For decades lactate was one of the most misunderstood molecules in exercise physiology. It became the villain of high-intensity exercise. Coaches blamed it for fatigue. Athletes blamed it for the burning sensation in their legs. Textbooks described it as a waste product that accumulated when oxygen delivery could no longer meet demand. That narrative was outdated 30 years ago but it still persists an is still passionately pursued by many coaches today. Now we hear about lacta

Few ideas in sports nutrition have been as influential, or perhaps as widely misunderstood, as the so-called "window of opportunity". During the 1990s the message appeared simple and compelling: consume carbohydrate immediately after exercise, ingest protein within 30 minutes, and avoid missing the critical recovery window. Over time these ideas became embedded in sports practice. Athletes built routines around them and many still worry that delaying a recovery drink by an ho

If you have spent any time in elite sport, you will have met the athlete whose decline does not fit a neat narrative. Training looks appropriate on paper, their fuelling is “good enough”, and yet something unravels: performance stagnates, sleep becomes fragmented, mood darkens, minor infections become frequent, and the body starts to feel older than it should. In those moments, the language of sport tends to become diagnostic and disciplinary: overtraining, burnout, relative

Most people in sport agree on the basics: athletes improve by training, and “training load” matters. Increase load (sensibly) and you adapt. Increase it too fast, too far, or for too long, and fatigue rises, illness risk creeps in, and performance stalls or drops. Entire monitoring systems, dashboards, and coaching conversations are built around that logic. But there’s a problem hiding in plain sight: we often talk about “load” as if it means training and only training. In re

The recently published UCI Sports Nutrition Project paper on road cycling provides one of the most comprehensive overviews to date of race nutrition in professional road cycling (1)(CLICK HERE). It was a privilege to bring together a group of scientists and practitioners working directly with WorldTour teams, to write a scientific paper and describe evolution or revolution of nutrition in this sport that is leading the way in applied sports nutrition. This paper aimed not to

A new BMJ Open paper highlights an important problem: fluent answers are not always accurate answers. People are turning to chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini to get health advice, athletes and practitioners use it to get nutrition advice or updates… or performance advice. But how reliable are these chatbots when the topic is health, nutrition or performance? I was fortunate to be part of a group of established researchers that aimed to address exactly that question. In a stud

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in sport has not only transformed workflows; it has triggered an emotional response. Excitement, curiosity, scepticism and fear coexist in equal measure. Among nutritionists, coaches, sport scientists and performance staff, one question has come to dominate the discussion: " Will AI replace sports practitioners?". The question is understandable. When software can automatically generate fuelling plans, detect performance trends o

Over the past decade, sports nutrition has quietly become one of the most technologically driven areas of performance support. Sports nutritionists, sports dietitians and athletes now interact with artificial intelligence (AI) every day, often without realising it: readiness scores pushed to their phones upon waking, automated messages interpreting training data after a ride or run, and wearable-generated summaries telling athletes whether they recovered “well” or “poorly.”