The importance of nutrition services in sports training

Always wondered what is the work of a sports nutritionist working in a nutrition department of a sports institution? Catarina Augusto, a sports nutritionist working with MVP Academy who provides nutrition counseling and education to athletes from 12 to 21 years old, gave an interview explaining the importance of nutrition in sports training.

With the help of Nutrium nutrition software and its mobile app for clients, she can follow up with these athletes much more easily and make sure they are working to meet their goals. We took this opportunity to learn more about this project and Catarina's work.

Continue reading this article to find out.

1. Can you give us a bit more information about the MVP Academy project and the work you've been developing there?

MVP Academy was born from the Campos MVP basketball summer camp based in Portugal. My work as a nutrition professional started by organizing workshops for the athletes and their parents and organizing all of the meals during their stay.

Right now, the MVP Academy works with 28 young basketball players, and my work involves giving nutrition counseling considering each athlete's specific goals, organizing nutrition education workshops, creating menus, and idealizing their meals during the game days.

2.What kind of athletes do you work with, and what kind of nutrition counseling do you provide?

I see athletes from 13 to 21 years old with the main goal of muscle mass gain and improvement of performance. I give nutrition appointments every 6 weeks during their training season.

We start by doing the anthropometrical evaluation using skinfolds, then I assess their eating habits and give recommendations and if necessary I make adjustments to their dietary plan.

3.Why do you think it is so important for these athletes to have nutrition counseling by a professional?

The athletes from the MVP Academy, are in a development stage of life of puberty or post-puberty, which means that they have very demanding energy needs, in addition to that, their training volume is very high as well.

Ensuring that they are consuming enough food and taking in enough nutrients is very important to guarantee their adequate growth and sports performance.

4. Do you have any case you are particularly proud of?

I can't choose a specific case from the MVP Academy. Truth be told, all of the athletes are very dedicated to their health, and when that happens, you can easily see results in most of them. Be it quantitative or qualitative.

I work with athletes from 1.85 to 2 meters of height gaining 8-10 kgs of body weight per season, athletes that can reduce their body fat mass and get much faster, and most important of all, athletes that learn to make better choices for themselves every single day.

5. How is the use of a software solution with a mobile app helped your daily work of consulting and following up with these clients?

Nutrium has allowed me to have a closer follow-up with the athletes because with the mobile app - which is particularly interactive for young people - they can receive reminders of their meals, send me updates of when they have completed their meals or the water they drank, in addition to having a direct messaging feature to chat with me.

6. What are the most common nutrition myths they bring to the appointments?

Honestly, as they are still young, they do not bring me too many misconceptions. I would say that the biggest one would be the misconception that they all need to take dietary supplements, when in reality, only professional adult athletes take them. And when they do, it's within stringent guidelines and conditions, such as games our tournaments.

7. What are the biggest challenges in working in sports nutrition and with this profile of athletes?

I would say that the biggest challenge is transmitting a good foundation of healthy eating habits, making them [the athletes] experiment with new foods with a higher nutritional value.

That is the main focus of my workshops, in each supermarket visit, or each recipe I make - I try to teach how to diversify their eating habits. On the other hand, these athletes are very dedicated, and because of that, they know that what they eat has a direct impact on their sports performance so they are super welcoming to knowing how they can improve.

We want to thank Catarina and the MVP Academy for sharing her work and inspiring other nutrition professionals and sports facilities of how important it is to give athletes this holistic support.

Do you know any success stories you'd like to share on our blog? Send us an email to info@nutrium.io. We'd love to chat.

If you are not familiar with Nutrium, it is nutrition software for nutritionists and dietitians, and you can try it out for 14-days for free.