I'm Dr Laurent Bannock — sport and exercise nutrition practitioner, educator, researcher, consultant, entrepreneur, and founder of The Institute of Performance Nutrition (IOPN).
For more than 30 years, I've dedicated my professional life to advancing evidence-informed sport and exercise nutrition and helping practitioners bridge the gap between science and real-world practice.
My journey has not been linear. It began with curiosity, developed through years in the trenches with athletes, coaches, and performance teams, and matured through postgraduate study, doctoral research, and the creation of education pathways designed to improve how evidence is translated into practice.
What I learned from these environments has shaped who I am — as a practitioner, a mentor, and a person.
Watch behind the scenes with Dr Laurent Bannock, nutritionist to the Belgium Men’s National Football Team.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working with athletes, teams, and professionals performing at the highest level. This has included World Cups and European Championships with the Belgium Men’s National Football Team (during their FIFA World No. 1 ranking), elite rugby athletes, Olympic fencers, world-ranked tennis players, UFC fighters, a British heavyweight boxing champion, racing drivers, and UK special forces units.
I’ve also supported high-profile clients in film, music, and business, as well as many dedicated individuals outside elite sport. These experiences — across environments where the margins for success are incredibly small — have shaped how I understand performance, decision-making, communication, and what truly drives results.
I’ve seen what excellence looks like under pressure, how high-performing teams operate, and how context shapes every choice we make. These lessons underpin everything I teach today — helping practitioners develop clarity, confidence, and mastery, whether they’re working with elite performers or everyday clients.
Before becoming an educator and institute founder, I was a practitioner trying to navigate the same challenges many professionals face today: endless new research, conflicting opinions, and the difficulty of applying theory in complex human environments.
Working with elite athletes, coaches, and performance teams across national and international sport taught me two things:
This realisation shaped my entire career.
In 2014, I founded The Institute of Performance Nutrition with a clear purpose: to create rigorous, evidence-informed, practice-focused education for sport and exercise nutrition professionals.
Since then, the IOPN has grown into a globally recognised institute delivering university-validated programmes and supporting practitioners around the world.
Better practitioners create better outcomes — for athletes, clients, and the profession as a whole. This is the foundation on which I’ve built my teaching, my curriculum design, and my entire approach to bridging the science-to-practice gap.
All of those challenges, detours, and moments of uncertainty shaped the practitioner I eventually became. They taught me not only how to build a career, but how to help others build theirs. And as my journey progressed, I found myself working in environments that tested everything I had learned — and helped me grow even further.
My doctoral research focused on the evidence-to-practice gap in sport and exercise nutrition — how practitioners interpret, contextualise, and apply research in real-world environments.
This work helped shape the principles that now underpin my teaching, consulting, writing, podcasting, and the IOPN:
Today, my work sits across education, media, writing, consulting, and professional practice — all connected by the same aim: helping practitioners, coaches, organisations, and performance professionals apply evidence more effectively in context.
Across each platform, the mission is the same: to bridge the gap between science and practice and raise the standard of applied sport and exercise nutrition.
Weekly insights on sport and exercise nutrition, applied decision-making, and evidence-informed practice.
Long-form conversations with leading researchers, practitioners, and experts in sport and exercise nutrition, performance, and applied science.
University-validated sport and exercise nutrition education for practitioners seeking rigorous, evidence-informed professional development.
Expert support for athletes, teams, organisations, and professionals seeking evidence-informed nutrition strategy, education, and performance support.
The field needs better translation between research and real-world practice.
Professionals need to think critically, apply evidence intelligently, communicate effectively, and understand the human context behind performance, health, and behaviour.
Everything I create — from postgraduate education and professional resources to newsletters, podcasts, articles, and consulting — is designed to support that aim.
Because when practitioners make better decisions, they create better outcomes for athletes, clients, teams, and the wider profession.
As my personal brand continues to evolve, my commitment remains the same:
Evidence. Context. Practice.
Whether you are a student, practitioner, coach, athlete, organisation, or fellow educator, my goal is to help you make better sense of the science and apply it more effectively in the real world.
This is my life’s work — and the next chapter is about bringing that work together more clearly across my writing, newsletter, podcast, consulting, and the IOPN.
Research insights, practical perspectives, and We Do Science conversations—for sports nutritionists, nutrition coaches and fitness professionals.