Academy Nutritionist

Stoke City Football Club of the English Football League is looking for an Academy Nutritionist to support Academy operations at its training ground facility at Clayton Wood in Trent Vale.

The successful applicant will be responsible for the nutritional provisions across the Academy players. You will develop and deliver the Academy performance nutrition strategy, providing high level, evidence based nutritional support that optimises the performance of the players depending on age, and contributing to the maintenance and development of an elite high performance environment.

Role Responsibilities:

• Engage Academy players and parents, ensuring they understand and implement good nutritional management.
• Employing strategies to support the training and match day demands of players whilst showcasing an in-depth understanding of the scientific principles underpinning sports nutrition.
• Developing and implementing individualised nutrition strategies based on individual assessments such as blood tests, recovery from injury performance and development targets.
• Relevant to age, undertake regular body composition assessments using the ISAK Protocol to determine each player’s ideal physique characteristics, conduct comprehensive dietary analysis to determine each player’s nutritional status and provide bespoke interventions to support performance, training, and rehab goals.
• Implementing strategies to support players’ training and competitive programmes, demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge of the science that supports sports nutrition.
• Educating players, support staff and parents on how dietary strategies can enhance performance, recovery, and health, through the application of evidenced based nutritional interventions, practically and pragmatically applied in the field.
• Adopting a ‘food first’ approach when delivering nutrition education to all players and coaches.
• Sourcing and ordering of nutritional products and maintaining up to date records of all batch tested products club wide.
• Working collaboratively with the Academy Director, Head of Academy Sports Science, Club Nutritionist and the catering team to ensure that meal provision at the training ground align with the performance demands of the team/individual age groups.
• Working collaboratively across the multi-disciplinary team to share information regarding nutrition/assessment results, health, monitoring, and any other relevant issues.

Qualifications:

• BSC in Sports Science (or related discipline).
• Higher degree (IOC diploma in sports nutrition or PGCert/Dip/Masters in Sports Nutrition).
• Practitioner registrant on Sports and Exercise Nutrition Register (Graduate minimum and working towards full practitioner status within a year).
• ISAK level 1 (or above) accreditation.
• Food Hygiene Certificate.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Exceptional communication skills.
• Significant experience in the provision of nutritional support to professional athletes and coaches.
• Significant experience working within a multidisciplinary team in the delivery of performance nutrition support in elite sport.
• Experience of analysing the demands of a sport in relation to their nutrition needs to develop, implement, and evaluate nutrition strategies.
• Understanding rehabilitation, recovery, regeneration and robustness practices.
• Able to translate evidence based nutrition information into understandable and motivational advice for players.

The ideal candidate will be available to work evenings and weekends, with a willingness to travel as and when the role requires.