Sports nutrition

This PhD project, funded through a partnership between Liverpool John Moores University, Performr, and Nujum Sports, is investigating the impact of Ramadan fasting on elite athletic performance.

Hosted within the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences (RISES), the project aims to generate evidence-based strategies to support Muslim athletes competing and training during Ramadan and is led by Dr Rebecca Murphy, Prof Graeme Close and Dr Scott Gillham, with PhD student Ibrahim Riaz.

The programme comprises four interconnected studies, including a global survey of elite Muslim athletes, a wearable technology cohort study, cognitive and sport-specific skill assessments, and a cultural ethnography. Together, these approaches seek to examine how athletes from a range of sporting disciplines and geographical regions manage the physiological, psychological, and cultural demands of Ramadan fasting.

A central component of the project is the use of Performr’s metabolic monitoring technology, which enables real-time assessment of markers such as glucose, lactate, and hydration status. By integrating physiological monitoring with behavioural and cultural research, the project aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing performance, recovery, and wellbeing during Ramadan.

The research focuses on athletes competing in sports including football, rugby, athletics, cycling, combat sports, basketball, and badminton across regions such as the United Kingdom, Qatar, Egypt, Malaysia, and the United States. Outcomes from the project will include sport- and region-specific guidance, multilingual educational resources, and practical recommendations for athletes, coaches, practitioners, and sporting organisations.

Collectively, this research seeks to advance understanding of Ramadan fasting in elite sport and contribute to the development of more inclusive, culturally informed, and evidence-based support practices for Muslim athletes competing at the highest levels.

Effects of ketone ester, carbohydrate and sodium bicarbonate ingestion

This project, funded by NutritionX Ltd and Stockport County FC, is co-directed by Dr Neil Chester and Dr Scott Gillham and led by Mr. Sam Taylor. The project is currently exploring novel caffeine delivery methods and their application in elite sport.

Previous work has used caffeine assays to characterise the pharmacokinetics of traditional versus contemporary delivery routes, contributing to the successful development of products for NutritionX, which have now made their way to market and elite sport.

Future work aims to establish whether these pharmacokinetic differences confer a direct performance benefit. More specifically, the project will examine the potential utility of novel caffeine delivery methods and their impact on performance across football and sport more broadly.

In parallel, work is ongoing to understand the current scope of caffeine use among athletes, alongside the enablers and barriers to uptake of novel delivery methods.

Alongside his laboratory-based research, Sam has also been leading the Performance Nutrition department at Stockport County Football Club. 

This project is funded by Science in Sport, is led by Henry Martyn and is directed by Professsor James Morton and Dr Daniel Owens.

This work evaluates the effects of carbohydrate and sodium bicarbonate co-ingestion during prolonged cycling exercise on substrate metabolism and exercise performance.

In using a highly trained population, this work has direct application to nutritional strategies to elite professional road cycling that optimises carbohydrate availability and the strategic use of buffering agents during exercise to optimise cycling performance.

This project, funded through a RISES-funded PhD scholarship and supported by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education aims at determining optimal dietary interventions for recovery from exhaustive exercise in males and females, incorporating the use of ketone monoesters (KMEs) as ergogenic aid.

The project led by Dr. José Areta, in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Owens, Dr Julien Louis, with PhD student Erick Mosquera-Lopez. 

Ketone monoesters have emerged as a potential ergogenic aid to enhance recovery from exercise with a potential effect on several tissues, however the exact mechanisms by which they may aid recovery are unclear.

In this project, our team investigates the effect of KMEs during exercise and recovery, on congtive capacity, skeletal muscle adaptive responses making use of state-of-the-art technology incorporating transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses.

Additionally, this project aims at determining the metabolic shifts induced by exogenous ketones ingestion that may alter substrate use, availability and subsequent performance.

The use of KMEs are incorporated together with optimised nutritional interventions in males and females to define the precise mechanisms by which these nutritional interventions may enhance recovery and physical performance.

This project, funded by Gencor Pacific Ltd (now Saanroo), was directed by Dr. Daniel Owens and led by Dr. Paige Cole.

