97: Dietary Supplement the StarPlayer Way – The Basics

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Keep working even when no one is watching. – Alex Morgan

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Hi, and welcome back to the star player academy show, episode 97.

This is Marilyn Wo, I know your toughest challenge is to perform your best under pressure in your sport, so I’m here to give you my best ideas and resources to maximise your potential and enjoy your game as much as you can. Hope that helps.

As serious athletes for sometime, whether you’ve been around for a year or ten years, it doesn’t matter, you know there isn’t this magical formula to being an elite or ace athlete. However, mindfulness, the right habits and smart processes certainly have something to do with it.

You need to be mindful of your own thinking, body and desires to first be motivated to get your first foot through the door, and you need efficient strategic process to bring upon desired performance and enjoy the game to keep coming back for more.

I’m not going to stop you from indulging in ice-cream sweets or beer. I enjoy them too myself, although it’s not healthy to consume them regularly, but you know that already, it takes another level of discipline for you to control your diet in that aspect.

For today’s nutrition and diet episode, we are talking more about really pushing your body to go the next level towards being an ace athlete. It’s about more than your daily healthy foods. It’s about adding foods that provide self-recovery effects.

Many of us athletes suffer from pains and injuries not because someone hit us, but because we overworked our body such that the usual daily sleep and care is not enough. As days go by our body deteriorates because we suffer from inflammation which never got resolved. This ongoing struggle does not help if we don’t find a way to get out of the cycle. It will just keep getting worse over time as we carry on with our activities.

To really understand how that works, first we have to look at how our body works with inflammation.

As physical athletes, inflammation is the most common response our body will give when we engage in our activities.

There is a flow chart that illustrates very clearly how inflammation in your body works. You may wish to visit the show notes at starplayeracademy.com/97 to check that out to understand further what it’s like.

How Muscle Inflammation Works

British Journal of Sports Medicine – Proposed mechanism of the relation between the inflammatory response to mechanical injury and further muscle damage.

Credit: British Journal of Sports Medicine – Proposed mechanism of the relation between the inflammatory response to mechanical injury and further muscle damage.

What the chart tells you is that as you go on with your sport activities, your muscles undergo damage, this is inevitable. And on top of that are little injuries that accumulate after each other, together with waves of inflammation. All these cause more and more damage over time. For many athletes, the inflammation becomes chronic and it makes it harder for them to carry on because of the pain.

Good news is there is research done to help and there are answers that can solve these problems.

Some of the useful herbs many athletes will use is Ginseng, which comes from Asian and other parts of the land, as well as Siberian Ginseng, and other types of ginseng, including Guarana Ginseng. Herbs come from natural resources, which help the body to feel better.

Some of the herbs build on the body’s requirements, improving health. Still, ace athletes while sometimes taking herbs will not let this be the only health resource available to them while reaching peak performance. They realize they need balance in diet and exercise. Thus, herbs are only additives that improve their health.

Whether you are getting yourself prepared for competition or light athletics for your health, nutritional state of your body plays a large and very important part to become ready for either routine. The better you prepare yourself nutritionally the less you will experience fatigue or reduced endurance.

You would be able to perform at a higher level to reach a higher outcome than you have previously achieved. Your personal diet is a very high demand for yourself in obtaining an ace athlete. You do not want to overdo your exercise as it may cause your nutritional intake to be less useful for your self. It is very important to find a common balance within the two to end up with the best results for yourself. The goal is to, not have to take nutrients to help achieve your peak performance.

Remember your goal is to make yourself an ace athlete and peak performer so remember to balance your diet with exercise and not rely on nutritional supplements. Some nutritional supplements however are fine and safe, so there’s no need to rule them out either. I will go more into that later in this show.

There are several different supplements proven to, be very helpful to all types of ace athletes to help them become peak performers within themselves.

Peak Performance Sports Nutrition Guide for Ace Athletes

NOW Sports Peak Performance Nutritional Guide

Credit: NOW Foods

One example of these supplements is, called Amino Acids. This is the different constituents of protein. This supplement appears to improve your overall performance. One chain of this supplement is BCAA; it has been, known to decrease the body’s loss of muscle but at the same time enhances the muscle build up.

Most if not all ace athletes can obtain these supplements in their own everyday diet but may need the BCAA supplement to do extreme training to become a peak performer within them?

The second of these supplements would be Antioxidants. This supplement contains Vitamin C and Vitamin E, which is very important to the resistance against the injured muscles caused from exercising the body. Exhausting exercise of the body enhance the making of complimentary radicals.

By doing this it can prove to be harmful to your muscles, which can result in a lot of swelling which in fact will cause pain. Even though exercise enhances your normal resistance against complimentary radicals, Ace Athletes may gain from adding this supplement and by doing extreme exercise to obtain their peak performance within themselves.

Another form of supplement would be B-Complex. This supplement can be used to make the most of your energy by foods that are high in carbohydrates that you intake in your diet. In part, there are three different vitamins you can seek in order to be an Ace Athlete.

The vitamins will help you in the goal to reaching your peak performance. These would include, vitamin B2, Vitamin B6 and Pantothenic Acid. Overall an Ace Athlete with the help of a daily diet {and some with the help of supplements} can and will become a Peak Performer.

Still, vitamins requires exercise and diet at balanced levels, otherwise it is impossible to reach peak performance, therefore do not rely on vitamins and herbs alone.

