Gastrointestinal Health In Athletes

Sports performance dietitian and functional medicine practitioner, Rick Miller, leads this week with his lecture on specialist nutrition strategies to support optimum GI function in athletes, plus live workshop interaction.

Lecture content

After building up an excellent knowledge base of gastrointestinal health in a sporting context, this specialty lecture is intended to share some added perceptions and ideas for supporting an athlete’s gut health.

• Nutrition and supplementation: Rick starts his lecture by investigating the best food choices for microbiome health, including consideration of a low FODMAP approach, food sensitivities and intolerances, and first line strategies for lowering the risk of gastric disorders in athletes. In addition, he considers a number of ergogenic supplements that can, in some cases, induce GI distress, and should be used with care.
• Training and non-training balance: It is now clear that exercise training can positively and negatively affect the microbiome composition and diversity, which Rick discusses. He also considers the cross-talk between the mitochondria and microbiome-induced training adaptations, and the monitoring of our nervous system in relation to autonomic tone of the gut.
• Environmental affects on the gut: Training and nutrition are only two modalities of self-care available to athletes, especially when it comes to gastrointestinal health. Rick expands his discussion into environmental considerations such as interaction with nature, circadian rhythms, and chronobiology. In particular he talks about the importance of sunlight and the new area of study called photobiomodulation, and how that may positively influence gut health.

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 gastrointestinal health in sport 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 GI 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 gut-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 a goal of improving their gastrointestinal health and function while under the strain of a heavy endurance training programme. Honouring the professional practice style of your base career, you’ll look to incorporate learnings from this module in your case description and intervention strategies.