It investigated the potential of palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) as a safer alternative to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for managing exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD).

The programme of work spanned techniques including cell culture models, multi-omics analyses, and a human randomised controlled trial. It first identified a high prevalence of NSAID use among ultra-endurance athletes, alongside a willingness to adopt safer alternatives.

Mechanistic studies demonstrated that PEA supported muscle cell differentiation and modulated inflammatory pathways, with proteomic analyses revealing distinct effects on protein synthesis compared to ibuprofen.

A final human trial assessed the efficacy of PEA supplementation following a muscle-damaging downhill running protocol. While no differences were observed in muscle function or clinical markers, both PEA and ibuprofen were associated with earlier reductions in perceived muscle soreness.

Collectively, these findings provided novel insight into the biological actions of PEA and highlighted its potential as an alternative strategy for managing exercise-induced muscle pain. This work contributed to the growing evidence base supporting safer recovery practices in sport and exercise.

This project was led by Prof. Graeme Close, Dr. Daniel Owens and Dr. Neil Chester and was funded by Pureis. PhD candidate Dr. Scott Gillham investigated the growing use of cannabidiol (CBD) in sport, following its removal from the World Anti-Doping Agency prohibited list in 2018.

Despite increasing popularity among athletes for its purported effects on pain, inflammation and anxiety, there remains limited scientific evidence to support its efficacy or safety.

This research explored CBD from three key perspectives: its effects on skeletal muscle biology, its impact on exercise performance, and its implications for anti-doping. Laboratory-based work demonstrated that CBD may influence muscle cell development at higher doses, with further analyses identifying potential molecular pathways involved. However, in a human study, three weeks of supplementation did not improve cycling performance.

Importantly, longer-term supplementation revealed a clear anti-doping concern. The use of broad-spectrum CBD products resulted in the presence of prohibited cannabinoids in urine, with moderate-intensity exercise appearing to increase this risk.

Collectively, these findings highlight that while the performance benefits of CBD remain unproven, the potential for inadvertent doping is significant. This work provides important evidence to inform athlete decision-making, support practitioner guidance, and shape future policy around cannabinoid use in sport.

The project, funded by an LJMU VC scholarship for Robyn Jones PhD and directed by Dr Julien Louis, investigated how carbohydrate (CHO) intake influences muscle glycogen storage and endurance cycling performance.

A systematic review and meta-analysis (under review) found a strong positive relationship between dietary CHO intake and muscle glycogen concentration in endurance-trained athletes.

To investigate this further, endurance-trained participants consumed 6, 8, or 10 g·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ of CHO over 48 hours under controlled exercise and nutrition conditions. Muscle glycogen concentrations were significantly higher after 10 g·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ compared with 6 or 8 g·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹, demonstrating a clear dose-response relationship between CHO intake and glycogen storage.

These findings suggest intakes of at least 10 g·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ may be required to maximise glycogen stores under realistic training conditions. This study was recently published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.

However, greater glycogen stores did not consistently improve endurance cycling performance. In a double-blind cycling study, athletes completed performance tests after consuming 6, 8, or 10 g·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ of CHO for 48 hours.

Despite higher glycogen levels with the highest intake, there were no significant differences in time-trial performance or power output between conditions.

These findings suggest very high CHO loading may not provide additional benefits for cycling events lasting ~2.5 hours when athletes consume sufficient CHO before and during exercise. This study is currently being prepared for journal submission.

The project also examined CHO feeding patterns during prolonged cycling. Consuming 90 g·h⁻¹ of CHO in smaller doses every 15 minutes or larger doses every 30 minutes produced similar physiological responses, substrate oxidation rates, and gastrointestinal comfort. This suggests athletes can choose feeding strategies based on preference without negatively affecting performance. This study was recently published in the European Journal of Sport Science.

Overall, the project demonstrates that higher CHO intakes effectively increase muscle glycogen concentrations, but maximising glycogen stores is not always necessary to improve endurance performance. The importance of CHO loading appears to depend on exercise duration, intensity, and CHO availability before and during exercise. 

