ATP energy is also required on occasion, such as for the contraction of muscle cells during exercise and athletic performance, and each of these activities, conscious or not, requires adenosine triphosphate to enable muscular contraction.  As will be discussed, ATP is the source of all of that energy and so the more that can be produced during athletic performance, then the better you will perform.

ATP, and thus energy from ATP, can be produced in a number of ways within your body, such as how it uses its emergency energy store of creatine phosphate to add a phosphate group to adenosine diphosphate to generate the triphosphate. However, that is only useful for a few seconds, and the two major ATP energy creating routes involve cellular respiration of glucose to pyruvate followed either by the aerobic or anaerobic breakdown of that to adenosine triphosphate.

Here is each of these explained in slightly more detail:

Aerobic Respiration

Aerobic respiration proceeds from cellular respiration by using oxygen and an ignition source to burn the fuel:  glycolysis initially converts glucose to pyruvate as the fuel, and then aerobic exercise provides oxygen, with cellular charge as the ignition source. Very similar to a regular fire:  fuel, oxygen and ignition source.  GSH Ignite promotes this ignition of oxygen and pyruvate to generate ATP energy under aerobic conditions.

The aerobic exercise you use to promote this includes jogging,  floor exercises, step-ups and circuit training:  anything that makes you breathe hard. You take in oxygen and use it to ignite the oxidation reaction of pyruvate to ATP, CO2 and water, using up ADP (adenosine diphosphate) in the process. The greater the cellular charge, then the more efficient is the cellular respiration, in the same way that the newer a lighter flint, the faster and for longer it will ignite the gas.

Aerobic respiration is the source of ATP energy for your everyday living and for non-explosive athletic events. It is the phosphate bonds in the unstable ATP molecule that generate energy when they are broken back down to ADP.  If you remove one of the three phosphate groups, then the molecule is much more stable, and in doing that you also liberate 7.3 Kcal/mol of energy¹.

GSH Ignite provides the ignition source that makes best use of the cellular electrical charge that enables your cellular respiration system to operate at maximum efficiency.  Protein Extreme Energy also helps by maximizing that cellular charge on each cell in your body.

Anaerobic Respiration

Anaerobic respiration is respiration without oxygen, and enables adenosine triphosphate to be generated without oxygen being present.  It is not as efficient a means of generating adenosine triphosphate as aerobic respiration, but it can enable rapid short-term ATP energy production for immediate explosive power.

In the absence of oxygen, the pyruvate mentioned above undergoes a form of fermentation that creates lactic acid and adenosine triphosphate. This is sufficient to offer you maximum athletic performance for a period of 2 -3 minutes, after which the lactic acid builds up and you can no longer function without anaerobic respiration. Sprinters use anaerobic conditions, and Usain Bolt can break a work 100m record with just one deep breath. That provides all the ATP needed before lactic acid kicks in.

The more you train, the more you are able to expend energy under low oxygen conditions, and that is why those that train more can run farther at higher speeds than those that train less:  their cellular respiration is more efficient at producing ATP energy from the available oxygen before anaerobic respiration has to make up the balance. Likewise, their muscles can work longer under anaerobic conditions before lactic acid seizes up their muscles, and more oxygen is needed.

GSH Ignite supports cellular respiration, and also destroys the free radicals that are by-products of respiration. Free radical damage results from small oxygenated molecules  that can destroy the membranes of the cells that generate adenosine triphosphate, and GSH Ignite offers the free radical killer glutathione and the enzyme superoxide dismutase that help maintain efficient cellular respiration  through preventing these free radicals from destroying the cells that provide your ATP energy source.

Normal ATP Requirement

Around 160Kg of adenosine triphosphate can be created and used in the human body each day²; although at any one time you will have no more than around 250 grams available for use. In other words, your body can turn over its own weight of this amazing ATP molecule every day and athletes turn over even more ATP.

In summary, cellular respiration is responsible for the production of ATP in the mitochondria of your body cells, and the more effective your cellular respiration in oxidizing glucose ultimately to adenosine triphosphate, then the more ATP energy will be available to you to enable maximum athletic performance.  It is therefore essential that your biochemistry is tuned to producing as much ATP as possible, and that is dependent on many factors, of which cellular respiration is the most important.

By maximizing your cellular charge and reducing the damaging effects of the free radicals that are a natural by-product of the process, you will maximize the production of adenosine triphosphate.

