Boosting overall athletic performance -
Caffeine is a well-documented ergogenic aid in performance research, and its use in sports dates all the way back to the s. Most of us consume caffeine because of its ability to increase alertness how else are we going to make it through a work day?
Whether you like to spend your weekends on the rugby field or trying to set PRs in the gym, current research supports the benefits of caffeine in sports and high-intensity intermittent exercise.
Because many fitness activities are played outdoors in the heat and humidity or in poorly ventilated gyms, maintaining proper hydration status is critical for optimal performance. If you're limited to water breaks, make sure to consume ounces of fluid hours prior to your activity, and another 8 ounces right before you start play.
After competition, begin rehydrating immediately, aiming to get in another ounces of fluids for every pound of bodyweight you lost via sweat. It's mile five of the Tough Mudder and you still have ditches to hurdle, ladders to climb, and walls to scale.
When pride and bragging rights between you and your buddies are at stake, you need all the help you can get! Enter beta-alanine. During high-intensity activity, your body accumulates hydrogen ions, causing a drop in your pH level, ultimately resulting in fatigue.
Beta-alanine supplementation has been shown to increase intramuscular carnosine content, thereby increasing the body's ability to buffer hydrogen ions and delay fatigue. Beta-alanine supplementation can help improve your exercise performance and training volume, which will ultimately help solidify your right to gloat for another year.
Physical activity puts stress on your body, and that stress increases the longer, harder, or more frequently you engage in fitness.
Recovery, then, becomes more critical as your training increases, and protein is essential for recovery.
Keep in mind that protein is rarely used as an energy substrate i. However it's still essential for the repair, construction, and maintenance of muscle mass. Consuming protein after a tough workout will not only increase protein synthesis rates, but will help you recover faster so that you're ready to dominate your next event!
Fish oil is an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are key players in the recovery process. EPA and DHA—two essential fatty acids found in fish oils—may support a healthy inflammation response after exercise. This may help to reduce the post-exercise muscle soreness often felt for hours or days after strenuous or unaccustomed exercise.
Omega-3s are also critical for building and maintaining muscles, and they may help you recover faster and train harder! Ciaran received his M. in Kinesiology and is working towards a doctorate. He holds certifications through the ACSM and CISSN.
Far too many athletes think they need to match calories out with equal amounts of calories in. Guess what—simple sugars glucose, sucrose, fructose, and dextrose are garbage. They have no place in your body.
Simple sugars give you energy peaks and crashes, and they also have a severe limitation on absorption. Complex carbohydrates, however, absorb at about three times the rate as simple sugars.
Plus you get smooth, steady, reliable energy—no peaks and valleys. Yes, complex carbohydrates do contain, as part of their naturally occurring structure, a small percentage of 1- or 2-chain sugars.
You have two choices:. Do not use it before or during because the added glutamine quickly degrades to produce ammonia. Soy or rice gives you the protein you need with minimal extra ammonia production.
After exercise, when ammonia production is not an issue, glutamine-enhanced whey protein is great for immune system boosting, muscle tissue rebuilding, and enhanced glycogen synthesis. Solid food is harder to digest than liquid, and it requires more time, water, and electrolytes.
Relying too heavily on solid foods can leave you feeling lethargic, bloated, and nauseated. Liquid fuels digest and absorb readily, so you avoid those unwanted maladies.
Most of all, avoid all junk foods, which contain lots of saturated fats and refined sugars, at all times. Instead, you get cramps, spasms, muscle revolt, irregular and rapid heartbeat, and major bonk.
Salt is just one of several electrolytes you need to replenish during exercise. Calcium, magnesium, and potassium also play key roles in fulfilling electrolyte requirements.
How much salt is enough? You need to experiment and find your own range for any given weather condition and duration of exercise.
These all must be tested and refined in training. Because all Hammer fuels are specific and formulated to easily combine with one another, you have all the flexibility you need to ensure that you can tailor a fueling program for any length of race, regardless of conditions.
Caloric intakes that worked during training may not be appropriate during a race; you may need to consume slightly less in a race than you did during training. Increased anxiety, increased pace, and increased potential for dehydration all contribute to the possibility of a less-than-optimally functioning digestive system.
In addition, at the increased pace during a race, more blood is diverted from digestion and directed toward maintaining muscle performance. You may need to alter that game plan which may mean a slightly lower hourly intake of calories to accommodate the possibility of a less-than-optimal digestive system.
Equally important as your workout muscle exhaustion and nutrient depletion is what you do immediately following your workout muscle repair and nutrient replenishment. An ideal and easy-to-use post-workout fuel is Recoverite, with its ratio of complex carbohydrates and protein.
Increasing and maximizing muscle glycogen stores takes many weeks of consistent training and post-workout fuel replenishment. Do you know what happens when you eat within three hours of exercise?
Your muscle glycogen stores get burned much more rapidly. definitely not performance-enhancing! Not possible to get up and eat three hours before the race? Read on. Are you telling me I have to get up at 3 a.
or so just to eat? Bottom line: do not sacrifice sleep just to eat. The key, in terms of muscle glycogen depletion rates, is in the timing. If you must eat before the start of your race, you need to complete consumption three hours prior.
The goal of the pre-race meal is to top off your liver glycogen, which has been depleted during your sleep. A pre-race meal of calories—comprised of complex carbohydrates, perhaps a small amount of soy or rice protein, and little or no fiber or fat, and consumed three hours prior to the start of the race—is quite sufficient.
You can download a free copy at www. Steve Born is a technical advisor for E-CAPS with over a decade of involvement in the health food industry.
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