Sports and Performance: Energy and Strength

The typical sports nutrition consumer is non-existent. Body-builders and world class athletes are not the only consumers turning to supplements for improved performance. Whether a seasoned athlete, a gym enthusiast, a weekend warrior or any other person trying to improve their health through better nutrition and exercise, the sports nutrition consumer demands natural ingredients to enhance an active, healthy lifestyle rather than synthetic and engineered boosts that bring down as quickly as they build up.

The sweet spot of sports nutrition has long been strength and energy, but difference in today's marketplace is the compilation of science that has given educated athletes and enthusiasts a more defined path to energy management and muscle development.

The key to healthy energy is not in stimulating the central nervous system, but in working with the body's natural energy production in the cell mitochondria. Ribose helps restore and keep the cycle of energy going and going. Carnitine helps by bringin fats into the mitochondria for use as energy. However, the body uses fat certain times, and glucose other times. Phsophagen is another source of energy, and creatine stored in the muscles contributes to phosphagen supply when it is needed for energy production. These energizing compounds are found in the body, body supplemental sources are needed to reach ideal levels for sports-related energy.

Energized muscles can work harder, which is a primary ingredient in building more or stronger muscle. The key to muscle development is protein balance, having more muscle protein synthesis than breakdown. Amino acids make up proteins, and branched chain amino acids (BCAAS) such as leucine and valine are precursors that must come from the diet, including supplements. 

Muscle health and performance can further be improved by enhancing electrical impulses that trigger contractiona mechanism offered by alpha glyceryl phosphoryl choline (A-GPC)and by increasing the flow of nutrient-rich blood to the muscles. Nitric oxide (NO) is the compound associated with increasing blood flow, and supplement ingredients including pine bark extract, Ginkgo biloba and certain polyphenols are touted for increasing NO levels.

Read more about energy and strength mechanisms and ingredients in the full article.