Developing an understanding of the nutritional landscape within gymnastics to design an evidence based education resource for gymnastics coaches

Abstract

Gymnastics is a highly demanding complex aesthetic sport that requires a high level of skill agility, speed, strength, flexibility, and balance. Therefore, optimal nutrient intake is a crucial component of successful gymnastic performance. However, consistently within the literature gymnasts are reported to have suboptimal energy intakes suggesting inadequate energy availability. It is also a particularly challenging time for the sport regarding nutrition, the emphasis on body mass, and the investigations into British Gymnastics (BG) which makes the subject both crucial and more delicate. Firstly a scoping review was conducted to understand the current literature currently available looking at nutrition within the field of gymnastics. This identified gaps in the literature including a lack of understanding about the levels of nutritional knowledge among gymnasts and support personnel such as coaches. Alongside this, it was important to understand what nutrition information gymnasts and coaches had access to on their National Governing Body (NGB) websites. A search was completed of NGB webpages across the nations of world ranking gymnasts to see what nutritional information was freely available. This showed a variety of information, some of which was conflicting, unclear, and contradictory to the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG). Following this, it was important to understand the level of nutritional knowledge among gymnasts and coaches. A nutritional knowledge (NK) questionnaire was distributed to competitive gymnasts and coaches to establish the level of knowledge among this population. Due to limited response numbers, no formal conclusions can be drawn about the level of NK. However, what was clear was the variety of responses and the range of NK within the small sample. As a result of this variety and small participant numbers, a qualitative approach was taken to gain a deeper understanding of knowledge and experience. At this point, the decision was made to focus on the experience of coaches. The key findings from this study were that the coach’s knowledge was mixed with some misconceptions about the role of nutrients, the culture within gymnastics creates a difficult environment to speak about nutrition, and the support they have from NGBs in this area is lacking. Coaches said that they would like some further support and education on nutrition and provided topics of interest and ways in which they would like the information. As a result of these studies, the decision was made to create an education platform with the aim to support coaches with their nutritional knowledge and providing a place to seek information relevant to gymnastics. To do this, a website was created encompassing the topics coaches wanted more information on. To analyse the effectiveness of this website and whether coaches would access it, a questionnaire was distributed to coaches and they were invited to discuss their thoughts further via an interview. Overall, the website received detailed positive feedback from coaches and was accessed by 187 people. The pages that were most accessed were hydration, recipes, training, general nutrition, and macronutrients, and the least accessed were supplements, body mass, and travel. Constructive feedback provided areas for improvement and progression. There was feedback that was constructive providing areas of suggested improvement. With input and developments from NGBs, this NK format could help coaches feel confident in the subject of nutrition. This research has the potential to support the current work of coaches and work towards enabling them to do their jobs to the best of their ability while considering the needs of their athletes. Ideally, this thesis will be the start of broadening this topic within the community, reducing the associated fear, and working towards creating a positive culture and place where athletes and their support staff can thrive. This thesis offers an original contribution to knowledge as it is one of the first pieces of research completed in this population after the Whyte Review. Additionally, it provides contributions to the body of knowledge including knowledge inconsistencies between coaches, an understanding of coach's feelings and experiences in nutrition for gymnastics and a comprehensive synthesis of nutrition information provided by gymnastics NGBs all over the world.

Date of Award	27 Feb 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Northumbria University
Supervisor	Daniel Peart (Supervisor), Kirsty Hicks (Supervisor), Karen Keane (Supervisor) & Georgia Allen-Baker (Supervisor)