Sports Nutrition Supplements – Vitamins And Minerals

We envy athletes for their trimmed physique and endurance to long hours of physical activities. They achieve the body and endurance that we envy because of regular exercise, body training, proper diet and sports nutrition supplements.

Sports nutrition supplements may be in a form of capsule, powdered shakes, liquid food and candy-like bars. What are sports nutrition supplements and what they can do to your body are the things that you should know first before you head to your local health stores for gallons of protein shakes, carbohydrates bar, and amino acid capsules.

Sports Nutrition Supplements: Vitamins and Minerals
Some people think that sports nutrition supplements such as vitamins or minerals help enhance their performance in the field. According to many experts, however, extra intakes of vitamins and minerals don’t add up to improvement in performance, unless of course the athlete is suffering from vitamin or mineral deficiencies.

A well-balanced diet can meet most of the daily vitamin and mineral needs of an athlete.
You should remember to avoid sports nutrition supplements that promise ‘megadoses’ of vitamins and minerals to achieve a bodybuilding body, strength of a weightlifter and speed of a basketball player. Many athletes pop these sports nutrition supplements without question. Don’t be like them. They are the type of athletes who are most likely to suffer from bursting veins and even arteries because of these super supplements.

Also, avoid sports nutrition supplements that claim to be ‘herbal’ in nature. Don’t self-prescribe vitamin oil supplements or ‘herbal’ muscle grower without asking your physician first. Usually, these ‘herbal’ supplements go in the guise of herbal supplement, when in fact they are capsules of steroids.

If you want to help your immune system, you can take megadoses of vitamin C. Vitamin C is water soluble and excess of which is easily discharged through sweat and urine.

To avoid sports anemia, especially to females who lose blood every month due to menstruation, the mineral iron should be part of an athlete’s list of sports nutrition supplements. Iron, in blood, is responsible for carrying clean oxygen to healthy body cells and removing carbon dioxide from them.

Athletes who have sports anemia have low hemoglobin level. You can easily spot an anemic athlete: he is always exhausted and seems to be in fatigue.

Taking iron supplements should be done with caution. There is such a thing as iron overdose. Consult your physician first before you take iron as part of your sports nutrition supplement.

Sports Nutrition Supplements: Proteins and Carbohydrates
Protein and carbohydrate are two of the most important sports nutrition supplements. Protein help the muscle grow and gain strength while carbohydrates fuel the body for long hours of exercise ahead.

Although an athlete can get protein and carbohydrates through his daily diet, he can get the large amount he needs by drinking protein shakes or eating a protein bar. There are also carbohydrates supplements in powder and bar form.

These sports nutrition supplements may be added to an athlete’s daily meal. Powdered proteins and carbohydrates are delicious ingredients to a glassful of smoothies or fruit punch.

If you love to bake your own pastries, you can add a tablespoon of these delicious sports nutrition supplements to your flour mixture. A vanilla flavored powdered protein may work for you. It is considered as the best tasting flavor of a powdered protein.

These sports nutrition supplements are also good for people who are on the go. They are good meal replacements for those who want to lose weight or meal addition for those who want to gain weight.

Nonetheless, anyone who has decided to add these sports nutrition supplements in their daily diet, they should also make it a point to exercise regularly to synthesize and burn out those protein and carbohydrates in the body.

Paul Hata
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/sports-nutrition-supplements-vitamins-and-minerals-547085.html

The Benefits of Nutritional Supplements

Nutritional Supplements contain such nutrients as proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. It’s not really that surprising they’re called nutritional supplements because they are designed to improve your nutrition. Food or nutritional supplements help us compensate for a particular nutrient deficiency in our body. A complete balanced diet is required to keep the body healthy by maintaining a certain level of all these nutrients, if any of the nutrients level becomes too low then our health will start to deteriorate.

There are many different kinds of nutritional supplements available on the market today. Usually these products come in the form of caplets, tablets or powder; however there is often an option of having liquid medication. All supplements are different; you would take each one for a different reason because they all have their own benefits. Calcium for example is very important for healthy growth of bones and teeth. If you don’t eat or drink enough foods or consume a certain amount of calcium supplements, you would eventually end up being calcium deficient. This means that your body doesn’t have enough calcium, simply because you aren’t eating enough in the first place. As a result of this at some time in your life your bones and teeth will suffer and the older we become the more of a negative impact it will have on our bodies.