The other natural thing that will help you is Curcumin, which is an active constituent in the herb turmeric. Turmeric is a kind of spice, which just may be one of the most powerful spices on Earth. It’s a plant from the ginger family and it has also been used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years.

There was a study done on how  Curcumin can help to offset some of the damage and functional deficits associated with downhill running. I guess downhill running was used as the exercise to be tested because it is associated with fiber damage, inflammation, delayed-onset muscle soreness, and various functional deficits.

In this study, male mice were assigned to 3 experiments and different subsets of conditions.

Those mice who were not given Curcumin were either killed or showed signs of increase in inflammation. While those fed with Curcumin showed these effects being offset on running performance.

These results support the hypothesis that Curcumin can reduce inflammation and offset some of the performance deficits associated with eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage.

Another thing that Curcumin can help you with is better sleep and less stress. These are just what athletes like you and me will need.

You know how tough it is to be at your best when you only had 3 hours of sleep the night before a game. Even if you are wide awake, somehow your energy level can only go so far to push you and no matter how much you enjoy the game, the next thing you want to do is to go home to your bed right away.

I remember when I was on the roll preparing for my games every week before, I tend to  think too much the night before every game. I found it hard to sleep because I would stay up to think about how I should play the game, and every detail of the game will just come flashing into my mind.

It’s good that I was visualising, but it was done at the wrong time, because as it happened, my heart rate would start to rise really fast and that prevented me from falling asleep. I know that I would be tired the next day. I was able to get up excited and go for my games, but without a good night’s rest, my body wasn’t conditioned no matter how enthusiastic I was.

So maybe I could have tried taking Curcumin in those days to get better sleep and rest to prepare for the games.

With more sleep, means we have more clarity, more focus and we are more enthusiastic to learn and explore better ways in our games and sport to achieve higher than we could. Feeling groggy and all exhausted will definitely cloud our judgement and we will tend to make more mistakes than we should.

So I would say, it’s safe to start adding Curcumin to your diet, although please don’t take my words for it as I’m not a physician. I’m not a doctor nor do I have a medical background. These are based on what I’ve read and what I’m your living experiment as I’m sharing what I’ve done with you. So far I’m alive and it’s worked really well for me. I shall share with you more when my marathon is done on 6th December, this year. Really excited about it!

If you want to get out there to purchase commercial tried and tested formula because you are not into staying at home to cook but always on the go. There are a couple that are highly recommended out there. I’ve tried them myself, and I’m ordering more today so that I will get them at my doorstep by this week to keep my stock available for next week.

One that you should try is by Onnit.com. People like Olympic Gold medalist Bode Miller, 135IB World Champion TJ Dillashaw, Brian Cushing NFL Linebacker, Michelle Waterson MMA 105IB Champion and many more are into this line of products. Their supplement are not only effective but they taste really good too.

Onnit carries many products and the one that many athletes recommend is the Shroom Tech Immune which is designed to help the body with maintaining a strong and active immune system. I think it’s really important for you to know what’s inside. Rest assured that Onnit Shroom Tech is made with Earth grown nutrients like ginger root, astragalus root, chaga mushroom and it also has Turmeric.

Meaning if you take this supplement regularly, you will have Curcumin as part of your diet, so you don’t have to go hunting down for it. If you don’t have time to cook something with Turmeric or Curcumin, just pop them as a daily supplement. It’s in capsule form, so you can take 2 capsules with or without food as you like it. With the Shroom Tech Immune, you are immediately bringing about vitality, recovery and immunity to your body. It’s convenient and it works, that’s why I highly recommend it.

If you need a more protein based supplement to boost your energy levels, try the Hemp Force Active which is loaded with earth grown nutrients as well designed to optimise your active lifestyle. All to energise your day to power your training activities.

Most of the supplement I’ve tried before have a weird powdery fake after taste, and I’ve also mentioned to you yesterday that I’ve tried a certain brand of creatine before that gave me bad itchy painful side effects. I do not wish to mention the brand here, but with Onnit Hemp Force, that left me feeling normal and stronger without all that junk ingested in my body, plus it tastes so good, like a chocolate blend, just that it’s healthy and revitalising. So it’s great stuff that you should try.

But definitely only try it If you are open to supplements, some of my teammates are against taking supplement and that is totally fine. Some of them think that there’s enough nutrition in their daily diet and that’s okay. You need to be comfortable consuming supplements before taking them.

If you want to find out more, go to StarPlayerAcademy.com/onnit to browse and purchase, all the information you want to know is at StarPlayerAcademy.com/onnit, there are videos and research information all laid out for you to check out, so head on over to find out more.

Just want to let you know that this link that I gave you is an affiliate link, which means that when you buy through this link, I do earn a small commission from them, but you don’t pay a single cent to me. I’ve tried their products myself and they worked very well for me. Just hope to help you with products that are worth to buy and make life better for you.

With that, we have come to the end of today’s episode.

Before you go, I have a quote for you by Alex Morgan, he said, “Keep working even when no one is watching.”

Thank you all for joining me today. If you are wondering what you can do to be the best athlete you can ever be, go to starplayeracademy.com, I’ve prepared a cheat sheet that shows you 15 success traits of a serious athlete that you can follow in one glance. So head over to starplayeracademy.com right now, and till tomorrow.

I look forward to see you become a StarPlayer.

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