Adenosine triphosphate, also referred to as ATP, is nature’s energy store. Every living organism needs ATP energy in order to carry out the processes that maintain life within that organism, including us humans for whom a continuous energy source is essential for our biochemistry, movement of fluids and the involuntary muscular movements exemplified by our heartbeat, respiration and digestion.

Fast and complete recuperation are two of the most important elements of improving your athletic performance – especially if you run a hard training schedule. Faster recuperation means you don’t fall behind: you can fit more training sessions in, and you’re not out of commission for a week or two after a big event. More complete recuperation means your training sessions will be more productive: you’re body is stronger and more fully healed, ready to push harder. And if you can train harder and more often without suffering the negative consequences of over training, your performance will improve, along with your general well-being.

Recuperation and healing take energy, and as your body diverts its resources to recovery and repairing itself, you may experience an overall drop in daily energy. To enhance your energy for recuperation and performance, you need to recharge and cleanse your cells of metabolic wastes, allowing for the boosting of your energy levels more efficiently and naturally.

What is the best way to promote a healthy inflammatory response? The answer to a healthy inflammatory response is by working with your body’s natural systems. TGF-ß (transforming growth factor beta) is a naturally occurring anti-inflammatory peptide that stimulates the healing process and helps promote a healthy inflammatory response to muscle inflammation. It can be found in …

Athletes are aware that after working out or subsequent to a competition, their bodies feel drained, weakened and are in need of a boost. Performing to achieve one’s best takes a toll on our bodies. It isn’t only that our muscles are tired, but our immune systems have been weakened. This is when our bodies are most susceptible to attacks on our immune system and the risk of becoming ill is at its greatest. It is at this time that our bodies most require a boost to our immune systems.

When you exercise intensely, tiny tears appear in your muscle cell membranes – this is called cellular microtrauma, and basically means your muscle tissue becomes damaged. If your body doesn’t receive the nourishment it needs for muscle repair, you risk sore muscles and recuperation is delayed or remains incomplete.

You’re working out hard, pushing your body so that you can perform better and all the while your body is producing free radicals, or harmful molecules that can damage cell function and muscle tissue, hindering your recovery time after training and resulting in muscle loss and inflammation. Your body is being subjected to oxidative stress.

Outdoor season is often a slow and difficult transition from indoor season. Spring season brings with it the 100 meter hurdles, which has ten hudles, as opposed to indoor season, which is the 55 meters or 60 meters, and only five hurdles. Therefore, my training for outdoor season focuses on speed endurance and focusing on maintaining my rhythm over hurdles 7-10. My straight sprint workouts consist of interval training with 100s, 120, and 150s, with short rest periods between each repetition. My hurdle workouts consist of training over more hurdles.

Your body’s energy is produced through a process known as cellular respiration: this is where your cells use the nutrients you’ve ingested through food, along with the air you breathe, and transform them into adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the fuel for the creation of our body’s energy via cellular respiration. For a cell to ‘breathe’ at optimal levels, there are two systems that need to balance each other: the oxidative system and the reductive system.

Gazzy Parman is a black belt Jiu-Jitsu World Champion and Submission Grappler. Amongst her achievements are: winning the World No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu Championship in the women’s lightweight division; becoming the first American female black belt member of the legendary Nova União competition team; and becoming one of the first eight women in the world ever invited to compete at Sheik Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship – the world’s most prestigious submission grappling tournament.