How to increase your athletic and physical performance

Just sloppy and tired. You certainly don’t want to feel that way. Especially in sport you notice fluctuations very clearly. In one day, more goes and Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronda Rousey would fade – at least that’s how we feel. On other days, after a few minutes, the air is already out. What to do? We show you the following today:

• The right supplements
• The wrong supplements
• The effect of vitamins
• Caffeine alone does not bring it either

There are several influencing factors for your physical performance:

• Condition: Strength, speed, endurance, agility
• Technique: Coordinative Skills, Movement Skills
• Mental Skills: Mental Fitness
• Predisposition, constitutional and health factors: talent, constitution, health, age, gender, nutrition
• Tactical-cognitive skills: intelligence, technique and tactics
• Social skills
• Environmental factors, framework conditions and family factors

Often the answer is immediate: Conscious nutrition. But even with a conscious diet, a person rarely reaches his full performance.

The handle to nutritional supplements,supplements or New German supplements is obvious. It suggests that you squeeze the last few percent performance out of your body.

That is true for a certain part. If you do a lot of exercise, you also need more important vitamins and minerals. This increased demand can often only be covered by dietary supplements.

If you have run into deficits together with your GP, you can compensate them in a targeted way.

So are dietary supplements the panacea to boost your athletic and physical performance? Let’s see what exactly is true.

How can you increase your performance for sports? The right supplements.

Promises about dietary supplements are always important. On the one hand, you have to follow the recommended dose, on the other hand, they only help when you have a real deficiency.

Vitamin D is often mentioned here by articles. After all, it can only be generated by sunlight. This presents us with great challenges, especially in winter months. But does that help? What nutrients are they really?

There are numerous studies here, some of which are quite contradictory. Only a few vitamins or trace elements therefore have proven effects.

How can physical performance be affected? Switzerland has the answer.

For this reason, a meta-study from Switzerland set itself the task of scouring and summarising the many other studies in 2008.

What is clear is that people sweat after intensive training. You also excrete nutrients. The Swiss give an illustrative example: during the 400 m run, you lose an average of 20 mg of calcium, 5 mg magnesium, 200 mg of potassium and 800 mg of sodium. Nutrients that your body lacks after exercise.

The classic is
magnesium
. You have sore muscles? Then take magnesium! This is what is always said as a home remedy. According to the researchers, performance does not affect the mineral. Only a defect reduces your performance. Here, as always, your GP is asked to check if you have magnesium deficiency. This also increases the risk of heart attack and diabetes.

The same applies to
zinc
. As long as you don’t have a deficiency, an additional intake of zinc should not improve your performance either.

Especially endurance sports can lead to a lack of iron. If you like to train your stamina, possibly eat vegetarian and are a woman – keyword menstruation – you should pay particular attention to your iron balance. In endurance sports, according to studies, you excrete blood from the stool. A vegetarian diet is also usually rather low in iron.

Iron with high bioavailability is particularly recommended here. High bioavailability means that your body can absorb the nutrient efficiently. If you fall into at least one of the three groups, it is not wrong to have your iron balance checked regularly. If you suffer from a deficiency, supplementation is recommended. However, with no defect, the iron of your performance will do nothing.

In the case of chromium,

the current research situation says that supplementation is of no use. Whether a chromium deficiency, on the other hand, weakens your performance, is not yet known. The same applies to boron, selenium,manganese and vanadium.

In fact, performance-enhancing aids are promised in the form of creatine and hydroxymethylbutyrate. Both increase the “lean weight” when you take them, according to studies – that’s the weight you have without fat. They also demonstrately increase muscle strength. However, not both in the same secured form.

Creatine works mainly in young men and in strength training. To do this, the study recommends 0.3 g per kg body weight for the first 5 to 6 days. After that, 2 g are sufficient as a slightly increased dose. Older people and other types of training (e.g. endurance training, swimming or other sports) in particular do not benefit from this. The side effects have not yet been researched – especially for long-term use.

For hydroxymethylbutyrate, the opposite counts in the studies. It is more likely to help sick and untrained people. However, the study situation is too poor for proof. There is only one tendency that it can help you if you belong to the above groups. However, as a professional athlete, you definitely have no effect.

You should avoid these substances in your diet for performance

Sodium bicarbonate and sodium citrateare not recommended. These so-called buffer substances have a whole list of side effects and have a negative effect on performance for people without diseases. Side effects can include gastrointestinal problems, electrolyte metabolism disorders and nervous system disorders (tingling) or convulsions. Even cardiac arrhythmias were observed.

What about vitamins to increase your performance?

In the case of vitamins, by and large, there is not a single one that can give your body more power in sport. Rather, it is the secondary effectsthat are interesting for you and your exercise in sport.

Vitamin C

may not help your muscles, but it reduces susceptibility to respiratory infections. Breathing in particular is extremely important for sport. Together with vitamin E, ozone also has less effect on your lungs.

Athletes like to rely on carbohydrate-rich food. However, this means that the active body needs more thiamine. This need must be met accordingly.

Niacin, on the other hand, lowers your cholesterol levels and the amount of free fatty acids in your body decreases as a result. Especially in strength sports it is not uncommon to destroy a lot of meat and proteins. This usually raises your cholesterol levels.

The more sport you do, the more pyridoxine you need. Every physical activity increases the need for this vitamin.

Finally, cyanocobalamin is part of the vitamin B12 group and improves your coordination ability.

The natural way can increase your athletic and physical performance

Especially the diet or the supply of nutrients such as minerals, vitamins or amino acids for defects helps with concentration and physical performance. This is what your body needs – of course.

But there are also drinks that can help? We are talking about coffee, energy drinks or cola. All contain caffeine, some of which include taurine, where the effect is still unexplored. Caffeine is on the doping list and not for nothing. In fact, it has a performance-enhancing effect, but also a whole range of side effects:

• Insomnia
• Unrest
• Nervousness
• Muscle tremors or twitches
• Heart turf
• Arrhythmias
• Increased water excretion
• Stomach discomfort

All of this tends to diminish your performance and whether the net is good for you, you have to decide for yourself.

Especially cola and energy drinks contain large amounts of sugar,which in turn is not conducive to your fitness. Sugary drinks are also only suitable for rehydration to a limited extent. The good old water has more advantages here.

As you can see, “doping” is often more conducive to more physical performance in sport via natural means than you think.