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Wageningen University

Nutrition, Exercise and Sports

Wageningen University via edX

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Overview

Are you involved in sports or regular exercise and do you want to have a better understanding of the role of nutrition on performance and health? Do you want to learn whether certain nutritional strategies could be relevant for your own athletic performance and/or muscle growth? Are you a dietitian, personal trainer, physiotherapist or a health/sport coach and do you want to be able to provide proper nutritional advice for your clients? Or, are you none of the above but interested in nutrition, exercise and sports and do you want to make your own informed decisions about your daily food intake?

Then this online course Nutrition, Exercise and Sports is for you! Nutrition is crucial to live an active and healthy life, to support training, and to optimize performance. In this online course, researchers and teachers from Wageningen University & Research will familiarize you with the nutritional aspects of exercise and sports. What are the basic concepts in exercise physiology and sport nutrition science? How is exercise being fueled for the different types of sports like; power sports, sprinting and endurance exercise? And how does protein support skeletal muscle mass and performance? In this online course you will learn to estimate energy needs and understand thermoregulation and fluid balance. You will learn about the role of micronutrients and supplements in exercise performance. Moreover, you will be introduced to some health issues related to doing exercise.

This online course also touches upon how the lessons learned from nutrition and sports research can be applied during ageing. For example, what are the benefits of extra protein in vulnerable age groups?

Be aware that this course will not tell you exactly what to eat. Instead, you will learn and understand the nutritional aspects of exercise and sport, so you can make your own informed decisions and critically evaluate nutritional advices and claims.

For whom?

The online course Nutrition, Exercise and Sports is especially useful for:

  • Sport- and health coaches, Physiotherapists and Dietitians
  • People working in the (sport) food industry
  • Athletes and professional sporters
  • Everyone with a healthy appetite for knowledge about nutrition, exercise and sports

Ready to join the MOOC Nutrition, Exercise and Sports? This online course contains several interesting and inspiring interviews with nutrition and sport professionals. It will provide basic understanding of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, and contains challenging assignments that will give you insight in nutritional needs and performance benefits for (your) athletes, your clients or yourself.

Syllabus

Week 1 | Introduction to Sport Nutrition (Science)

Key topics:

An introduction into Sports, Exercise and Nutrition, including types of Sports, Sport Nutrition Pyramid. An introduction into Sport Nutrition Science - including empirical cycle, study designs, critical issues and performance measurements.

Week 2 | Skeletal Muscle, Exercise and Sports

Key topics:

An introduction into Skeletal muscle anatomy & physiology, including contraction and energy transfer. Exercise capacity: Power & Endurance. Cardiopulmonal system during Exercise

Week 3 | Energy and Fluid balance

Key topics:

Energy requirement, energy availability. Thermoregulation, Fluid balance, (de)hydration & rehydration strategies

Week 4 | Macronutrients

Key topics:

Carbohydrates & fats as energy source, nutritional strategies. Skeletal muscle protein metabolism and dietary protein intake.

Week 5 | Micronutrients and ergogenic supplements

Key topics:

Function of micronutrients and recommendations: Iron, Magnesium, calcium and Vitamins D and B. Ergogenic supplements and sports performance

Week 6 | Exercise and Nutrition during ageing

Key topics:

Skeletal muscle and ageing, Protein & Exercise in older adults, Intervention strategies

