Advanced Sports Nutrition Paperback – December 9, 2005

Excellent. Detailed. Informative. Goes in depth

awesome literature

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.

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.

good

this book is very detailed and is understandable. a great read for beginner and advanced athlete.

This is an exceptional product! While I do not recommend it to everyone, I do recommend it to every serious athlete and any that are interested in nutrition. I originally purchased this book in High School in order to better understand how to fuel my body for sports competitions, it provided me with sound guidance which helped me to avoid unsafe dietary practices. I have since carefully reread it, thereby gaining a solid foundation of moderate, objective, nutritional knowledge that is allowing me to breeze through my Bachelor level nutrition classes.Be warned this is a textbook so don't expect it to read like a magazine, reading the title will tell you that the material might be too ADVANCED for some. That said, this is as close to a complete reference of relevant, unbiased, sports nutrition knowledge I have ever seen, it should be the foundation of every sports nutrition library.

What they don't tell you in the description is that you need a degree in biology to understand what you're reading. Since I can't understand what they're talking about I can't comment on the information within its pages

Glad I bought this as it has loads of useful info in it. Just need to put it all into practice now in my build up to the olympics!

Good book in good condition

As described and arrived within specified time.

Very good read and Well written