Athletes across a wide range of sports use a variety of dietary supplements from multivitamins and antioxidants to meal replacements and muscle builders. Across the American population (of non-athletes), approximately 65% classify themselves as “regular” supplement users (taking a supplement on more days than not). When it comes to athletes in “power” sports such as football, track & field, weight lifting and bodybuilding, the reported supplement usage is close to 100%.

Certainly, we can see the growth in advertising of nutritional products to triathletes – the pages of every tri-magazine are filled with all manner of drinks, gels, bars, and pills. Unfortunately, we’ve never really know very much about which supplement products triathletes are using (and why) until now.

Our research lab has recently completed a study on dietary supplement use in triathletes. The purpose of the research was to develop a greater understanding of the awareness, perceptions, and usage of dietary supplements in triathletes. The data has been presented at the International Society of Sports Nutrition Annual Scientific Conference in Las Vegas (June 2007) – and hopefully, it will help us understand how to more completely address both the nutritional and educational needs of triathletes.

The Study

We recruited 326 triathletes from events in Texas, California, and Oklahoma and asked them to complete a 50-question survey about their use (or not) of dietary supplements. Among these athletes, 174 (71 women and 103 men) were competing at Iron-distance events and 152 (63 women and 89 men) were competing at Olympic distance events. The demographics of each group are presented in the shown table.

As you can see from the data above, the Iron-distance athletes were a little older and had a somewhat higher income as compared to the Olympic-distance athletes. The Iron-distance athletes also tended to buy more (or more expensive) supplements based on their higher monthly expenditures.

What did we find?

It was clear that triathletes in general are avid supplement users (100% of our 326 participants were current supplement users). When we looked at differences in supplement knowledge and usage between the groups, some interesting facts appeared.

For example, we found that while more than 90% of all triathletes get most of their information about supplements from 2 places (internet and friend/training partners), a subset of Iron-distance athletes relied heavily on their coaches/trainers as their preferred source of supplement information. A solid 90% of triathletes at both distances told us that they had difficulty in finding accurate information about supplements – and that they needed more information to make the best decisions between products.

When we asked about nutrient intake from FOOD (rather than supplements), 80% of Iron-distance and 84% of Olympic distance athletes felt that they did NOT get all the nutrients they needed form their food – and thus felt that they needed a daily supplement.

The top reasons for triathletes taking a daily dietary supplement were because they didn’t “eat right” all the time (89%); for extra energy (82%); and to perform better (73%). The most frequently used dietary supplements (90% or more of participants) were carbohydrate/electrolyte beverages and multivitamins. We found a difference between Iron and Olympic triathletes when it came to using “specialized” sports supplements, with the longer-distance athletes using substantially more supplements intended as antioxidants, recovery-aids, and endurance enhancers (52-56% of Iron-distance and only 30-44% of Olympic athletes used these specialized products).

Likewise, we found that 82-95% of triathletes at both distances took their supplements before or during exercise, but Iron athletes were about twice as likely as Olympic athletes to also supplement their diets after exercise (54% versus 29%) – which suggests a higher use of recovery-enhancement types of products.

Conclusion

It makes sense that a highly educate and affluent population such as triathletes would be avid users of dietary supplements, so this data helps to put some context around what products they’re using and why they’re choosing them. It was interesting to see that triathletes at the longer distances were supplementing 20-30% more frequently with products intended for endurance, recovery, and for use after exercise.

Our next steps in extending this research are to learn how we can best educate triathletes about supplements. For example, athletes tell us that

they want and need more accurate information about supplements – but does that mean that we should post more information to the internet (where most are getting their information now)? Is it more effective to reach out to coaches and trainers (because they work directly with the athletes and could “screen” out the ineffective or dangerous supplements)? Do triathletes want to know more about the health benefits or more about the performance benefits (or both) of a given supplement? Maybe they just want to know that it’s endorsed by their favorite professional athlete?

At this point in time, we can say with confidence that triathletes are using supplements at a higher rate than the average American couch spud – but somewhat less frequently than in some of the power/strength sports. Hopefully, our efforts will lead to strategies to help educate triathletes and other endurance athletes about the pros and cons of choosing and using dietary supplements in the best way to enhance their own physical and mental performance.

About the Author: Shawn M. Talbott, Ph.D. is Research Director for SupplementWatch (www.supplementwatch.com) and Chief Scientific Officer for Wicked Fast Sports Nutrition (www.wickedfastsportsnutrition.com). He supplements his diet, and those of his wife and 2 kids, while training for Ironman-distance triathlons in Draper, Utah.

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