Leading a fitness lifestyle, whether you’re a professional or an amateur athlete, can be extremely taxing on your body and your mind. Yes, exercise is healthy and good for you, but if you don’t invest in proper fatigue management, recovery, and nutrition, you might end up injuring yourself or you might lose the willpower to carry on. After all, a bruised and battered body is in high need of proper rest and recovery on a daily basis if you are to grow and achieve better results.
One of the more important pillars of a healthy fitness lifestyle is supplementation. Now, supplements cannot replace a healthy diet, but they can help you recover faster, gain mental clarity and zeal, and push your training to the next level. Whether you’re a lover of water sports or you’re hitting the gym daily, or even if you’re playing team sports where the stakes are high, it pays to take the right supplements. Here’s how you can choose the right supplements for your fitness lifestyle.
It all starts with quality protein
Protein is the building block of muscle, but it’s also a macronutrient with numerous complementary benefits. It is absolutely essential for an athlete to focus on a protein-rich diet plan that will ensure your body gets enough protein on a daily basis to repair broken down muscle tissue, recover from the workout, and keep burning fat. Of course, if you eat too much protein, your body is going to store it as fat anyway, so it’s important to mind your caloric intake as well.
Protein is, however, not that easy to consume in large quantities, especially if you need a lot of it and are not used to eating more than three meals a day. Plus, if you simply eat more protein, you will invariably consume more calories than you may need. This is why getting a protein supplement like whey protein powder is a good idea, because it gets you a lot of protein without the extra calories.
Choose a daily multivitamin
Vitamins and minerals are essential for the proper functioning of all bodily processes, and as an avid athlete, you probably know that getting enough vitamins on a daily basis can make all the difference. For one, there is nothing worse than getting sick and having to skip your training sessions, fearing that you will lose your progress while in recovery.
This is why it’s so important to activate your immune system preemptively to help your body fight against the viruses and bacteria that might try to put you on bed rest. Taking a high-quality multivitamin on a daily basis will go a long way in building a strong immune response that will keep you healthy and safe, and allow you to keep training with intensity and zeal.
Get in the zone and stay there
Maintaining that drive and zeal to keep pushing your limits in training can be a difficult psychological task. Your body might be up for the challenge, but mentally you might be weakening yourself with every training session, because after all, exercise is also a psychological test. To retain your focus and zeal during training, you should consider turning to healthy nootropic drinks that boast the right vitamins and the right amount of caffeine that will keep you in the zone.
Make sure to stay away from those commercial drinks that are filled to the brim with nothing but caffeine and fast-acting sugars that will leave you feeling drained in the middle of your training session. Instead, choose energy drinks that will supply your body with sustained energy to last you through the entire workout and the rest of the day.
Consider taking BCAAs
Branched chain amino acids have become quite popular in the fitness industry over the years, and for a number of reasons. Not everyone needs to take BCAAs on a regular basis, but if you’re training hard doing outdoor sports or hitting the gym several times a week, BCAAs might help you recover faster and prevent muscle deterioration.
Catabolism is a big problem when you’re putting your body through some grueling workouts, so consider using BCAAs to stay in that anabolic state. This supplement can help you preserve precious muscle mass when you’re in a caloric deficit as well, so it’s worth a try.
Generate more ATP with creatine
Lastly, as an athlete, regardless of the sport, consider adding creatine to your list of daily supplements. Creatine is one of the most extensively studied supplements out there, and all findings seem to point to the fact that this is a safe and effective supplement for energy production and potential muscle growth.
Creatine boosts the production of ATP in the body, allowing you to push your workouts with more energy and strength, which will in turn help you achieve better results. The most important part, though, is the fact that creatine is almost impossible to get in enough quantity from food, so supplementing is kind of important if you want to benefit from creatine over the long term.
Wrapping up
Supplements are by no means a be-all-end-all solution to your nutritional needs. In fact, supplements alone won’t get you very far, so make sure to complement quality supplementation with a healthy, tailored diet and you will have no problem taking your fitness game to the next level.