Protein Extreme Energy increases the cellular electrical charge that enables effective oxidation of glucose, and also enables more effective hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate to energy plus ADP, whereas GSH Ignite negates the effects of free radicals and enables maximum efficiency in the conversion of ATP to energy.

1.  Campbell, Neil. Biology, Third Edition. Benjamin Cummings, 1993: 97-101.

2. Törnroth-Horsefield S, Neutze R (December 2008). Opening and closing the metabolite gate. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
105 (50): 19565–6.

Other reading:

Karp, Gerald (2008). Cell and Molecular Biology (5th edition). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.pp. 194.

ISBN 10-0-470-04217-6.

Copyright 2010 Elite Sports and Fitness

Understanding the oxidative system will provide us with the first method for increasing our body’s energy level through cellular respiration. For cellular respiration to occur, oxygen must be drawn into our body’s cells, where it’s used to produce energy (if you want to get specific, the mitochondria in our cells use it as a hydrogen acceptor during adenosine triphosphate production to produce water). How is oxygen drawn into the cell? Partly through the sodium potassium pump, which is what creates a cell’s ‘electrical charge’. The electrons around the outer membrane and inner nucleus of the cell, going in opposite directions, draw in the oxygen by means of diffusion.  So, a cell’s electrical charge controls the amount of oxygen that can be drawn in, and is in part responsible for how much energy your cells can produce.

This provides us with the first method of increasing our body’s energy levels through cellular respiration: increase a cell’s electrical charge. Note that electrical charge is also responsible for the removal of metabolic waste from the cell. If a cell’s charge is low, then metabolic waste accumulates and hinders cellular respiration. If things slow down enough, edema or water retention occurs – the cell’s osmotic pressure become so weak that it loses the ability to expel waste and old body fluids. When a cell’s charge is strengthened, metabolic wastes can be properly disposed of and cellular respiration increased.

The second method for increasing cellular respiration and the level of our body’s energy can be understood through the reductive system. While oxygen is vital to cellular respiration, it also ‘oxidizes’ the cells, producing harmful free radicals that can damage cell respiration, function and DNA.  Reductive enzymes – with glutathione being the main SOD reductive enzyme – are what protect the cell from these free radicals. When a cell doesn’t have enough glutathione, it attempts to decrease adenosine triphosphate production so as to minimize the free radical damage. Therefore, increasing glutathione & SOD provides us with the second method to increase cellular respiration and our body’s energy. By increasing glutathione and SOD, you balance oxidation with reduction, and allow adenosine triphosphate to increase, thereby increasing your cellular respiration and your body’s energy.

A thorough understanding of these two approaches to increasing the levels of our body’s energy and cellular respiration leads to understanding how two of Life Health Secrets’ supplements work. Protein Extreme Energy functions to increase cellular electron loads and therefore cellular charge – it adopts the first method for increasing cellular respiration. GSH-Ignite adopts the second method – by encouraging healthy glutathione levels it allows adenosine triphosphate production to increase. As such, Protein Extreme Energy and GSH-Ignite take complementary routes to achieving the same goal – enhanced cellular respiration, leading to enhanced body energy in turn leading to enhanced performance.

Copyright 2010 LifeHealthSecrets

Cellular respiration involves the intake and use of oxygen by your body’s cells in order to generate energy called Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP).  To understand the process, consider a very common energy source – fire.  What are the three components needed for fire? They are:

• Fuel
• Oxygen
• Ignition Source

The same is true for the energy your cells generate, Adenosine Triphosphate is a biological battery:  a source of energy that changes to ADP, the diphosphate, when it has completely discharged. The ADP then undergoes cellular respiration to change back to the ATP that enables you to attain maximum athletic performance.

The three essential components needed to enable cellular respiration to take place are:

Fuel: The fuel is glucose, which primarily comes from your carbohydrate intake, whether in the form of simple sugars or complex fats.  Ultimately the carbohydrates you consume are converted to glucose. That is the raw material for cellular respiration – any unused glucose can be used to top up your glycogen stores, and any after that forms fatty tissue.

Oxygen: Oxygen is taken in by the lungs and attached to the red blood cells, so is available to the body cells when needed to generate energy.

Ignition Source: Cellular respiration differs from normal ignition in that it is a series of chemical reactions, and is basically what is known as a redox reaction. There is no single ignition source as such, though ATP kicks it off by breaking open the chemical bonds of the fuel source, glucose.

