University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Performance nutrition to support athletes and aging

Salvador, Amadeo Felix

Content Files
SALVADOR-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/110824

Description

Title
Performance nutrition to support athletes and aging
Author(s)
Salvador, Amadeo Felix
Issue Date
2021-04-21
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Burd, Nicholas A
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Burd, Nicholas A
Committee Member(s)
  • Mackenzie, Richard
  • Boppart, Marni
  • Petruzzello, Steven
Department of Study
Kinesiology & Community Health
Discipline
Kinesiology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2021-09-17T04:04:29Z
Keyword(s)
  • Human nutrition, muscle performance
  • deuterium oxide
  • protein ingestion
Abstract
Skeletal muscle plays a critical role in several metabolic processes that support both physical performance and metabolic health. Performance nutrition is an emerging field that aims to identify optimal nutrition and exercise strategies for physical performance, which includes the maintenance and/or promotion of muscle mass. The studies reported in this dissertation investigated aspects of performance nutrition, including carbohydrate and protein metabolism, in order to support both endurance and strength training performance. In Study 1, carbohydrate manipulation was investigated to identify a novel nutritional approach to support endurance performance. We demonstrated that potato ingestion exhibited similar performance improvements over water when compared to the ingestion of carbohydrate gels during prolonged cycling in trained athletes. This work identified potatoes as a high performance food to provide athletes with a cost effective and nutrient dense alternative to carbohydrate sports gels. In Study 2, we evaluated the acute regulation of fed-state muscle protein synthesis rates (MPS) by the primed continuous infusion method to define how rest period frequency and duration impacts the skeletal muscle’s adaptive response to resistance exercise. The measurement of MPS is commonly used in clinical and performance nutrition studies in order to provide an insight into protein remodeling: a necessary process to support skeletal muscle adaptations. Previous work has shown that intra-set rest can increase skeletal muscle contraction velocity, thereby improving power. Our study demonstrated that intra-set rest similarly stimulated MPS compared to a traditional set strategy. This work established intra-set rest as an easily manipulated variable to support both power and hypertrophic protein remodeling. Beyond athletes, the field of performance nutrition also strives to improve skeletal muscle mass in clinical populations. The ability of resistance exercise to promote muscle size and power is not only necessary for power and strength athletes, but also for aging populations to mitigate age-related skeletal muscle loss (i.e., sarcopenia). Moreover, this anabolic stimulus is known to be potentiated when combined with dietary protein. The interaction of dietary protein and resistance exercise is maximized with protein amount, quality, and ingestion timing. In Study 3, we used a less-invasive, free-living measurement of MPS to show that high protein diets do not further augment early resistance training mediated changes in MPS when compared to a moderate protein intake in middle-aged adults. In summary, the studies in this dissertation established novel performance nutrition strategies by showing that ingestion of potatoes matched the performance gains of sports gels. Moreover, it was established that a simple rest between repetitions could be an effective training alternative to stimulate muscle adaptations and finally that protein intake in moderate amounts will lead to similar MPS responses to higher protein intake. Collectively, these studies highlight both the complexity of skeletal muscle and the intricacy of the mechanistic response to nutrition and exercise. Furthermore, they also serve to reveal the plasticity of this tissue as observed by performance and recovery effects from simple nutrition and exercise manipulations.
Graduation Semester
2021-05
Type of Resource
Thesis
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110824
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2021 Amadeo Salvador

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