Performance Nutrition

• • - The evolution of sports nutrition
  • - Carbohydrate, protein and fat requirements for fuelling, recovery & physique
  • - Fluid and electrolyte needs during exercise
  • - Supplements and sports food
  • - Body composition and physique
  • - Nutrition challenges for weight making sports
  • Adolescent sports nutrition

In order to enrol in this subject, you must be accepted into one of the following degrees:

Additional requirements

No additional requirements

In high performance sport, athletes and coaches recognise that optimal nutrition is critical to sporting success. Sports nutrition links food with physical performance, providing the fuel for exercise and recovery, and the essential elements for tissue growth, maintenance and repair. This subject will address contemporary scientific and applied aspects of nutrition for sports performance. The composition, amount and timing of food intake for different sports and activities are explored, given the influence that these and others factors have on athletic performance. The aim of the subject is to provide specialist knowledge, understanding and skills for critically evaluating dietary practices for sports performance, and for communicating and delivering general nutritional advice to athletes, coaches and other support staff, within appropriate scope of practice and referral pathways. These outcomes are consistent with the professional standards of several accreditation bodies.

In order to best enable students to achieve unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes, standards-based assessment is utilised, consistent with University assessment requirements. A range of assessment strategies have been purposefully designed for the assessment of learning outcomes reflecting the principles of authentic assessment design and include: Assessment Task 1: a written critique to assess the critical thinking skills associated with the acquisition and communication of evidenced-based theory and practice relevant to performance nutrition. Given this is the first task of the unit, designed to develop critical thinking skills, a weighting of 40% is attached. Assessment Task 2: a case study task is then delivered to assess the application of the knowledge and understanding of unit content and skills developed in the first assessment task. Given the breadth of this final assessment task, a weighting of 60% is attached. Students must achieve a cumulative grade of at least 50% across all assessments.

• Critique - Requires students to critique scientific literature to determine its strengths, weaknesses and overall applicability to practical sports nutrition. (40%)
• Case Study - Requires students to undertake a case study review of an athlete undertaking a sporting event and compare their nutrition plans with current sports nutrition guidelines. (60%)

For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).