Dear coaches,
This week: why junior swimmers can't hit their carb targets, the latest performance nutrition news, and an Amazon-backed AI nutrition app making waves in professional sport.
🧠EXPERT OPINION
Most swimmers never hit their carbohydrate targets.
Jasmine Campbell, now Performance Nutritionist at Chelsea FC, revealed why at the Trilogy Nutrition Conference.
The theory sounds simple: swimmers grab feeds every 2.5km, consuming 30-60g of carbohydrate per hour during their 10k race.
Reality? The gap between planned nutrition and actual intake is massive.
Campbell's insight from Swim England's junior pathway: junior swimmers are terrible at feeding because they've never needed to practice it.
Before stepping up to senior 10k races lasting 2+ hours, these athletes only swam 1-5km distances under an hour. No feeding required.
Then suddenly they're grabbing cups from a pole while swimming, rolling onto their backs, and trying to drink 300ml without choking—all while maintaining race pace.
"A lot of them would squirt their face" Campbell explains. "They wouldn't even manage to consume a sip."
Campbell's solution is brilliantly simple: practice the skill progressively.
Start in the pool. Swim hard, grab a bottle, try to drink while swimming back.
Then progress to open water with waves and salt. Then race simulation.
She works with sport psychologists to create "anchor words"—simple phrases that help swimmers commit to the feed instead of panicking and wasting the opportunity.
Actionable Takeaway: Don't assume athletes can execute nutrition strategies just because they understand them. If your athlete is stepping up to longer distances requiring in-competition fuelling, build the feeding skill systematically in training before race day.
📈NEWS
Evan Bailey joins Manchester United as lead academy nutritionist.
Amelia Rae joins Bradford Bulls RLFC as Performance Nutritionist.
Dr. Emily Jevons educates U16 Scotland Swimming waterpolo team.
Andy Cooks teams up with the All Blacks for a special post-match feast.
The Performance Nutrition Network are hosting a webinar with GSSI Scientist Liam Brown.
Samantha Watts NZRD publishes paper on dietary intake and energy balance in adolescent athletes.
Professor Graeme Close shares British & Irish Lions insights with LJMU MSc Sport Nutrition students.
Jade Mitchell leaves the Nutrition Society after nearly 10 years to take a new role at Holland and Barrett.
Exos acquires Infinite Athlete and Biocore to fuse AI, data, and biomechanics in next-gen human performance.
Samanvita Ravikanti’s study with an all-star lineup finds 120 g/h glucose–fructose increases exogenous CHO oxidation and efficiency.
💡PERFORMANCE TECH
Not Another Counter.
Alma interprets natural language descriptions of meals—athletes describe food like they're texting a friend, AI handles the rest.
Founded by Rami Alhamad, whose previous company PUSH supplied velocity-based training technology to Chelsea FC, Irish Rugby Union, Stanford, and 150+ professional sports organisations before being acquired by WHOOP in 2021.
Now Alhamad's building nutrition infrastructure backed by Anthropic's $100 million Anthology Fund.
The core breakthrough: conversational food logging built on Anthropic's (Amazon backed) Claude AI technology.
"Ask Alma" functions as an on-demand nutrition consultant in your athletes' pockets. Questions about pre-workout fuelling, recovery nutrition, or macro targets get immediate responses.
Coach Connect sends weekly nutrition summaries directly to coaches' email—keeping the entire performance team aligned without manual reporting.
The recent Hyrox partnership signals Alma's push into functional fitness and hybrid sport, where fuelling strategies directly impact competition performance.
$19 monthly or $199 annually.
