The International Sport Forum on Strength, Training and Nutrition was held in Madrid, 15-16 November 2019. The Forum was organised by the Strength and Conditioning Society (SCS, 2nd Annual Conference) and the European Sport Nutrition Society (ESNS, 3rd Annual Conference). Both days were organised at the Metropolitano Stadium, which hosted the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final in June this year.
The lectures presented on the first day were for delegates interested in strength and conditioning as well as in sports nutrition. Prof. Ron Maughan discussed the use of supplements by athletes. Prof. John A. Hawley gave a talk about an integrative approach in high-performance sport. Prof. Stuart Phillips discussed protein requirements for athletes (Protein for athletes: State of art) and Prof. Mikel Izquierdo discussed the utilisation of strength and endurance training for fitness and health as well as strategies to optimise concurrent adaptation.
The same day, there were two discussion panels. The first discussion was between G. Gregory Haff and Jeremy Loenneke on the training periodisation for strength and power. The second debate was between Dr. Brad Schoenfeld and Prof. Per Aagaard, which related to hypertrophy vs neuromuscular strength training strategies.
The second day was divided into two themes: strength and conditioning, and sports nutrition. Together with Dr. Catherine Norton, we were particularly interested in the sports nutrition part of programme. Beside invited speakers such as Prof. John Hawley, Mireia Porta or Dr. Jorn Trommelen within the sports nutrition theme, there were three one-hour oral communication sessions. I presented the Peri-training nutrition (PTN) concept, which proposes advancements to the dietary assessment in the athletic population (Marta Kozior, Philip M. Jakeman, Catherine Norton, Appl Physiol Nutr Metab, under review). The concept is based on the gap between existing scientific evidence of nutrient requirements to support training adaptation, and the limited evidence of athlete dietary practices relative to a training paradigm and its intention. This project is a part of my PhD research supervised by Prof. Philip Jakeman and Dr. Catherine Norton. The PhD research project was developed when I was a Research Assistant in Sport and Exercise Nutrition at the University of Limerick within the Food for Health Ireland work-frame. It lies in line with the 2017 Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine focus call, which recognised physically active individuals and elite sports athletes as cohorts with specific nutritional needs.
I was delighted to receive the ESNS European Young Investigator Award for my presentation. I would like to thank my supervisors for their contribution to this success.
Our Department also had a representative in the Strength and Conditioning section. Dr. Tom Comyns discussed the Inter-day reliability and usefulness of reactive strength index modified derived from loaded and unloaded countermovement jumps (Tom M. Comyns, Liam Cassidy and Dara Noonan) during a poster session.
The two-long days at the Metropolitano Stadium were a great opportunity for networking and exchanging views with other researchers. I am looking forward to discussing further work during the International Sport and Exercise Nutrition Conference in Newcastle (UK) between 17th and 19th of December this year.
Marta Kozior is a postgraduate student in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences. Contact Marta on marta.kozior@ul.ie or follow on twitter @MartaKozior
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