The whole reaction sequence comprises three basic stages, known as:

• Glycolysis: Glucose is broken down to pyruvate.

• Krebs Cycle:  Also known as the Citric Acid Cycle, pyruvate is used form the high energy ATP molecules.

• Electron Transport System:  This is an oxidation-reduction process wherein electrons are transferred from a high energy donor molecule to a low energy acceptor molecule with the release of energy and the generation of more ATP.

What Does All This Mean To You As An Athlete?

The stronger your electron transport system, then the more ATP energy you can generate. Not only that, but electrons are also essential for the generation of electric current, and guess what? Your nervous system is an electrical system.

Your nerves are the wires that carry electrons from your brain, to the cells that react to contract your muscles. The faster and stronger that these muscle cells contract then the quicker and more powerful your reactions, the more powerfully they can contract, the more strength you have. Your athletic performance is a combination of strong cellular respiration (generating energy for more power when you need it) and a high membrane potential (the electrical charge within your body cells), which are needed to generate the explosive power, sustained speed and stamina needed by runners over all distances.

Free Radicals and Inflammation

However, any chemical reactions involving oxygen are liable to produce by-products known as free-radicals. These are destructive oxygenated molecules that destroy your cells and their means of producing energy – leaving you with less overall energy available.

Not only that, but exercise can damage body tissue and initiate the inflammatory response of your immune system. Neither of these side-effects is desirable in athletes, and can severely affect you fitness and performance.

So how can you help to strengthen cellular respiration while at the same time avoiding the negative consequences of doing so?  By using GSH Ignite.

GSH Ignite

GSH Ignite is a supplement that has been developed specifically to provide your body with a readily usable source of electrons. It enables runners and other athletes to make best use of the fuel and oxygen they take in to maximize cellular respiration while also fighting against the free radicals and reducing inflammation. The result is explosive power & increased strength and endurance.

Copyright 2010 LifeHealthSecrets

Your body needs good quality fuel to run at its best. For athletes this means not only pure, healthy foods but also high quality supplements – you want the stuff that burns clean and that is sustainable in the long run, not the stuff that’s going to mess with your metabolism and leave you feeling burnt out six months down the road.

There’s a pretty strong consensus on the diet front – eat lean, hormone-free proteins, complex carbohydrates, omega-3 type fats and stay away from anything processed, packaged or that comes out of a deep fryer. Navigating the supplement industry is a little murkier though, and the purpose of this article is to break down what every athlete who’s looking to enhance their performance naturally should take, and why.

But first, as a caveat, let me acknowledge that different athletes have different goals and needs and so, while I’ve tried to tailor this to adults following a serious training program, you should always consult your doctor to make sure these things are right for you, and the information in this article shouldn’t be construed as taking the place of a doctor’s advice.

1. A High Quality Protein Supplement

Physically active people need more protein. Protein helps build muscle, so getting enough is critical for the serious athlete. In theory you can get it all through your diet; in practice it’s much easier to down a shake. But take too much and you can stress your liver and kidneys, especially if the protein source has a low Net Nitrogen Utilization (NNU) value. Protein 2.0 is a class of proteins called ‘bioactive’ protein – it gives you more bang for your buck because it not only helps you build muscle, it also offers active peptides that bolster your immune system and promote a healthy inflammatory response.

Tara-Hurdles-Competition

2. Anti-Oxidants

When you exercise, you breathe harder. This means you’re taking in more oxygen. Great, except that oxygen produces free radicals in your body that damage your cells and DNA. So antioxidants are critical to any athlete’s training regimen, because the harder you train, the harder your cells are going to get pummeled with free radicals.

Sure you can get anti-oxidants from some foods, but my money’s on glutathione, which is like the Great White shark of anti-oxidants – hundreds of times stronger than anything found in fruits or vegetables. Your body manufactures it internally, but production declines from as early as age twenty on. Unfortunately, a glutathione supplement is useless (it just gets digested). Fortunately, supplements that provide the precursors for your body to rev up its own natural glutathione production are effective. As an added bonus, when you increase glutathione production, you increase ATP – ATP energy, or cellular energy, so not only do you fight free radicals, you also get more energy.

