Dear Coaches,

This week we're uncovering the chef secret that's sabotaging your menu orders, spotlighting the top jobs in performance nutrition, and revealing why ready to drink drinks could solve your biggest fuelling headache.

Are you a brand that wants to support coaches? Sponsor pninsider.com and help us highlight incredible experts, find jobs, and discover tools for practitioners.

EXPERT OPINION

The Chef Secret Nutritionists Don't Know

You think you speak the same food language.

You don't.

With decades of experience in food, Chris Connor brought his expertise into elite sport when he became the first chef to travel with England's Red Roses rugby team to Italy.

Working through the hotel kitchen, he'd planned orzo salads for lunch. Simple enough—orzo is Italian pasta, right?

Wrong.

"Who knew that orzo, which I know as an Italian style pasta, is not called orzo in Italy," Chris learned. "What we call orzo, they call bulgar wheat. So you end up with orzo salads for lunch, which you don't have orzo for."

Chris had walked through each dish with the hotel kitchen staff in advance:

'You know what Eggs Benedict is?' 'Yes.' 'You know what Hollandaise is?' 'Yes, it's a sauce with butter and eggs.' 'American muffin, savoury flat?' 'Yeah, fine.'

Quarter to six that morning, ready for breakfast service, Chris found blueberry muffins instead of savoury ones. The Hollandaise? "In Italy is like a watery liquid sauce."

You're not JUST fighting translation. You're fighting interpretation.

Actionable Takeaway: Create visual menu databases. Every dish needs a photo alongside the name. Dr. Morehen noted that when England Football travels, they send PDFs with pictures—this is what lean bacon looks like, this is what blueberries are, this is what baked beans should be.

ACTIVE JOBS

University of Kansas Hiring

Assistant Sports Dietitian at The University of Kansas Health System.

IRFU Hiring

The IRFU is hiring an Elite Player Pathway Nutrition Lead

Brentford FC Hiring

Brentford FC are hiring a first team performance nutritionist.

Louisiana State University Hiring

The hot protein topics that should be on every practitioner's radar.

PERFORMANCE TECH

GO Energy Isotonic Sports Drink

Pre-loaded convenience meets performance science.

Your athletes face a choice: skip fuelling when it's inconvenient or compromise their session intensity.

SiS GO Energy Isotonic Sports Drink solves the convenience problem.

This isn't another watered-down sports drink masquerading as fuel.

Each 500ml bottle delivers 60g of fast-acting maltodextrin—twice the amount of traditional sports drinks—plus 350mg sodium and B vitamins.

Use for carbohydrate loading 24-48 hours pre-competition, consume during exercise at 20g doses every 20 minutes, or deploy post-session to accelerate glycogen resynthesis.

Why this matters for your athletes:

Eliminates mixing and measuring across all training phases.

Triple-application flexibility means one product covers loading, intra-workout fuelling, and post-workout fuelling.

Maltodextrin provides rapid glucose availability without GI distress.

Thanks for reading! If you missed last week’s issue you can read it here →

Written by Alfie Gordon

Reply

or to participate