Calcium and certain other vitamin supplements also help to fight against osteoporosis in women. Folic acid is a type of B vitamin that prevents abnormal births and other birth defects. Doctors normally advise pregnant women to take folic acid tablets in their early pregnancy. Everyone else should also take a small amount of folic acid to ensure protection against heart disease and cancer.

Other than the above-mentioned nutritional supplements, antioxidants are also gaining popularity these days. They are more commonly known as anti-aging supplements. They slow down the oxidation process in the body and consequently reduce cholesterol levels. They protect against various heart problems. Some vegetables like tomato, onion and garlic are rich sources of antioxidants, but if you think your intake of these vegetables is low then you should consider taking antioxidant supplements.

There are many different reasons for taking nutritional supplements and there are numerous supplements that you can take if you’re into weightlifting or bodybuilding. If you want to bulk up and gain muscle then by taking one of the many bodybuilding supplements you may be able to do just this! Similarly if you want to increase your strength and muscle mass then there are several weightlifting supplements on the market that can do just that.

Always remember to consult your physician before you start taking any supplements because these nutritional supplements can do a lot of good but also can be very harmful to you as well. By taking the incorrect dosage of any supplement it can lead to health problems but by supplementing with the right ones it can lead to a longer, healthier, happy life.

Chris DiCicco
http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/the-benefits-of-nutritional-supplements-133001.html

Top 6 Nutritional Supplements and How to Take Them for Muscle-building and General Fitness Training

Given the huge array of nutritional supplements in fitness and bodybuilding, it can be very frustrating when you want to take your training and diet to the next level with supplementation. Most of these are a waste of money- There are 6 nutritional supplements available, however, that are indispensable for enhancing muscle-building and fat loss. Given the importance of a good diet, this should be the highest priority in any fitness training program. Once your diet is tuned to perfection, adding the right nutritional supplement at the right time will take a great thing and make it better.

Certain bodybuilding supplements are extremely valuable in particular situations, especially when the goal of your weight training program is to lose fat while building muscle. Our bodies have been designed to survive the harshest of conditions, readily storing body fat during times when food is plentiful and shedding it (along with muscle-tissue) when food is scarce. While this characteristic of our metabolism kept us alive through the ice-ages, it makes things really difficult for building a lean-muscular physique (that is if you are not busy running from saber-tooth tigers and fighting rival tribes!).

The right supplementation in the context of your bodybuilding or fitness workouts (pre and/or post-workout) can “trick” the body into thinking it has what it needs so that muscle-mass is preserved. What happens during intense weight training and cardiovascular exercise is that our bodies, along with burning glycogen and body fat, are also very efficient at breaking down muscle tissue. This metabolic adaptation helps to preserve energy stores at the expense of metabolically costly muscle-tissue; if you are starving the more muscle you have the quicker you will die (good for us back in the cave-man days, but bad for us now!). Our muscles are constantly being broken down and built back up from hard weight training, and if we could shift the balance just slightly away from degradation (catabolism) and toward accumulation (anabolism), this would have a huge effect on the effectiveness of our muscle training program.

My top-6 list of indispensable nutritional supplements:

1. glutamine

How Glutamine works: glutamine is known as a “conditionally essential” amino acid; it becomes “essential” during intense exercise such as weight training or cardiovascular exercise, as the need for glutamine is greatly increased. During bouts of intense activity (or stress), glutamine enters the bloodstream and travels into the liver where it is converted into glucose; this newly synthesized glucose helps to fuel the working muscles. This process is known as gluconeogenesis-the process of turning a non-carbohydrate substance (glutamine and some other amino acids) into glucose which can be used for energy. While this all sounds great for the muscles, the problem is that the primary source of glutamine during exercise is from broken down muscle tissue; the body actually breaks down muscle tissue to help fuel the working muscles by preserving their glycogen stores1. Supplying the muscles with an exogenous source of glutamine (i.e a glutamine supplement, has been shown to reduce muscle degradation during intense exercise-the body is “tricked” into not breaking down as much muscle tissue.

