Optimized nutritional strategies will not make a recreational athlete a champion but poor nutrition can make a top athlete average. Together with physiological, psychological, technical and tactical training, nutrition is a key determinant of sport performance. Elite athletes need to take care of their daily nutrition first, but certain nutritional strategies before, during and after an event can enhance performance. Nutritional strategies and dietary supplements can also be used to optimize the effects of training or to prevent/reduce injuries. Always in search of excellence, athletes may adopt deviant eating behaviors. All this contributes to make nutrition for elite athletes a challenge that must personalize (taste, gastrointestinal disorders, allergies, moral choice) validated scientific evidence to optimize performance and/or adaptation.

While many nutritional strategies are used by athletes, most of these lack evidence-based support. The goal of the present Research Topic is to gather new findings about the latest nutritional strategies used by elite athletes to improve their training adaptation and/or performance. This includes optimizing micronutrient dosages and body weight, regulating redox and inflammatory states, promoting recovery, and maximizing performance. We also encourage research examining how nutritional strategies can influence athletes from a training or performance perspective, considering dietary deficiencies, digestive system conditions and body weight differences.

Another goal of this Research Topic is to understand how nutritional interventions interact with each other and whether there are negative effects of prolonged supplementation on performance. Even if negative, it is important to share results in the field. This will allow practitioners to discard the use of that strategy in the specific conditions tested.

The scope of the Research Topic is any work dealing with nutrition and performance in elite athletes, whether by enhancing performance directly or via an enhanced training capacity/adaptation. Work in animals is beyond the scope of this Research Topic.

Original Research is preferred but Narrative or Systematic Reviews are welcome as well. The following themes (in the context of elite athletes) are of particular interest:
• Weight management
• Nutritional ergogenic aids
• Performance-enhancing diets or supplements
• Nutritional agents favoring muscle mass accretion
• Nutritional strategies that favor mitochondrial biogenesis and mitochondrial functioning
• Nutritional means to increase muscle and/or blood buffer capacity
• Any new nutritional strategy aiming at improving performance
• Nutritional strategies in athletes with allergies and intolerances
• Nutritional strategies in athletes with digestive system disorders
• Nutritional strategies for vegetarian and vegan athletes
• Nutritional strategies for improving recovery in elite athletes
• Nutritional strategies for improving sleep in elite athletes
• Nutritional support for injury repair and return to play
• Supplement interactions and effects of prolonged supplementation

Keith Baar receives financial support from PepsiCo and Bergstrom Nutrition and holds a patent licensed by Advance Muscle Technology. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.

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