Use, Practices and Attitudes of Sports Nutrition and Strength and Conditioning Practitioners towards Tart Cherry Supplementation

Abstract

Tart cherry (TC) supplementation has been shown to accelerate post-exercise recovery, enhance endurance performance and improve sleep duration and quality. This study aimed to identify the use, practices and attitudes of sports nutrition and strength and conditioning practitioners towards tart cherry supplementation. Thirty-five practitioners anonymously completed an online survey investigating their use, practices and attitudes towards tart cherry supplements. Forty-six percent of the responders were currently recommending TC supplements, 11% had previously recommended TC supplements and 26% have not previously recommended TC supplements but were planning on doing so in the future. Of those recommending TC, 50% recommended or were planning on recommending TC supplements to enhance exercise recovery and 26% to improve sleep duration and quality. Acute supplementation and daily use during multi-day competition or demanding training blocks with a 2–3-day pre-load were the most reported supplementation recommendations (28% and 18%, respectively). Fifty-two percent of responders indicated uncertainty about the daily polyphenol dose to recommend as part of a TC supplementation protocol. Despite the high use and interest from sports nutrition and strength and conditioning practitioners in TC supplements, their practices did not align with the protocols found to be effective within the literature.

Use, Practices and Attitudes of Elite and Sub-Elite Athletes towards Tart Cherry Supplementation

“…However, evidence in this area is equivocal, and similarly to sleep, the majority of data in this area have not been generated from a healthy and active population. The discrepancy between use of TC supplements for sleep promotion and the current evidence for the efficacy of sleep as an application was also identified in a study of TC use by sports science practitioners [35]; which further reinforces the need for research into the effects of TC supplementation on sleep in young healthy populations. Interestingly, the first use of TC supplements was evenly split with 50% of athletes who had used or were using TC supplements having first used TC supplements at an elite level, and 50% at a sub-elite level.…”

“…Furthermore, many studies investigating recovery do not report dose timings at all [1,4,38], and thus it is impossible to quantify what differences are due to the acute versus the chronic supplementation period. The multitude of different supplementation protocols used in applied settings is also something that was shown when sports science practitioners were surveyed to assess their use and practices of TC supplements [35].…”

“…However, athlete knowledge of and understanding around the use of supplements has previously been shown to be poor [32][33][34]. Furthermore, the use and practices of TC supplementation by sports science practitioners has also been shown to be divergent from the literature [35], and thus we hypothesized that similar findings may be uncovered in athletes, many of whom, in elite settings, are likely to be provided with information and supplementation strategies from sports science practitioners.…”

The effects of fresh foods on performance: A review

“…Cherry belongs to the Rosaceae group, which is a stone fruit family. It has phytochemicals such as polyphenols, phenolic acids, and flavonoids, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, and its phytochemical content is intensely composed of anthocyanins, hydroxycinnamic acid, and flavon-3ols (Sabou et al, 2020). In one hundred grams of the edible part of the cherry; 82.2 g water, 16 g carbohydrates, 2.1 g dietary fiber, 13 mg Ca, 0.36 mg Fe, 11 mg Mg, 21 mg P, 222 mg K, 7 mg vitamin C, 4 µg folate, 38 µg It has ß carotene, 2.1 µg vitamin K (USDA, 2019a).…”