improving the integrity of one’s muscles.

-The right timing in mixing protein and carbohydrates will result in the improvement of workouts and training.

-Obesity can be fought off by taking increased amounts of dietary calcium everyday.

-One should know the difference between good and bad carbohydrates on order to survive the latest low-carbohydrate diet trends.

Another sports nutrition article coming from the web site Rob’s Home of Sports, Diet and Nutrition, puts emphasis on the kind of foods necessary in order for the body to bulk up. According to dietician Clare Wood, there are three essential requirements for gaining muscles.

-Potential of one’s genes, which can be usually seen from the body structure of one’s parents.

-An exercise program that focuses mainly on building strength.

-A diet that provides the body a high amount of energy.

Bulking up can be achieved by adding the amount of one’s total energy intake. This will help in providing the body extra carbs needed to energize training.

Increasing the amount of food that one eats can be a difficult task, but here are some tips to go about it:

-Come up with an organized eating plan and make sure to stick with it. The plan should include the kind of foods that should be eaten and the time they should be consumed.

-The frequency of meals per day should be increased, as opposed to increasing the size of the meals. Ideally, one should take 5-6 meals daily, which includes snacks.

Athletes should be immensely responsible regarding the amount of food that they eat and how to properly maintain their physique. For those striving to achieve a fit body and emulate their strict fitness regimen, sports nutrition articles, such as these, can be easily found on the web.

Almost all of the people, occupying this world, dream of being a sports superstar. You long for that feeling when thousands of fans scream your name when you are about to win a game. But unfortunately, only those with extreme discipline, hardwork and talent get to experience that.

Talent is not the only secret of being a sports icon, it is also the way they get their nutrition. You see, sports nutrition is different from normal nutrition because with sports nutrition, the athletes require more nutrients to keep their energy up during their various activities. Athletes perform strenuous activities, that is why more nutrients are needed to keep them running.

Athletes lose a lot of fluids during their game. And like everyone knows, dehydration is one of the biggest problems in the athletic world. Getting tired and thirsty will affect an athlete’s performance, just as it affects anyone else’s, except that it makes the life of an athlete a lot more difficult to live.

Everyone knows that an athlete’s performance is the reason why they get paid, seriously. So basically, if you are an athlete and you want to have that winning edge, then you better get that right nutrition. When you drink enough water and eat a balanced diet and also get the right sports nutrition, your body can utilize energy efficiently and also fuel top performance.

You can make the most of your athletic talents and have more strength, power and endurance when you get the right sports nutrition. These are not just for boasting purposes, however, athletes do have their own way of boasting the above mentioned attributes.

Your diet should be based on different factors and this should involve your age, size, physical condition and the type of sports you are engaging yourself in.

You should first consult your doctor about your diet and not just decide one for yourself. They have the license and they are extremely professional at it, which is why they can give you the right advice on your proper diet and nutrition that you should have.

You lose a lot of fluids everytime you exercise. Just imagine the gallons of sweat you lose when you are pumping that body of yours. That is why water is the most important factor in sports nutrition. It is not the only factor, but in truth, it is the most important.

It makes up about sixty percent of your body weight and is involved in almost all of your bodily processes.

As you probably already know, your body cannot produce and store water, this serves as the main reason why you should replace all fluids that you eliminate while doing your exercise, or else you will have to suffer being dehydrated. With athletes, they require more water than the normal eight glasses a day.

Drink plenty of fluids before, during, and after any kind of sports activity to prevent over-heating and dehydration. At least try to drink the same amount of water you lose due to sweat. There are also various sports drinks that are good for longer events. Getting hydrated will definitely help boost your energy.

Eating a balanced diet is another key to sports nutrition. The right combination of calories from carbohydrates, proteins and fats gives you more energy for top performance. These nutrients perform certain actions that will help your body as you perform strenuous kinds of sports.

Carbohydrates are the most important fuel source. It provides a minimum of sixty to a maximum of seventy percent of our calories. Carbohydrates are found on almost all of the food you consume. Food rich in carbohydrates are fruits, vegetables, pastas, breads, cereals, rice and many more that are too many to mention.

Your body converts sugar and starches from carbohydrates to glucose, which is the main source of energy of the body. Your body also stores the glucose into your liver and muscles giving your body a reservoir of energy. The more carbohydrates you have, the more energy you can give out. If you run out of carbohydrates, you can also get energy form proteins and fats.

You can get your proteins from meat, fish, poultry, eggs, beans, nuts, dairy products and other foods. Proteins provide a minimun of fifteen to a maximum of twenty percent of your daily calories. They are used in tissue and muscle build up.