Research Topic
Athlete Development
10 articles
Pregnancy Nutrition for Active Women: What Prenatal Advice Misses
Prenatal vitamins cover folate and iron. They don't cover the full picture of what an active pregnant woman needs — and the gaps in choline, DHA, and iodine have documented consequences for foetal neurodevelopment.
5 min read · 2026-10-20
Paleo Diet and Athletic Performance: What Paleolithic Athletes Really Ate
The paleo diet's evolutionary logic is genuinely interesting. Its application to trained athletes — who have carbohydrate demands that hunter-gatherers matched through entirely different food sources — is more complex than the popular framing suggests.
5 min read · 2026-10-06
Melatonin for Jet Lag: The Timing Protocol That Actually Works
Melatonin timing is everything. A 1mg dose taken at the right circadian phase outperforms 10mg at the wrong time. For travelling athletes and shift workers, the difference is measurable in performance.
4 min read · 2026-09-29
Iron Deficiency in Runners: Check This Before Blaming Overtraining
Iron deficiency without anaemia is missed by standard blood panels and accounts for a significant proportion of unexplained endurance fatigue. Here's what the research says and what to measure.
5 min read · 2026-09-15
Compound Interest in Athletic Development: Why 1% Gains Beat Overhauls
The mathematics of compound growth applies to training adaptation the same way it applies to financial returns. A 1% daily improvement compounds to 37× improvement over a year. The athletes who understand this build differently — and retain their gains longer.
5 min read · 2026-07-28
Collagen for Joint Health: Dosing, Timing and the Evidence Base
Collagen supplements are often dismissed as wellness marketing. But the specific protocol with evidence — gelatin + vitamin C, taken 60 minutes before exercise — is mechanistically distinct from general collagen powder use.
4 min read · 2026-07-21
BMR Prediction Equations: Why They Are Wrong for 20% of People
Every TDEE calculator uses a prediction equation for basal metabolic rate. Every prediction equation has a population-level error of ±10–15%. For an athlete consuming 3,500 kcal/day, that's a potential daily error of 350–525 kcal — the equivalent of a full meal disappearing from the calculation.
5 min read · 2026-06-30
Athlete Retirement Planning: Why Peak Earning Years Get Wasted
Studies consistently show 60–80% of professional athletes face significant financial difficulties within five years of retirement. The cause is not spending. It is the mismatch between athletic career economics and conventional financial planning timelines.
5 min read · 2026-06-23
Alcohol Has 7 Calories Per Gram. That's Not Even the Worst Part for Body Composition.
Alcohol's caloric density is the entry point. The bigger issue for athletes is how ethanol disrupts substrate oxidation, fat storage, and recovery — effects that persist well beyond the BAC returning to zero.
5 min read · 2026-06-16
Alcohol and Athletic Performance: What a Few Drinks Do to Recovery
Most athletes know alcohol isn't ideal for recovery. Few understand the specific mechanisms — or how little it takes to measurably impair the adaptations from a hard training session.
5 min read · 2026-06-16