This theme is a collective series of studies, all funded by Science in Sport, that has informed the emergence of contemporary carbohydrate guidelines for endurance sport where both male and female athletes would benefit from intakes of 90-120 g/h.

Under the supervision of Professor James Morton, this work has been led by Dr Marc Fell, Mark Hearris and current PhD students Henry Martyn and Samanvita Ravikanti.

In using stable isotope methodology, this work has demonstrated that both male and female athletes are capable of oxidising ingested carbohydrate at rates of 1.5 -2 g/min.

Ingestion rates of 120 g/h maintain carbohydrate dependency during exercise to a greater extent than traditional guidelines of 60 and 90 g/h, and when running with these higher ingestion rates running economy is improved by 3% in both males and females.

Collectively, this series of studies has informed novel carbohydrate guidelines that have been published in the Journal of Nutrition.

This project, partially funded by Liverpool John Moores University (with supplements provided in-kind by TdeltaS Ltd), was directed by Dr. Jose L. Areta and led by Erick Mosquera-Lopez.

It investigated the potential of acute ketone monoester (KME) supplementation to enhance post-exercise recovery by modulating early molecular and transcriptomic responses in skeletal muscle.

The programme of work spanned techniques including blood biochemistry, muscle glycogen assays, and genome-wide transcriptomic analyses. It first established that oral KME intake successfully induced robust nutritional ketosis during early post-exercise recovery.

A human trial assessed the efficacy of KME supplementation following a 90-minute aerobic cycling protocol. Mechanistic analyses demonstrated that aerobic exercise itself exerted a profound time-dependent effect on the muscle phenotype, with transcriptomic screening revealing 1,561 differentially expressed genes post-exercise.

However, there were no differences in muscle glycogen resynthesis or erythropoietin concentrations and both KME and placebo conditions resulted in  identical patterns of early skeletal muscle gene expression.

Collectively, these findings provided novel insight into the biological actions of KME on skeletal muscle and highlighted that acute nutritional ketosis does not directly modulate early post-exercise recovery at the transcription level.

This work contributed to the growing evidence base surrounding exogenous ketones in sport and exercise, suggesting that other levels of biological regulation should be investigated to fully characterise their effects on muscle. 

Authors: Ravikanti S, Silang KG, Martyn HJ, Johnson KO, Louis JB, Bampouras TM, Owens DJ, Jones AM, Morton JP, Pugh JN

Abstract: We evaluated the effects of carbohydrate (CHO) ingestion at rates of 60 (maltodextrin:fructose ratio 1:0), 90 (2:1), and 120 (1:1) g·h1 on whole body substrate metabolism, exogenous CHO oxidation (via U- 13 C enriched glucose fructose drinks) and gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms in elite male marathon.

Read the published version of C labelled glucose-fructose show

Authors: Lanpir AD, Eroğlu MN, Özyıldırım M, Louis J

Abstract: Despite well-established guidelines for carbohydrate (CHO) intake to support endurance performance, many athletes fail to meet these targets, and in-race intake is often estimated based on planned consumption rather than measured intake.

Read the published version of Under Consumed and Overestimated

Authors: Jones RO, Vaz DE Oliveria M, Palmer B, Maguire D, Butler G, Gothard I, Kavanagh K, Areta J, Pugh J, Louis J

Abstract: Fuelling during endurance exercise has evolved towards greater amounts of carbohydrates (CHO) ingested per hour, which can prove challenging for athletes.

However, the effects of different CHO ingestion patterns during exercise have scarcely been investigated in cycling.

Read the published version of Different Carbohydrate ingestion patterns

Authors: Morton JP, Hearris M, Fell MJ, Owens DJ, Halson S, Trommelen J

Abstract: The fundamental goal of nutrition for training is to provide the required energy and substrate to sustain the target training volume and intensity that is necessary to induce desired physiological adaptations.

However, aside from fueling and recovery, it is now recognized that nutrient availability also modulates the activation of cell signaling pathways that regulate adaptations associated with both endurance and strength training.

Read the published version of UCI Sports Nutrition Project

Authors: Cole PL, Stead CA, Burniston JG, Owens DJ

Abstract: Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) and ibuprofen (IBU) exert anti-inflammatory effects that may influence skeletal muscle adaptation; however, their impact on muscle proteome dynamics remains unclear.

