ABSTRACT
Providing dietary support to optimize athletic performance is a practice that has existed for thousands of years. As part of the Nutritional and Physical Performance: A Century of Progress and Tribute to the Modern Olympic Movement symposium given at the 96th Experimental Biology meeting, lecturer Louis Grivetti detailed the innovative practices of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (580-500 BC), who is considered the rst person to train athletes on a high-meat diet (Grivetti and Applegate 1997). While the intentions of his methods are unknown, Pythagoras clearly recognized the need for nutritional adequacy to support the demands of rigorous training. Over 2,500 years later, scientist Paul Schenk observed the dietary habits of athletes participating in the Berlin Olympics of 1936, reporting that the typical preevent meals of endurance athletes consisted of high-carbohydrate foods, including porridge, shredded wheat, cornŸakes, and pasta (Grivetti and Applegate 1997). When comparing these two historical perspectives, it is apparent that coaches and athletes have always recognized the importance of adjusting macronutrient proles to sustain peak performance levels in elite athletes. However, in the late 1930s scientists began rapidly changing the face of nutrition, and consequently sports nutrition, with the isolation and subsequent preparation of vitamin and mineral concoctions (Applegate and Grivetti 1997). As evidenced in the brilliant writings of Dr. Henry Lukaski (2004), scientists now appreciate the notion that athletes must obtain an adequate amount of dietary vitamins and minerals to effectively combat the various physiological stressors that are incurred during exercise. Simply stated, vitamins and minerals are biochemical compounds, or micronutrients, that are required by all cells of the body to maintain homeostasis. Vitamins and minerals are unable to be synthesized by the body and therefore must be adequately obtained through the diet on a daily basis. Vitamins are divided into two classes: fat soluble and water soluble. Both classes are present in the Ÿuid portion of the body (i.e., blood serum and intracellular Ÿuid), although fat-soluble vitamins are also stored in the lipid fraction of tissues (i.e., cell membranes, subcellular membranes, and adipose tissue), which poses toxicity risks (albeit rare) if they are consumed in abundance. Likewise, minerals are found in both bodily Ÿuids (i.e., blood and intracellular Ÿuid compartments) and tissue structures (i.e., iron in hemoglobin or calcium in sarcoplasmic reticulum). While comprehensive descriptions highlighting the physiological importance or dietary source of each vitamin and mineral are beyond the scope of this chapter, Table 5.1 provides such summaries.
