Supplements
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Loading ...Just about everybody should supplement.
Why? Because our diets are inadequate. Quite honestly, unless you are the most diligent of connoisseurs of natural foods, getting food that is full of natural nutrients in balanced fashion (even the veggies you get from the supermarket can be dumbed-down, cheaper versions of what you’d get growing it yourself), you’re probably deficient somewhere or could at least stand to benefit from some extra nutrients.
I take three supplements with regularity. As far as I can tell, I don’t need much else–but feel free to chime in.
Fish Oil
Tons and tons of purported health benefits here.
It’s all about getting the omega-3 fatty acids to balance out your fat intake profile. To get into it a little bit without getting too technical, having a variety of fatty acids is especially beneficial for your cell membranes (which are made primarily of fats)–health membranes means healthier cells, which means a healthier body. There is some hooplah out there about the quality of various fish oils…I’ve done a fair bit of reading, and the best (and simplest) advice I’ve heard is if it isn’t rancid in the bottle, you’re probably ok in terms of getting the O-3 fatty acids. Depending on how much you’re willing to shell out you can get additional assurances of quality, but I go for some of the fairly cheap stuff in bulk and have noticed the benefits. It’s particularly apparent in my skin quality, actually–I find my skin dries and peels a lot more easily when I haven’t been getting enough fish oil in my diet.
It’s also a potent anti-inflammatory. Inflammation is that thing that happens to your body with repeated stress (like ultimate practice, or hitting the gym) or acute stress (like twisting your ankle–ibuprofen is also an anti-inflammatory!). Instead of taking ibu all the time, try fish oil to keep your swelling under control outside of practice. I’m not saying replace ibuprofen with this–if you swell up in practice or at tourneys, go for the more powerful stuff–but it’s better to get adequate fish oil as an extra aid.
DOSAGE–I take anywhere from 2-6 capsules in a day, which equates to 1200-3600 mg/day (I take more when I’m being more active). You can trend higher than that and likely see more benefits, but I’m cheap and this has worked decently well for me.
Keep in mind that, though I’m talking about O-3 Fatty acids here, getting O-3′s from, say, flaxseed oil, is actually a different (incomplete) set of fatty acids. Go for the right stuff, go for the fish oil.
Multivitamins
Your mom or your grandma might have hounded you to take your vitamins every morning when you were growing up. You may have heard it’s a good idea for expecting mothers to take a multivitamin to ensure their child gets adequate nutrition. Seems like getting your vitamins and minerals is pretty important for growth and development.
Why, then, is it so common to stop taking vitamins when we’re grown? Our body is still functioning. Just because we’re not growing in size doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for these vitamins, as our body constantly regenerates itself. Balance out your nutrition. Get a multivitamin that you can stomach (or take it with water to try and avoid tasting it) and take it every day. Make sure you get zinc here, too–if you fancy yourself an athlete, a zinc deficiency (as well as an HCl deficiency, but that’s above and beyond in my book of supplements) is fairly common and will hinder your digestion (read: absorption of nutrients). Ladies and vegetarians, make sure you get some iron here too, lest you suffer from the effects of anemia.
DOSAGE: one a day unless you get two a days, etc. Really don’t worry about getting “too much” of any particular vitamin–this is very rare, USDA recommendations are WELL below any kind of dangerously high amount, and being an athlete means you probably need more anyways.
This is actually a doubly good vitamin pictured above: more on that in the final supplement.
Probiotics
Last, but certainly not least.
The multivitamin above was doubly good because it had a probiotic included in each tablet–if you’re not familiar with the term, a probiotic is typically a bacteria (often acidophilus) that, when ingested, will act synergystically in your gut. If you didn’t know, your gut has its own ecology–things live there–some of them are good, some of them are not. This ups the good guys, helping to combat the bad and keep you healthier. If you’re the type that gets sick frequently, you might see a big difference with some probiotics in your diet (it also apparently helps with constipation, if that sounds like something you might benefit from, too).
You can get them in a supplement or (my preferred method) through yogurt. There are probably other options to get probiotics naturally, but I don’t know of them. Mind your health here.
DOSAGE: I eat (or rather, ate–harder now to get the steady supply I got in college) a lot of yogurt, probably a couple servings a day. I doubt you need that much to see benefits, a single serving a day (or maybe less frequently than that, even) will probably do you. Alternatively, get a physical supplement and take the recommended dosage of that.
I might recommend refrigerating the probiotics–I’ve heard it can help keep the bacteria count high in the tablets–but I don’t know that it’s explicitly necessary.
Keep in mind that I’m going more for general health than fitness here (though improved fitness is an obvious benefit)–while I could spring for supplements like BCAAs, and while I may occasionally indulge in protein supplementation (typically powerbars or the like) post-workout, I don’t have the kind of income nor the kind of training schedule (currently) where I feel such things are necessary. Cover your bases for general health and wellness, but for fitness’ sake, keep in mind that the supplements aren’t putting in the work for you–anybody who works and sweats will improve appreciably, with our without supplements.
