HER GAME TOO...WITH LAUREN WELCH

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Saturday's game is our dedicated Her Game Too fixture, here Lauren shares her story

2025-03-08T11:00:00.000Z

HER GAME TOO...WITH LAUREN WELCH

Saturday's game is our dedicated Her Game Too fixture, here Lauren shares her story

2025-03-08T11:00:00.000Z

Saturday's game is our dedicated Her Game Too fixture, here Lauren shares her story

From an internship to full time employment with the first team, Lauren Welch has had quite the experience at Burnley. Nutritionist for Scott Parker’s side, she plays a key role in ensuring players daily diet and nutrition maximise their performance, training, and recovery.

“I’ve been at Burnley since October 2023. I started as Academy & Women’s Nutrition intern, then became Academy & Women’s Nutritionist and now I’m the men’s first team Nutritionist.

“I started off doing Sports Rehab at university and I thought to myself I’m not cut out to be a Sports Rehabber! At the time I was getting into sport, I’ve always done gymnastics, a lot of running whilst I was at uni. I found it really interesting how food could manipulate your performance. So, I became quite selfishly interested in it and thought I best do something else, so I did Nutrition, and I absolutely love it!”

So, what sort of tasks does Lauren complete day-to-day?

“Every day is different, but my non-negotiables of the day include making sure that all the players have got supplements in the morning. I always make sure that they’ve got their water bottles for training. They’ll usually get a protein shake and a snack after they come in from training sessions, depending on the type of training session and whether that’s required for the day.

“In between that I’ll liaise with the chefs, I’ll make sure that the menus are all in order to make sure that they’re getting what they need.

“In addition to that I’ll do meal plans, food diaries, menus for away trips, I’ll prep for away trips to make sure they’ve got all their supplements. That all fills my day up quite nicely really!”

Working daily in an elite sporting environment just how important is nutrition in ensuring that the players can perform at their best?

“I am obviously biased, so I’d say it’s really important! But I think in elite sport everyone always looks for the next one percent and that’s why we try and control absolutely everything we can. Nutrition is a really good way to manipulate and shift towards getting to those one percents. The one percent might be the difference between winning and losing, or scoring a goal, making a good pass, whatever it might be.

“Also, food is culture. Food is really important to everybody. It’s also vital that they aren’t just eating to fuel performance, they’re eating for enjoyment and all the other aspects of life too.

“It can be a massive injury risk if they under fuel or even over fuel, there’s lots of components. If they’re under fuelled, they can get injured, pick-up little niggles here and there and that can be ironed out quite often with just some minor tweaks to their diet.”

Does Lauren find any of the players are more interested in nutrition and the impact it can have over others?

“There’s a lot of players who really enjoy nutrition. It just depends on the type of person that you are. Some players will be more interested in physio and strength & conditioning, that’s just them individually having more of an interest in that area.

“There are a few players who like to be on top of their nutrition and keep me accountable a lot of the time! Which is good.”

In recent years nutrition and the science and data around it has increased which Lauren believes has contributed to a greater understanding.

“I’m still quite new in my career so I’ve not necessarily seen a ton of change yet. But it is a very new discipline and there’s new research and new science coming out all the time. So that means that everyone can learn things and keep pushing forward to become the best athletes they can be, the best nutritionists, the best sports scientists, whatever it might be. There has been a shift.

“There’s been a shift around nutrition in the sport world. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m in that space, but I feel like it’s shifted a lot more to fuelling for your performance rather than fuelling to manipulate and you need to exercise, exercise, exercise. There’s a bit more of an understanding around nutrition in general.”

Today’s game against Luton Town is the Club’s dedicated Her Game Too fixture. As a female in a role with the men’s first team, how important does Lauren believe it is to have females working in sport?

“I think it’s really important in the sense that it’s vital to have a mix of all different people in an environment. Women balance out men and men balance out women. Everyone brings their own experiences, thoughts and ideas to the table and it’s good to see different perspectives. Having that extra dimension in an environment is a really positive thing.

“I’m proud to work in sport and I’m proud of my own achievements but I don’t really think about it. I don’t think I’ve got here because I’m a woman or I don’t think that was held against me in any way. I’ve worked hard to get here and that’s what’s happened.”

Finally, with a busy role fuelling players for an intense schedule of games and training, what would Lauren say is her favourite thing about her job?

“It’s a really fun job! Obviously, there’s a lot of pressure tied to it, and you have to work hard every day. But it’s such a nice, enjoyable, fun environment to be in and every day I wake up and I think I’m so lucky to be coming into work. I’ve got really good relationships with staff and players, I enjoy it.”