Which supplements do athletes take and why?
Elite athletes routinely use dietary supplements to boost performance and recovery, with experts estimating that anywhere from 90% to virtually all professional competitors take some form of supplementation. The practice traces back to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when British athletes secretly trialled creatine, a compound that became mainstream after roughly 80% of athletes were using it by the 1996 Games. This matters because, under strict liability rules, athletes are solely responsible for anything they ingest, making informed and careful supplement use essential to avoid inadvertent doping violations.
Creatine, naturally found in meat and fish, boosts short-duration, high-intensity performance and would require around a kilogram of raw chicken daily to match supplement doses, which is impractical and unsafe. Professor Graeme Close of Liverpool John Moores University says food should be the first source of nutrients, but supplements fill gaps supermarket food and cooking cannot practically provide. The global dietary supplements market was valued at $209.5bn (£154bn) in 2025 and is projected to reach $431.7bn (£317.4bn) by 2033, reflecting the industry's rapid growth since creatine's breakthrough sparked wider interest in sports nutrition.
- Up to 100% of elite athletes reportedly use supplements for performance and recovery.
- Creatine's use dates back secretly to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
- Global supplements market set to more than double to $431.7bn by 2033.
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Elite athletes almost universally rely on dietary supplements alongside their normal diet, aiming to improve performance and speed up recovery from training and competition. The habit is not new: it dates back at least to the early 1990s, when British athletes began experimenting with creatine, a substance later adopted widely across professional sport. Because supplements are unregulated in the way medicines are, and because athletes are held fully responsible for anything found in their system, the choice of what to take carries real risk as well as potential benefit.
Creatine is one of the best-known examples. It occurs naturally in foods such as meat and fish, but getting an equivalent amount through diet alone would mean eating impractically large quantities each day, which is why concentrated supplements are used instead. Sports nutrition specialists generally advise that food should remain the main source of nutrients, with supplements used to cover gaps that ordinary meals cannot realistically fill.
This is also a large and fast-growing commercial industry, worth over 200 billion dollars globally and expected to roughly double within the next decade. That scale means the products athletes use sit at the intersection of sports science, anti-doping rules and a sizeable consumer market, which is part of why what elite competitors take, and why, continues to draw public interest.