2. Branched chain amino acids (BCAAS)
How BCAAs work: Unlike glutamine, BCAAs, consisting of leucine, isoleucine, and valine, are essential amino acids, meaning that the body cannot synthesize them from precursors-they must be obtained from the diet. Like glutamine, there is a greater requirement for BCAAs during intense exercise such as weight training and they are derived primarily from catabolized muscle tissue. BCAAs are broken down into (among other things) alanine and glutamine (remember glutamine?) which are in-turn used to generate glucose in the liver. Supplementing with BCAAs will help to prevent their degradation in muscle tissue, limiting muscle-degradation and speeding up recovery. Leucine itself has been shown to stimulate protein synthesis, and research has shown that the BCAAs have a positive effect on recovery, can reduce fatigue, and encourage an overall anabolic state in the muscle. BCAAs seem to be especially effective in times of reduced calorie intake (i.e. while dieting down to lose that last 5lbs).

3. Protein: (whey protein isolates)
How whey protein works: This one may seem like a no-brainer; proteins are made of amino acids and as discussed above, certain aminos can greatly enhance your weight training efforts. Whey protein is a great protein source because it is very high in both BCAAs and glutamine; any whey protein will have these qualities, but after a weight training workout timing is the key. Many whey proteins are a mixture of both whey isolate and whey concentrate. Whey protein isolate is absorbed extremely fast, while whey concentrate is broken down more gradually over time. Fast-acting proteins such as whey isolate are known as “anabolic proteins”, dumping tons of amino acids into the bloodstream very quickly, promoting muscle-growth. Slower acting proteins such as whey concentrate, soy protein concentrate, or calcium casienate (milk protein) are known as “anti-catabolic proteins”; they provide a slow, steady release of amino acids into the bloodstream helping to reduce muscle-protein breakdown for fuel. After a weight training workout, we want our protein to get there fast-whey protein isolate is ideal for this purpose.

4. Creatine monohydrate:

How creatine works: Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the primary energy source to fuel intense muscular contractions, such as those during sprinting or weight-training. ATP contains a high-energy phosphate bond, which is broken down into ADP (adenosine monophosphate), releasing the energy necessary for muscles to contract. Every muscle cell has a store of phosphate, from which ADP is recycled back into ATP to continue fueling contractions. As this pool of phosphate gets depleted, so does our ability to make ATP; when we run out of ATP the muscle is exhausted and unable to further contract (i.e. the muscle fails such as on the last rep of a bench press). It was discovered some time ago that our muscles can actually be “loaded” with additional phosphate, which can extend our capacity to do high-intensity exercise. Phosphate is stored in the muscle as creatine phosphate, which acts to replenish cellular phosphate stores. When creatine monohydrate is ingested, it is converted to creatine phosphate and absorbed into the muscle cell, helping to replenish the phosphate pool. After an intense workout, muscle phosphate levels are drastically decreased. Supplementing with creatine post-workout replenishes creatine phosphate stores much faster, speeding recovery. Creatine also acts through unknown mechanisms to increase protein synthesis and muscle growth. For every molecule of creatine absorbed into the muscle, several molecules of water are absorbed, giving the muscles a fuller, more pumped appearance. A hydrated muscle is an anabolic muscle.

4. Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs)

How EFAs work: Without getting too much into fatty acid biochemistry, EFAs are required by the body for a countless number of processes, and are an essential element to any nutritional supplementation regimen whether for bodybuilding, athletic training, or general fitness training. The typical American diet is largely deficient in EFAs, and dieters often have less than optimal levels while on low-fat diets. There are 3 basic EFAs which are named based on their chemical structure, including omega-3, 6, and 9. Most commercial EFA supplements are a blend of the various EFAs, providing an ideal EFA profile.

5. Meal replacement powders (MRPs): Commonly known as the “protein shake”, MRPs serve not only as a convenient protein supplement, but as a substitute for regular meal.While real food is always best, the busy schedules of most people simply cannot accommodate the optimal 5-6 meals per day-MRPs are a great way to stay on the diet in spite of the most hectic of schedules. There are many brands commercially available with different nutrient profiles; choose the product that tastes good and provides the nutrient profile that fits for your particular diet plan.

