Posted: June 2, 2005

Sports Nutrition: Athletes Gain Same Performance Enhancements From Pantry Snacks

SAN FRANCISCO, June 1 (PRNewswire) -- The Stone Research Foundation's Athletes' Advisory Board -- an elite panel of some of this country's top athletes, coaches, trainers and physicians -- recently met to amass the most current, leading-edge information in existence on achieving prime performance.

The Symposium covered specifics of nutrition, mental training, strength training, athlete assessment, physical therapy techniques in training, and injury prevention. For full results please visit www.stoneresearch.org.

Among other findings, the Athletes' Advisory Board recognizes that:

-- Sports gels and sports bars are valuable primarily for their convenience. Studies have not shown that gels or bars contribute to superior athletic performance over other foods. For instance, a Jell-O Pop provides the same performance enhancement as any gel, and Pop Tarts provide the same boost as any bar, with both pantry snacks often the less expensive option.

-- Performance benefits from legal dietary supplements have been proven only with caffeine and creatine. Supplement studies are fraught with bias, usually funded by the manufacturer and are often difficult to interpret.

-- Emotions impact every aspect of sport: motivation, confidence, intensity, focus, performance, consistency. Emotions-and accompanying self talk-- dictate whether the athlete succumbs to frustration or attains stronger performance.

-- Future legal sports supplements may come from stem cell engineering. In this scenario, injured muscles, or muscles that are susceptible to training may be stimulated to hypertrophy by supplementation with patients' own stem cells.

The Athletes' Advisory Board noted several specific conclusions that encapsulate the mindset, knowledge, and strategy necessary for an individual's prime performance. They include:

-- "No discounting the placebo effect"
-- "Never judge your fitness on yesterday's workout." There will always be
ups and downs in training.
-- "When you start to get frustrated, change your goals"
-- "Pain becomes enemy when the athlete attaches negative thoughts/emotions to the pain." At that point, he or she feels more pain. Instead, use pain as an information tool: time to adjust pace, reduce intensity?

Members of the Athletes' Advisory Board include Olympic medalists and pro athletes in skiing, cycling, skating, dance, triathlon, marathon running, and weight lifting, represented by, among others, Jonny Moseley, Marla Streb, Boyd Easley, and Wendy Fischer.

The Board is also comprised of elite coaches and trainers, including Barry Braun, Ph.D., Professor of Exercise Science, Kevin R. Stone, M.D., orthopaedic surgeon and chair of the Stone Research Foundation, Bill Fabrocini, PT, OCS, CSCS, President, Carmichael Training Systems Performance Center.

The Stone Research Foundation
The Stone Research Foundation for Sports Medicine and Arthritis Research was founded in 1995 to evaluate research at The Stone Clinic in San Francisco. The Foundation conducts research in advanced surgical techniques for orthopaedic sports medicine. These efforts have led to improvements in cartilage replacement and regeneration, cruciate ligament repair and reconstruction, and techniques to prevent osteoarthritic degeneration, taught and used by other physicians worldwide. For more information please visit www.stoneresearch.org or phone Abhi Freyer at 415-563-3110.