Ergogenic Aids for the Athlete

This is a speciality 4-week module, led by two high performance nutrition experts who have collectively worked with many international athletes and teams, as well as ambitious amateurs; Matt Lovell and Paul Ehren.

Days
Hours

Next course start date:

15th of April 2026

About this course

CPD/CEU (20 hours)

Ergogenic nutrition strategies are generally thought of as supplements scientifically proven to boost performance. However, the concept of performance goes much deeper than singular nutrients: every life choice an athlete makes, including the food they eat, will influence their sporting performance, for better or worse.

Via the collective experience and athletic wisdom of Matt and Paul, you will receive the required guidance to analyse the lives of your athletic clients, and support their sporting performance in numerous ways, including nutrition.  

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In this unit, you will learn how to support an athlete’s performance by looking at their personal ecosystem of health, plus how to identify and use nutritional ergogenic aids to improve your client's performance, safely achieving that competitive advantage!

The ergogenics lectures will focus on:

  • Understanding how to support the health of an athlete’s body systems in a sports context (an indirect ergogenic aid), which then underpins performance
  • Consideration of an athlete’s ecosystem (surrounding environmental influences) as a performance contributor, longevity of performance in a sports career and in life, and practitioner awareness of performance enhancing drugs
  • Discussion of classic nutritional ergogenic aids (e.g. creatine and caffeine) plus recognition of ‘conditional’ ergogenic aids (e.g. in states of nutrient deficiency)

This educational offering can be undertaken as a standalone CPD-focussed module, or as a speciality unit as part of our Certificate of Integrative Sports Nutrition.

Who's it for?

Ergogenic Aids for the Athlete has been set up as a postgraduate-level speciality unit of study, aimed at exercise and nutrition practitioners, and final year and postgraduate students.

It can be completed as a standalone module for purposes of CPDs or CEUs, for your professional or personal development, or as a speciality unit within our larger Certificate of Integrative Sports Nutrition course.

These specialty courses attract a diverse mix of nutrition, exercise, medical, and integrative health professionals, along with advanced coaches and athletes looking for a training edge.

As such, participation on this module should facilitate learning from not only your lecturers and tutors, but also your peers.

Module content

Ergogenic Aids for the Athlete

Ergogenic Aids for the Athlete consists of four 60-minute live Zoom workshops, weekly pre-recorded videos and educational materials, interaction with your lecturers and peers online, and case study focussed assignments.

All in all, you’ll need approximately five hours per week to do this course, depending on your depth of study.

Specialist performance nutritionist and ergogenics expert, Matt Lovell, leads this week with his lecture on how to support sports performance by nurturing an athlete’s body systems, plus live workshop interaction.

Lecture content

Week 1 begins with a detailed exploration of the ergogenics concept, including an understanding of how body systems health is fundamental to athletic performance. Topics include:

  • Setting the scene for performance goals: Defining ergogenic aids in a sporting context, how to assess and track an athlete, the building of resilience to training stressors, and strategies for actioning ergogenics.
  • A systems biology view of performance: Understanding how functional health underpins performance, gastrointestinal, immune and endocrine health in sport, and the importance of recovery and inflammation management as an ergogenic tool.
  • Nutritional support of body systems: Supporting the energetic demands of training and competition, the anabolic-catabolic dynamic including mTOR and AMPK, body composition, metabolic flexibility, muscle protein synthesis, and power-to-weight ratio optimisation.
  • Supporting lifestyle and training practices: Auxiliary performance-supporting strategies, including sleep management, training principles (avoiding overtraining), recovery optimisation, and injury prevention.

Sporting superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo would not still be performing at the top level in their late 30s if they had a ‘performance at all costs’ attitude. Your host Paul K Ehren, Masters bodybuilding champion and integrative strength and conditioning specialist, shares his health, performance, and longevity lecture, plus live workshop interaction.

Lecture content

Week 2 delves more into the wider environment within which an athlete lives and trains (their ‘ecosystem’), incorporating a big picture view of health and performance, and how we can support that as practitioners. Topics include:

  • Practitioners as ergogenic aids: Understanding the pivotal role of practitioner-client relationships in athletic performance, developing our own therapeutic tool sets, and building a network of ergogenic support.
  • The athlete’s ecosystem: Knowing your client wholly, elite versus recreational athlete needs, demands of particular sports, and supporting an athlete’s lifestyle.
  • Performance and health: Understanding what performance means to different clients, personalised nutrition needs, longevity of athletic career and life.
  • Dual role of supplements: A review of supplements that have ergogenic potential in sport, which also support health, best value for money considerations, and patterns of compliance.
  • Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), and alternatives: A review of PEDs that might commonly be seen in practice, with commentary on safer nutrition alternatives.

Ergogenics specialist Matt Lovell returns this week with his probing lecture regarding which nutrients can be termed ergogenic aids, other nutrients that also deserve some attention in sport, plus live workshop interaction.

Lecture content

Supplements such as creatine and caffeine may receive headline attention in performance sport, but baseline nutrition must be dealt with first, plus many other nutrients are also worthy of consideration. Topics include:

  • Nutrition for body system health: Acid-alkaline nutritional balance, insulin management, immune support, methylation, and pros and cons of intermittent fasting and ‘train low compete high’ practices.
  • Correcting deficiencies: Nutrient supplements that become ergogenic when the body is depleted in them, either from poor nutrition practices, overtraining, life stresses, or genetic polymorphisms.
  • Classical ergogenic aids: A detailed review of supplements shown to possess ergogenic properties in certain sporting contexts. Includes: hydration, fat burning, protein synthesis, neurotransmitters, nitric oxide stimulation, stimulants, and lactate buffering.

Your learning is now flipped from a state of expert-led presentation to participant-led discussion, where you will tap into your prior life learning and experiences, along with that of your peers, to move towards ‘action’ steps of professional development before departing from this module. 

  • You will firstly be asked to reflect on what you already knew about mitochondrial energetics in a sporting context before the beginning of this module. I.e. what did you already bring into the classroom?
  • As a team, you’ll then be asked to question what aspects of your thinking were potentially challenged and modified by your recent study of mitochondrial health.
  • Finally, you’ll be asked to consider how you might now think and act differently as you carry your collective knowledge forwards with you towards the action steps of working with a energy-focussed sporting client.
  • Done well, this kind of workshop amasses the knowledge and experience of the whole group in addition to what has already been learned from the lecturers.

Module assignment

In a concise 1000 words, you will be asked to write a flowing essay on a case study of an athlete, or active individual, who has the goal of improving their athletic performance via the use of nutrition and lifestyle supporting strategies. While honouring the professional practice style of your existing career, you’ll look to incorporate learnings from this module in your case description and intervention strategies.  

Study Options

CPD/CEU (20hrs)

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Live Course

Our tutorials occur at 1pm UK time, allowing most time zones to be accommodated.

You can find all the tutorial dates here.

  • This CPD/CEU course does not include assessments.

Next start date:

15th of April 2026

  • £ 249
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Self Study

If you’d like the flexibility to study at a pace of your choosing, this option is for you. You’ll work through the readings and lectures for each session, covering the same material as in the live course, and then book a 30-minute finishing session with your tutor.

  • This CPD/CEU course does not include assessments.

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