Sports nutrition essentials are the foundation of peak athletic performance, guiding how you fuel, hydrate, and recover across training cycles, competition days, and even rest periods, a science-based framework that connects energy intake to the demands of your sport and your body’s ability to adapt, while supporting long-term health, mental focus, and sustainable training habits, and providing a scalable approach you can apply year after year.A science-informed framework also emphasizes pre-workout nutrition as a critical piece that primes energy stores before exertion, supporting stable blood glucose, comfortable digestion, and the confidence to push through the first minutes with power, while considering individual tolerance, GI comfort, and the timing of meals around travel and competition schedules; it remains adaptable to different training phases and schedules.