Dear Performance Nutrition Leaders,
This week: why practitioners are so important, a new caffeine format, plus the latest moves, news, and opportunities.
🧠 ON THE GROUND
The Female Football Nutrition Network posted a photo of a matchday supplement table — Nutrition X gels, caffeine gum, pickle juice shots, the full spread — with a question: do female footballers actually need all this?
Their answer: "Performance starts with the basics. Fuelling, hydration, timing, and consistency. Supplements like gels, electrolytes and caffeine can be really useful tools, but they're not requirements. If the foundations aren't solid, supplements won't fix it."
This is what brand partnerships actually look like from the inside.
When it comes to recommending a product to an athlete, there's no higher authority than the practitioner. But they're also highly trained filters. A practitioner worth their salt won't recommend just anything. The product needs to earn its place in the protocol.
Their job is to get the basics right first — food, hydration, sleep, consistency — and only then layer in supplementation where it genuinely adds value.
The people with the most influence over what athletes use are also the ones most likely to say "not yet." And rightly so.
For brands, the path to the changing room runs through the practitioner. Sponsorship gets you on the table. The practitioner decides whether it gets used.
📈NEWS
6d release new cherry shot.
Reading FC hiring performance nutritionist.
Aquatics GB hiring performance nutritionist.
25th February deadline for next IOPN cohort.
High Performance Sport New Zealand hiring nutritionist.
George Davis appointed academy nutritionist at Watford FC.
Dr Jennifer Barrett appointed Programme Lead at the IOPN.
Brooks Gillerlain Quinn appointed Director of Football Nutrition at UCLA.
Adam McDonald appears on James Smith podcast to tackle electrolyte claims.
Katie O'Connor appointed Director of Football Nutrition at University of Tennessee.
💡PERFORMANCE TECH
A new caffeine format worth knowing about.
Nutrition X just released a dissolvable caffeine tablet.
Place it on your tongue, let it dissolve, no water required. 100mg caffeine per tablet. Mint flavour. Informed Sport certified.
The format matters here. Caffeine gum absorption varies between individuals. Capsules and liquids take longer to hit the bloodstream.
The science on caffeine is settled. It's one of just five supplements the IOC considers to have sufficient evidence for use in sport-specific scenarios.
Source: Nutrition X
The effective dose is 2–6mg/kg bodyweight, taken 30–60 minutes before exercise. At that range, caffeine improves both physical output and mental performance — reduced RPE, sharper reaction times, delayed fatigue.
What makes the melt interesting is the use case. For practitioners advising athletes in sports where timing and precision matter — half-time, between sets, pre-warm-up — a pocket-sized, water-free format removes friction. No bottles or chewing.
Whether it displaces gum or gels remains to be seen. But as a delivery mechanism, it's a clean addition to the toolkit.