3. Immune Enhancement

Train hard and your immune system crashes. “High intensity exercise impairs immune function for up to several hours post-exercise.” (Nieman DC. Is infection risk linked to exercise workload? Med Sci Sports Exerc 32: S406 –S411, 2000.). This means that you’re open to illness and infection – and being sick isn’t good for business. A mean flu can have you knocked on your ass for weeks. Better just to strengthen your immune system. Echinacea? Meh. Vitamin C? If you must. But, as I mentioned above, if you take a bioactive protein, you’re going to boost your immune system as a side benefit – and save money by not having to buy an extra product.

4. Adrenal Support

Your adrenals sit on top of your kidneys and regulate stress, including that handy fight-or-flight response that kicks in right before and during an event. You know, it’s that adrenaline cold sweat that makes you feel like you could wrestle a cougar (which is probably what that short burst of energy was originally intended for). Modern times haven’t been so kind to our adrenals though, and daily life stress (think traffic jams, your boss, bills, etc…) combined with workout stress spells adrenal burnout. If your adrenals aren’t at their best, neither are you, and your performance will suffer. So if you’re training or doing extreme sports, an adrenal supplement could be what you need.

5. Memory, Focus, Concentration

Sports and training aren’t just about strength – they’re also about focus, concentration, and reaction time. So taking something for your brain is a good idea. Fish with a low mercury content and high fat content is optimal because it contains lots of DHA, but it not always available and hard to take with you when traveling. Other promising memory and focus supplements are Gotu Kola, DMAE and CDP Choline.

While I’m not a professional athlete, I take my training and my body’s long-term health seriously. I’m not planning on making it to the Olympics, but I do want to be in great shape well into my retirement years.

Here’s what I take:

1-2 scoops Protein Extreme Energy in the morning before breakfast (for protein and immune system)

2 Maxodin with breakfast (for concentration, memory, focus)

1-2 scoops GSH-Ignite before work-outs (for free radical protection)

In some cases I will take 1 scoop of Protein Extreme Energy for post work out muscle support and recovery

2 Adrenal ReBoot with dinner (for adrenal support)

Copyright 2010 Life Health Secrets

Understanding the oxidative system will provide us with the first method for increasing cellular energy. For cellular respiration to occur, oxygen must be drawn into the cells, where it’s used to produce energy (if you want to get specific, the mitochondria in our cells use it as a hydrogen acceptor during ATP production to produce water). How is oxygen drawn into the cell? One means is through the sodium potassium pump, which is what creates a cell’s ‘electrical charge’. The electrons around the outer membrane and inner nucleus of the cell, going in opposite directions, draw in the oxygen by means of diffusion.  So, a cell’s electrical charge controls the amount of oxygen that can be drawn in, and is in part responsible for how much energy your cells can produce.

This provides us with the first method of increasing cellular energy: increase a cell’s electrical charge. Note that electrical charge is also responsible for the removal of metabolic waste from the cell. If a cell’s charge is low, then metabolic waste accumulates and hinders cellular respiration. If things slow down enough, edema or water retention occurs – the cell’s osmotic pressure become so weak that it loses the ability to expel waste and old body fluids. When a cell’s charge is strengthened, metabolic wastes can be properly disposed of and cellular respiration increased.

The second method for increasing cellular energy can be understood through the reductive system. While oxygen is vital to cellular respiration, it also ‘oxidizes’ the cells, producing harmful free radicals that can damage cell function, respiration and DNA.  Reductive enzymes – with glutathione being the main SOD reductive enzyme – are what protect the cell from these free radicals. When a cell doesn’t have enough glutathione, it attempts to decrease ATP production so as to minimize the free radical damage. Therefore, increasing glutathione provides us with the second method to increase cellular energy. By increasing glutathione, you balance oxidation with reduction, and allow ATP to increase creating ATP energy, thereby increasing your body’s cellular energy.

A thorough understanding of these two approaches to increasing cellular energy leads to understanding how two of Life Health Secrets’ supplements work. Protein Extreme Energy functions to increase cellular electron loads and therefore cellular charge – it adopts the first method for increasing cellular energy. GSH-Ignite adopts the second method – by encouraging healthy glutathione levels it allows ATP production to increase. As such, Protein Extreme Energy and GSH-Ignite take complementary routes to achieving the same goal – enhanced cellular respiration, leading to enhanced whole body energy for life.

Copyright 2009 LifeHealthSecrets