This is no more a secret that athletes and other sportspersons take regular supplements as advised by their doctors and nutritionists to keep up with the pace and maintain their physical strength. There is a whole market known as ‘sports nutrition’ to address this issue.

To define the very term ‘sports nutrition’, it is the study and practice of nutrition and diet with a view to improving the athletic performance of an individual. Nutrition plays an important role in the sports arena especially when it comes to measuring the type as well as the exact quantity of fluids and other nutritional items an athlete should take in order to enhance his/her performance. Considering all these factors a sports nutrition company manufacture vitamin supplements, organic substances having carbohydrates, proteins and other nutritional ingredients that are often taken by the athletes.

Well, it is mentionable that nutritional requirements vary from person to person. So, how do the athletes determine their required intake of sports nutrition? There are several factors that are used as parameters to ensure that their sports nutritional approach is suitable for an individual sportsperson or athlete. Type of activity, gender type, body weight, height, workout routine, sleep cycle etc. help determine someone’s sport nutrition habit. A proper diet consisting of the right sports nutrition will increase someone’s stamina whereas a wrong routine can ruin everything and put an athlete’s career into jeopardy.

Sports nutrition may contain one or more dietary ingredients or their constituents is meant to be taken in the forms of pill, capsule, tablet, or liquid. Many athletes choose to take nutritional supplements in order to enhance their performance. There can be three types of nutritional supplements, starting from energy supplements to performance-enhancing supplements to supplements that help in recovery.

When an athlete cannot exercise rigorously, then they go for energy supplements. Some supplements belonging to this kind are Caffeine, Guarana, Vitamin B12 and Asian ginseng. Among all these, Asian Ginseng is so powerful that some people call it ‘Natural Viagra’.

Again, sometimes athletes suffer from injury or other health complications. This is where recovery-supplements play a major role. Protein and amino acid supplements are the most common types of nutritional supplements that help athletes and sportspersons recover from problems caused by excessive exercising.

Last but not the least, there are some supplements to enhance your performance. These are called performance-enhancing supplements. Usually bodybuilders take this kind of supplements so that they can exercise for a longer period of time. The supplement known as Creatine is very effective in increasing exercise performance and strength among the athletes.

However, do not forget that they are some supplements which are illegal. Many athletes take these supplements to enhance their performance excessively so that no one can beat them and sports federations always warn against the intake of such sports nutritional supplements. Athletes must keep themselves away from those supplements and rather stick to those which are approved and legal.

(The writer is a sports enthusiast.)