NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENT USE AMONG TRIATHLON ATHLETES IN SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

Resumo

Endurance sports have growing popularity, particulary in third world countries like Brazil. Both amateurs and professionals athletes pursue to improve their performance, where the comsumption of supplements also increases. The aim of this study is to evaluate competitors in Troféu Brasil de Thriatlon (Brazil Thriathlon Tropheu) focusing the quality of use nutritional supplements. Methods: Data from a 37 individuals, 19-45 y/o men, professional and amateurs, from the 4º etapa de troféu Brasil de Thriatlon Olímpico were collected. A questionary was applyed to competitors. Descritive analyses were conducted comparing mean ± SD, frequencies and percentage using Statistics® 7.0 (StatSoft, Inc.). Results: The athletes’ profiles are: 31.23 ± 6,66 y/o with 72.92 ± 6.29 kg, 1,77 ± 0.05 height and BMI of 3.12 ± 1,50 kg/m². Results: The majority of practitioners are specialized in Olympic Ironman (64.9%) and the use of nutritional supplementation is around 97.4%, where 22.5% are supplied by national production. Ten per cent of individuals received physical educator accompaniment, 37% receive nutritional accompaniment, 10% receive both and 27.5% does not receive any accompaniment to use supplements. Conclusion: The use of nutritional supplements had high prevalence in the collected group and the majority of individuals did not use properly professional accompaniment.

Keywords: Management in health. Nutrition. Supplements. Athletes. Triathlon.