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.

Glutathione is the body’s master antioxidant that you need to keep you healthy and disease free. Glutathione is not like any other antioxidants. It is the only antioxidant that resides within your cells, which acts as the main regulator. It is the master detoxifier. Your body produces its own glutathione, unfortunately, due to pollution, toxins, poor diet, stress, aging and infections all deplete your glutathione. This leaves you vulnerable to free radicals, oxidative stress from training, and infections that can damage your body. Glutathione is an important antioxidant to help the liver filter waste.

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein in the body. This makes protein a critical element of your diet as you must have amino acids to build strength. Muscle in all body systems are derived from the amino acids produced by the breakdown of protein, but while protein primarily makes muscles, it is also the last source of reserve energy.

Amino acids are the bricks making up the more complex protein molecules. When you eat protein, it is broken down into the amino acids that can then work within the body to build muscle, repair tissue and perhaps provide energy as needed.

Many people get confused between antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, which is quite understandable given that many phytochemicals possess both properties. Most flavanoids, for example are both, although the mechanisms are quite different. Here we shall discuss each and then apply that knowledge to the needs of runners and athletes in general.