Read the published version of The Effects of Palmitoylethanolamide

Authors: Cole PL, Gillham SH, Viggars MR, Close GL, Owens DJ

Abstract: Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) is an endogenous lipid mediator with immunomodulatory actions, yet its effects in skeletal muscle remain poorly defined.

Read the published version of Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) regulates cell cycle progression

Authors: Gillham SH, Cole PL, Owens DJ, Chester N, Bampouras TM, McCartney D, Gordon R, McGregor IS, Close GL.

Abstract: Background: Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating phytocannabinoid, is used by athletes to enhance recovery and manage other conditions (e.g., poor sleep, anxiety).

Although CBD is not prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), other cannabinoids found in "broad-spectrum" CBD products (e.g., cannabigerol (CBG), cannabidivarin (CBDV)), remain prohibited.

Read the published version of Daily use of a broad-spectrum cannabidiol supplement

Authors: Hearris MA, Langan-Evans C, Foo W-L, Garrigan C, Starke L, Rendeiro C, Williams C, Jackson P, Morton JP

Abstract: The ergogenic effects of caffeine on cognitive performance are largely restricted to improved alertness and enhanced attention and do not typically extend to other cognitive domains.

In contrast, plant extracts and phytochemicals exert broader cognitive performance benefits and, when combined together, may provide synergistic effects.

Read the published version of Comparable improvements

Authors: Foo WL, Fisher PT, Clark RA, Areta JL, Close GL, Hambly C, Speakman JR, Tester E, Morton JP

Abstract: Accurate estimation of energy requirements is essential for optimising nutritional strategies during injury rehabilitation in professional soccer.

Read the published version of Energy requirements of injured soccer players

Authors: Foo WL, Tester E, Markakis P, Sabou V, Close GL, McCubbin AJ, Morton JP

Abstract: We assessed the fluid balance, whole body sweat rate (WBSR) and sweat sodium concentration of English Premier League (EPL) soccer players during pre-season training and used predictive modelling to determine theoretical changes in plasma sodium concentration.

Read the published version of Should sport scientists and coaches provide sodium supplementation

Authors: Nishimura Y, Langan‐Evans C, Taylor HL, Foo WL, Morton JP, Shepherd S, Strauss JA, Burniston JG, Areta JL

Abstract: Energy deficit is a potent physiological stressor that has shaped human evolution and can improve lifespan and healthspan in a wide range of species.

Preserving locomotive capacity was likely essential for survival during the human hunter-gatherer period but surprisingly little is known about the molecular effects of energy deficit on human skeletal muscle, which is a key tissue for locomotion and metabolic health.

Read the published version of Endocrine, Metabolic and Skeletal Muscle Proteomic Responses

Authors: Areta JL, Meehan E, Howe G, Redman LM

Abstract: Despite the increased popularity of female elite road cycling, research to inform the fueling requirements of these endurance athletes is lacking.

In this case study, we report for the first time the energetics of a female world-tour cyclist competing in the 2023 Tour de France Femmes, an 8-day race of the Union Cycliste Internationale. The 29-year-old athlete presented with oligomenorrhea and low T3 before the race.

Read the published version of Energetics of a World-Tour

Authors: Fortis HO, Ravikanti S, Barrett JS, Lopez EM, Bampouras TM, Haworth JJ, Areta JL, Pugh JN

Abstract: The present study investigated the effects of honey compared with a traditional carbohydrate based sports nutrition product (TRAD-CHO) on metabolic and gastrointestinal responses during exercise, as well as exercise capacity.

Read the published version of Could It Bee?

Authors: Wee Lun Foo, Colum J. Cronin, Graeme L. Close, James P. Morton

Abstract: Performance nutrition is now an established discipline in professional soccer; however, limited knowledge exists on how practitioners can navigate through the unique cultural environment of the men’s professional game.

Accordingly, we explored the perspectives of players and stakeholders from the English Premier League on the attributes they perceive to underpin successful performance nutrition practice.

Read the published version of The Rules of the Game