Advice

History of Sports Nutrition

History of Sports Nutrition

During the 1980's the world was introduced to a concept which became known as Sports Nutrition.  With health shops full of Supplements and magazines giving you all kinds of advice its hard to think that its only 30 years since the first Energy Bar was launched.

Power Bar was launched in 1983 by Brian Maxwell, a Canadian Olympic Marathon runner and his nutritionalist girlfriend Jennifer Biddulph.  This was the first energy bar for elite endurance athletes and was made in their kitchen in malt-nut flavour.  Now the market for products like this has soared to incredible heights.  But what did athletes do before this?

The Ancient Greeks were the first to study nutrition in relation to athletic performance.  To fuel up for the ancient Olympics athletes would consume large amounts of vegetables, though the famous wrestler of the time, Milo, swore a diet of meat, bread and alcohol.  Even during the early part of the 20th Century Alcohol was believed to be performance-enhancing and drunk regularly by athletes pre-competition.  Moving on later into the century the worlds strongest men chose Bovril and Irn-Bru to help them pre and post competition.

So how many of you think a beer before a race would be a good idea?  I will stick to a Power Bar!

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