There is no such thing as a ‘fitness miracle’ but lets make sure you’re popping the perfect pills and powders to accelerate your progression within your training.
Firstly you should decide on your goals from fat loss and muscle gain to athletic performance or simply improving your mobility, this will help to determine which supplements will help you achieve those goals.
It’s worth noting, we can obtain most of our essential nutrients from healthy food intake to create the body we desire but a few supplements have shown promise with enhancing our fitness;
OMEGA 3 If you’ve ever considered popping an omega 3 pill, it’s probably been for your heart - while theres no doubt that the best performing athletes have healthy hearts Omega 3 has way more to offer; speed up your workout recovery and boost your gains, but also a necessity for cardiovascular, brain, joint, eye and skin health. Not to mention boosted perceptual-motor benefits - beneficial to sports where decision making and reaction time efficiency are of importance.
Besides decreasing muscle breakdown, omega 3 fatty acids increase the process in which your muscles transform the protein you eat into the protein in your biceps. They are powerful anti-inflammatory compounds, their inflammation-fighting ways noticeably reduce levels of perceived muscle soreness and improve range of motion 48 hours post exercise.
BEETROOT The humble beetroot has become quite the ‘pre workout’. While reducing the oxygen cost of running or other endurance activities alike it promotes increased blood flow to working muscles. Beetroot extract taken before endurance-style training enhances muscle contractile efficiency, allowing you to push more weight with less energy cost, improve power and performance at speed as well while reducing muscular fatigue.
Effective doses of beetroot juice can be attained by drinking one to two glasses (250 ml) of natural beetroot juice per day.
BCAA’s Branched chain amino acids are the building blocks of protein. In order for your body to re-build and grow new muscle, you need these. There are 20 amino acids in total, 11 of which can be made by your own body. However, the body can't make the other nine, they have to come from our diet, or supplements! These amino acids have important functions post-exercise and for increasing overall muscle building, limiting fatigue, can help you burn more fat and speed up recovery, reducing DOMS.
VITAMIN D In theory, we can make all the vitamin D we need; in reality, we don’t and it can be difficult to get what you need from sunlight. It’s essential to include a source of vitamin D daily to maintain optimal health and fitness as it revs up the immune system by boosting the activity of cells that battle bacteria and viruses all year long.
Researchers found that vitamin D deficiency was associated with depression and neurologic disorders have been traced to low levels of vitamin D so while you may be sharp, witty and intelligent now keep those levels topped up for later life!
Calcium’s absorption for healthy bones relies on Vit D and considering it actually gets converted in the body to a steroid hormone, it makes sense that it would affect muscle tissue - enhancing muscle contraction and protein synthesis, which is the buildup of muscle protein.
CREATINE It’s reputation among the fitness world is varied, often associated with pumped-up gym buffs. Creatine is one of the most researched and widely used supplements to enhance muscle building and strength, it helps you recover between sets. Which means the value lies in boosting recovery speed, which in turn enhances the amount of work you’re able to do during a workout. Over time, this leads to faster gains in both strength and size.
Creatine gives you the capacity to get through a few more reps in a workout, boosts your power output and increases water retention in your muscles, called cellular swelling, which can help with muscle growth. It is responsible for supplying energy to cells within the body and keeping our cellular functions in balance. It is naturally occurring in the body but also found in foods like meat, dairy and eggs.
MAGNESIUM Magnesium is used in over 300 chemical reactions in the body, it has been shown to help with recovery and muscle contraction and have a positive influence on blood pressure, stronger bones, increased energy, and reduced inflammation. However its most renowned as a relaxation nutrient - improving sleep quality, reduced stress levels and blood pressure also assisting with the digestive system.
Magnesium can reduce post-workout soreness by clearing away lactic acid and moving blood sugar into the muscles. This process fuels the body, enabling you to workout more intensely and for longer! If you have plenty of seeds, nuts, leafy green veg, and dark chocolate in your diet you should be getting enough, but if you’re deficient it can affect your energy and bone strength.
We’ve got the scoop on this essential macronutrient for optimal muscle gains and training performance, we’ll bring you up to speed with all the knowledge surrounding Protein intake. In the simplest form, protein is a molecule made from chemicals called amino acids. Our bodies need these amino acids to function properly – they carry oxygen through blood, boost the immune system, keep muscles strong and metabolisms revved up.
Protein breakdown occurs during exercise, where stress is placed on the body. Replacing protein post workout enables muscles to rebuild and recover quicker. Essentially, the protein helps take what was damaged and put it all back together and shakes are the most convenient way to replenish.
If you're looking to build muscle quickly and shrink your recovery time, a protein shake - whey or vegan - is the perfect place to start. While you’re working out you’re tearing muscle fibers with every rep, the protein you consume helps the muscles that were compromised recover quicker. This is why we recommend taking post-workout protein within an hour after your workout.
You can get the goods from your diet, however, whey is the granddaddy of protein because it’s fast-acting; whey shakes are lean and clean - the lactose (sugar) has been removed which can assist the shred which go directly to the muscles.
The two most common types of protein powder are whey and casein. Put in the simplest terms possible, whey is absorbed quickly and casein slowly. Whey is best for taking straight after a tough workout when you’re looking to provide your muscles with the fuel needed to start repairing and rebuilding themselves immediately, while casein can be taken before you go to bed to drip-feed amino acids into your muscles overnight.
Both whey and casein are sourced from milk, fortunately there are plenty of vegan options that aren’t derived from animals to consider; soy, hemp, pea and brown rice. Generally, vegan powders use a mix of these to provide a complete protein, which is one that contains all nine of the essential amino acids we need. Gram for gram whey does come out on top with 20-30% more BCAAs in it, to compensate for the loss in vegan shakes you’d need a larger serving.
One of the reasons vegan or plant-based protein sources have been deemed inferior is because not all plant-based sources contain all the essential amino acids aka ‘not complete’. In the fitness world, there has been a misconception that you can't build muscle with plant protein because plant proteins are typically incomplete proteins (low in one or more essential amino acid) But you can combine protein sources to complete each other. I.e pea and brown rice.
Both whey and vegan proteins have their place, depending on what you're looking for. Whey contains all essential amino acids and is easier for the body to absorb, but it's not great for those who are sensitive to dairy, they are both super effective. This isn't just great news for vegans, but for anyone shifting into a more plant-based flexitarian diet or those giving up dairy because of skin or digestion issues, or people simply looking to eat in a way that's better for the environment!
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