Dr Andy Sparks

Profile

Research Interests

Andy’s research interest is primarily in endurance exercise performance, especially cycling. His work mainly focuses on the acute factors that affect sport and exercise performance, either via nutritional interventions (amino acids, macronutrients, dietary nitrate, sodium bicarbonate and fluid) or by manipulating environmental factors (ambient temperature, altitude, competitor presence, verbal encouragement). Each of these areas of interest have potentially wide reaching impact for large proportions of the population, and it is this rather than elite sport performance which he is using as the basis to increase the reach and impact of his research work. Recently he has been engaging with the popular media in order to translate complex research into easy to understand and usable information. This approach can have meaningful impact on those wanting to enhance exercise performance, adherence and optimising nutritional intake. Andy is publishing regularly in high impact peer-reviewed journals, and currently has over 60 of these publications.

Teaching

Andy leads the Sport and Exercise Nutrition pathway on the Sport and Exercise Science BSc Programme, and supervises MRes and PhD students.

• Nutrition in Soccer: A brief review of the issues and solutions
• Four weeks of probiotic supplementation reduces GI symptoms during a marathon race
• High dose Nitrate ingestion does not improve 40 km cycling time trial performance in trained cyclists
• A Novel Ingestion Strategy for Sodium Bicarbonate Supplementation in a Delayed-Release Form
• The effects of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on cycling performance and acid base balance recovery in acute normobaric hypoxia.