Performance Nutrition

There is no place like Nebraska when it comes to the high-performance fueling of hard-working athletes. Nebraska Performance Nutrition has a long-standing tradition of setting the highest standard for the ‘food first’ approach to fueling. Ask any of our student-athletes, in leadership positions, who compare notes with their contemporaries at Big Ten Conference and national leadership meetings. The Nebraska Performance Nutrition program is setting the standard for student-athlete welfare across collegiate athletics and beyond. 

Nebraska has its own Executive Chef, Mike Steele, who innovates the menus under the guidance of Director of Performance Nutrition Dave Ellis, who is widely considered to be a leader in the high-performance fueling field. At Nebraska, we have our own kitchen and our own culinary staff, that also means we have the ability to source a food supply that is the best when it comes to fresh, natural and organic sources that we know and trust. 

Nebraska has four full-time Registered Dietitians (Sports RDs) on staff who help our athletes navigate the managed food supply that is served at each meal. Athletes are taught to follow a three-step approach called Fueling Tactics® that was conceived right here at Nebraska over three decades ago. It’s a simple system, where food is merchandised in three steps, each delivering a health and performance benefit for hard-working athletes. 

Together with adequate sleep and a clean lifestyle, free of drugs or alcohol, fueling yourself over the course of a day will dictate how efficiently you recover from your training. The ultimate benefit to following this plan is that you have a shot at outworking the competition, which translates into a winning performance on game day. 

No one can hand these benefits to you. It is up to you to develop habits that become part of a routine for an elite athlete.  Olympic and professional athletes have rock solid routines that are resilient to distractions, while they are self-sufficient when it comes to feeding themselves. That is why you will have the chance, while you are at Nebraska, to learn how to cook your own food in our Life Skills Kitchen (LSK). At each meal, in the training table, you will have the opportunity to learn cooking skills that will carry over on weekends and off-days when you might find yourself defaulting to fast food as a solution. Instead, Nebraska athletes will have the skills and confidence to prepare their own meals and that is a pro routine. 

Nebraska’s ‘food first’ approach to outworking the competition, does not end at the training table. Our four full-time Sports RDs orchestrate meals on the road for your team and offer fueling solutions before and after workouts or competition. This attention to detail helps you get those critically timed sources of fuel and fluids that hard-working muscles require in just the right amounts. To make fueling convenient when training, we have two locations adjacent to the weight rooms where grab and go nutrition support is available to all our student-athletes. 

Ready-to-Eat and To-Go Meals 
If you get into a jam and do not have time to cook a meal, we have you covered with a ready-to-eat food supply and to-go meals that offer fueling solutions when you have class conflicts. Meal service windows are wide open for Nebraska athletes to eat Monday through Friday. 

Meals and Times: Breakfast: Enhanced fueling options available at the fueling stations

• Lunch: 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. 
• Dinner: 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Nebraska’s four full-time Sports RDs, collectively, have more than six decades of experience working in sports. Experience is key because sports require some  unique skill sets such as knowing how to help drug tested athletes avoid inadvertent adverse analytical findings (AAFs/positive drug test) that can result from adulterated dietary supplements. Nebraska Sports RDs are the most highly trained in the emerging field of Food and Supplement Security. All our student-athletes will be educated on the vulnerability that they expose themselves and teammates to when selecting dietary supplements without the guidance of their team Sports RD vs. sticking to third party tested supplements that we supply as an athletic department. Athletes are taught to never use something from a teammate’s locker. Ultimately, every athlete lives with the strict liability for taking ownership of what they ingest when it comes to investigations behind a positive drug test. The Sports RDs at Nebraska are here to help our student-athletes navigate what is a highly unreliable dietary supplement industry. To learn more about third-party certification programs that verify safety of dietary supplements and highly fortified conventional foods, go to NSF Certified for Sport at www.nsfsport.com. 

Other areas that our Sports RDs can help personalize your program include: 

• Lean Mass Testing – DEXA based assessment to optimize power-to-weight ratio. 
• Frame Testing – to assess maximum lean mass weight carrying capacity. 
• Off-Season Body Composition Change Planning – big moves in body composition should only happen during the off-season and require thoughtful coordination between Sports RDs and the Strength Staff. 
• Hydration/Sweat Rate Analysis – ensure adequate hydration strategies and buffering tactics to minimize the risk of cramping and injury risk for sickle trait athletes. 
• Saliva/Urine/Blood Analysis – screen and monitor for insufficiency/deficiency of nutrition markers for performance cut-offs. 
• Cooking / Grocery Shopping Classes – important in the summer when athletes move off campus for the first time. 
• Dietary Supplement Review – disclosures upon arrival to campus of what is being used is critical to avoid a positive doping test that can result from use of adulterated dietary supplements or highly fortified functional foods. 

The Nebraska Performance Nutrition team has set an unprecedented standard in sports with over 90 health professionals working daily to help our student-athletes outwork the completion. That is simply unmatched in sports. 
Performance Nutrition Staff 

• Director of Performance Nutrition: Dave Ellis, RD, (719) 502-1276 
• Asst. Director of Performance Nutrition: Lisa Kopecky, RD, (402) 326-0800 
• Coordinator: Nuwanee Kirihennedige, RD (719) 459-2577 
• Coordinator: Jake Blattner, RD (507) 696-5935 

NU Athletic Communications