Taught by

Dr. Marco Mensink, Rieneke Terink MSc and Pol Grootswagers MSc

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Reviews

4.7 rating, based on 1,198 Class Central reviews

4.5 rating at edX based on 28 ratings

Start your review of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports

  • Anonymous
    I am a retired male (age 60) who loss a lot of weight 8 years ago. I am not an athlete and have never participated in any sports. However, for the past 8 years, I've engage in regular intense exercise sessions at my local gym, about 7 hours per week…
  • Profile image for Jay Ustruck
    Jay Ustruck @jku713
    Excellent presentation of the information. Well designed and properly paced. Although the vegetarian and vegan athlete was acknowledged, I was surprised, and a little disappointed, that not more time and attention was allotted to vegan and vegetarian diet alternatives. Still 5 stars overall!
  • Pat Buckley
    I find the course made me sit down and review my own intakes. I'm enjoying the part on aging, too, as I am 65+ though still working and getting fitter right now. I believe I lost some fitness due to a injury a couple years ago. Through this course,…
  • Profile image for David A. Shanks
    David A. Shanks @DavoShanks
    Great insight into athletic performance improvement through nutritional strategies. It will be very valuable to my personal journey in developing better nutritional habits and mountain biking performance.
  • Anonymous
    This course is really fantastic.I came to know in details the importance of exercise and having healthy food enriched with vitamins,minerals and proteins. I never knew in details as to why it is important to ingest a correct quantity and the time to…
  • Anonymous
    This course integrates traditional sports education with sports nutrition, emphasizing the importance of nutrition in athletic performance and recovery. It comprehensively explains how diet impacts an athlete's health and exercise outcomes. The curr…
  • Anonymous
    Personally found it very enlightening. The information was presented in chunks in an easy to understand format. The presenters did an excellent job in the way the information was provided. The content was excellent and covered all aspects in a very…
  • Anonymous
    este curso me ha parece un excelente aprendizaje, facil de comprender y una buena y bonita dinamica de enseñanza.
    realmente es muy bonita la experiencia del estudio de este curso, hay muchos temas sumamente interesantes, importantes, practicos y llenos de profundidad, como las oportunidades para diseñar planes nutricionales en los diferentes campos que se maneja en este curso, o alimentos nutricionales complementarios. ya terminenado este curso quisiera promover el estudio y motivar a las otras personas que participen de este curso para que descubran un mundo de enseñanzas que son sumamente importantes y practicas, aplicables a nuestra vida diaria, para gozar de salud, belleza y dinamismo
  • Anonymous
    I recently completed the "Nutrition, Exercise and Sports" course and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The course content was comprehensive and well-structured, covering all the essential topics related to nutrition and exercise science. The instructors were knowledgeable and engaging, making complex concepts easy to understand. The practical applications and real-life examples provided valuable insights into how nutrition impacts athletic performance. Overall, this course has significantly enhanced my understanding of the interplay between diet and exercise, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in sports nutrition or improving their fitness regime.
  • Anonymous
    This is my first course i took about sport and nutrition and i dont regret it at all.
    since i am well into training (more then 6 years) i wanted to learn and concrete my knowledge in fitness.
    This Course did exactly that since it gradually introduced me in the world of micro/macro nutrients , energy stores , amino acids , vitamins , minerals and much much more things which were perfectly explained and easy to understand.
    i am very grateful that i actually committed and gave my all to finish it and use it in my day to day life
    Thank you guys
    Stefan
  • Anonymous
    I saw this course and thought I would give it a try - it was very interesting and gave some very useful information regards exercise and correct nutrition. I found all of the presenters interesting and enthusiastic about their subject. I am getting on in years so I was particularly interested in the section about older people and how to maintain muscle mass and to stay fit into older age. I am now working on a plan to improve my diet and exercise going forwards.
  • Anonymous
    Good Course. Useful information. For practising people good inputs and examples.
    Thank you.
    You can add more MCQ in the modules and more pictorial teaching material.
    More question to be included to solve at the end of each Video.

    Video quality can be better.
    More downloads should be there.
    Overall a good Course
  • Anonymous
    i liked every aspect of this course, the information, the presenter.
    I learn a lot, it was delivered and presented in a way that made it simple to understand. The guests speakers were clear, and really calm. the whole experience was great. I would recommend it to anyone seeking knowledge in this topic
  • Anonymous
    Very good course for me, because I am fitness coach and I really like sport. I should know a lot about sport, because I want give results to my people. It is a big responsibility for me, so this course was really helpful for me. And I advice people who lives and interested in sport to start this course.
  • Anonymous
    every speaker is so good they elaborate the topic smoothly and correctly. I appreciate everything that they said is accurate to the topic so I'm thankful that I got an opportunity to enroll in this kind of class thank you very much for this wonderful session. Thank you for the speakers.
  • Anonymous
    Very well put together course, I very much enjoyed the learning process and gained much from taking this course. I highly recommend this for folks wanting to learn more behind the importance of nutrition and exercise in particular to older members of our population.
  • Devidutta Panda
    A very well-tailored course. It explains the concepts exceptionally well and answers many questions regarding food, nutrition and exercise which always bothers us. This course will definitely help people to help themselves and others around.
  • Anonymous
    Good for people with a bit of background in nutrition. If this is your first time taking a course on nutrition, perhaps consider looking into some introductory courses. Otherwise, it had a lot of good info for athletes and coaches.
  • Anonymous
    The course is very useful..
    We can go the diet of food. And what are the activities we should to maintain the body fit..
    It's really helpful course...
    What are the benefits of nutrition to our body ..thanku
  • Anonymous
    exceeded my expectation, very education for someone that wants to improve their life, as well as for someone that wants to further pursue this domain, laying a great foundation of knowledge
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