By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, CNPT, Cert-DN

Sports Nutrition

One of the hottest terms in the last decade: sports nutrition. Ask any exercise scientists, personal trainer, or athletic trainer, and they will say that sports nutrition has become a booming topic of interest and a huge market. Physios may be behind the curve a bit on this topic, so we thought we'd offer a nice review of sports nutrition specific to sports physical therapy practice.

For PTs, the 3 main areas of sports nutrition we should be focused on would include:

1. Recovery
2. Immunonutrition
3. Performance enhancement

Let's dive into each of these and see what PTs need to consider from a dietary perspective.

Recovery

Helping athletes rehabilitate after an injury is an important role of a sports physio -- but what about recovering from resistance training, practice, or competition? Recovering from training and competition can translate into athletes gaining more strength, playing better, ...