Stephen Cheuk, founder of S10 training adds science to your workout. Your output in the gym only goes as far as how you fuel. The multi-vitamin is the most diverse vitamin one can add to their diet. These supplements provide all the basic micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that the body needs. Over 50 essential nutrients have been recommended for daily intake to help eradicate deficiency and disease. In the past decade, science and healthcare have been paying closer attention to the important roles of supplements for daily balance. Here are Stephen's
Top Five Supplements for Athletes:
1 .BCAA's (Branch Chain Amino Acids) Made up of 3 essential amino acids leucine, isoleucine and valine. They make up 35% of all muscle tissue. The more found in muscles, the more it slows down the breakdown of muscles and prevents muscle loss.
- Enhances protein synthesis
- Supports hormone balance during intense training
- Reduces soreness
- Prevents muscle loss
2. Probiotic These aid in digestion and absorption of nutrients in the gut. The healthy bacteria improves gastrointestinal health, prevents allergies, liver disease and decreases inflammation. Most neurotransmitters are found in your gut, these are the chemicals involved in brain function and mood healthy gut equals healthy mind.
3. Magnesium Americans are chronically deficent in this mineral. It is one of the most improtant nutrients needed by the human body. Used around 300 essential biochemical reactions like protein synthesis, calcium absortion, testosterone production, insulin sensitivity and the regulation of the sympathetic nervous system. It's also a great muscle relaxant and aids in sleep.
4. Fish Oil A little about cell membrane health: EPA and DHA ensure that cell membranes remain healthy. This means that the membranes are flexible and contain larger numbers of insulin receptors that are more receptive and responsive to circulating insulin. This results in a decrease in a cell's fat storage ability. Fish oils diminish C-reactive proteins, a newly identified risk factor associated with various inflammatory diseases, including atherosclerosis, angina, coronary heart disease, heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure, and diabetes. The DHA fraction of the fish oil seems to be the most responsible for that protective effect. DHA also has the best ability to reduce blood pressure. EPA regulates blood supply to the brain, which is essential in maintaining focus in weight training sessions. DHA is important in brain membranes, memory, and cognitive function. Fish oils increase serotonin levels (the happy neurotransmitter). Therefore, fish oils will decrease incidence of depression, anxiety, panic attack, and reduce carbohydrate cravings. Fish oils will improve your cardiovascular risk profile by lowering VLDL, triglycerides, homocysteine, fibrinogen, and increasing HDL levels. Combining fish oils with plant sterols will improve lipid levels even more than either alone. Fish oils can also decrease blood pressure by several mechanisms. These include increases in the vasodilatory compound, and nitric oxide, to reducing vascular inflammation, blocking the constrictive elements in the vascular wall such as the calcium channels reducing blood viscosity, and inhibiting a blood vessel constrictor (thromboxane). Lipoprotein (a) is another CVD predictor that can be lowered by fish oils (a 19% reduction was seen with natural, stable fish oils and just 4% with a highly purified fish oil). Fish oils are a great stress fighter. Supplementation with n-3 fatty acids inhibits the adrenal activation of steroids, aldosterone, epinephrine, and norepinephrine (catecholamines) elicited by a mental stress, apparently through effects exerted at the level of the central nervous system. Therefore, for the same amount of stress, one will produce fewer stress hormones if consuming fish oils on a regular basis.
Additional Benefits for Fish Oil:
- Turn on the lipolytic genes (fat burning genes)
- Turn off the lipogenic genes (fat storage genes)
- Increases utilization of fat stores from the adipocytes Preferential utilization for energy production once stored in the adipocytes
- Reduces inflammation from physical training
- Pain management from the reduced inflammation
5. Alpha lipoic acid Alpha lipoic acid (ALA) has many functions, but it's one of the most effective free radical scavengers, and the only one known to easily get into your brain. It also has the ability to regenerate other antioxidants such as vitamins C, E, and glutathione. Therefore when your body has used up these antioxidants, if there's ALA around, it helps regenerate them. You may not know this, but glutathione (also know as mother of all anti oxidents or master detoxifier) is another very important antioxidant. You can get it from supplements, but the only form that works effectively is the reduced form, which is difficult to absorb when taken orally. It is much more cost effective to supplement with precursors or items like alpha lipoic acid that regenerates glutathione. Alpha lipoic acid also recycles coenzyme Q10 and NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide).
But, if that wasn't enough, this powerful antioxidant is also:
- A great modifier of gene expression to reduce inflammation
- A very potent heavy metal chelator
- An enhancer of insulin sensitivity
Writer: Stephen Cheuk // Illustrator: Eric Weiss