6. Multivitamin/multi-mineral supplements: While in an ideal world we would get all the vitamins we need directly from the food we eat, in practice we can all benefit from a quality multivitamin. Stay away from the typical once/day tabs found at the supermarket. It is questionable whether these are absorbed well at all. Stick with those vitamin/mineral supplements derived from whole-food extracts-these are more readily absorbed. In addition, whole-food based multis may contain unknown substances which are found in food which are either essential or beneficial; science is constantly discovering new nutrients present in food-our current list is far from comprehensive.

There you have it, the only nutritional supplements you need to care about. They have been proven both anecdotally and with rigorous peer-reviewed research to enhance the muscle-building and fat-burning effects of any weight training and fitness program including.

Bill Willis
http://www.articlesbase.com/muscle-building-articles/top-6-nutritional-supplements-and-how-to-take-them-for-musclebuilding-and-general-fitness-training-52196.html

Top Five Best Bodybuilding Supplements

Bodybuilding comes down to three things. An important diet, a good hard work out, but what is the third? One of the most important things to bodybuilders is supplements. If you couple bodybuilding supplements with a good hard workout and a good diet you will be able to maximize your workouts and get the best results. But what are the best bodybuilding supplements?

If you are new to bodybuilding than you may be tempted to just run out and buy a supplement that is in a good magazine. You shouldn’t do this though. You need to do your research and find the one that is best for you. Just because a supplement has the nice packaging and the expensive price doesn’t mean it is better than the cheaper ones. You will have to search for the best bodybuilding supplements for you.

The first supplement is Creatine. Creatine is an organic acid that naturally occurs in your body that gives your muscles short bursts of energy. A number of scientific studies have been done on creatine and it has shown that Creatine can increase strength, energy, and muscle mass. More recent studies of Creatine have shown that it also improves recognition memory, brain function, and reduces mental fatigue. Creatine comes in several forms, such as: Creatine monohydrate, Creatine malate, and Creatine ethyl ester. The only difference between them is the amount of dosage and price.

The second supplement is protein. Protein is important because your muscles can not grow and your body cannot recover from a hard workout. There are three different types of protein, all come in powder, and are all good sources of protein. The first is whey, which is the highest quality protein and is also the most popular protein supplement. The second is soy. Soy is a type of protein that includes many vital elements of amino acids. The third type is casein which helps you to recover body injuries fast.

The third supplement is Maltodextrin. This is pretty much a complicated carb that will help you to recover and restore carbs that are lost during hard workouts. This is often found in many workout drinks and is good for helping speed up your recovery time and get you back in the gym quickly.

The fourth supplement is glutamine. Glutamine is the must abundant amino acid found in human muscles. Why is there a supplement for this then? Supplement manufacturers say that the body loses natural glutamine when you perform anaerobic exercises. The manufacturers say that if you do not take this supplement you may have a deficiency of glutamine which will lead to a weakened immune system and a waste of muscle tissue.

The final supplement is meal replacement products, or MRP. The two most standard forms of MRP are either a drink or a bar. These are usually hard on the stomach so you are going to have to find the right one for you but if you get a drink or a bar they do the same thing. These help your body rebuild muscle by adding extra protein.

Those are the five best bodybuilding supplements that will help you to get the max workout.

Mike Parker
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/top-five-best-bodybuilding-supplements-133522.html

Using Supplements To Enhance Your Bodybuilding

For attaining peak performance in body building it is imperative that the bodybuilder uses the right nutritional supplements.

Supplements play a big part in male body building diet programs because our diets often do no contain the necessary vitamins and nutrients our bodies require to for increased muscle mass and fat loss at the same time.

Luckily for the bodybuilder, the nutritional supplement industry now provides more pills and more powders than ever before.

With a choice of chemical-based and natural supplements, it is always wise to place preference on the many natural body building supplements available today. Not only do they help to speed up the muscle building process, they are also more in harmony with the body than their chemical counterparts.

Natural bodybuilding supplements play a vital role because they feed the body with the nutrients required for muscle growth. These nutrients are not necessarily present, in the required quantities, in the staple diets that have reduced nutritional value due to cooking.

One must choose body building supplements wisely, because there are supplements that are very dangerous if not used properly or if used in incorrect quantities. Furthermore, the right time, with food, with water, and avoidance if you have certain medical conditions are also important considerations.

Some supplements are made to protect muscles and joints against injury, some are used when you want to put on weight, others improve your circulation, plus a host of other supplements for very specific applications and benefits. You must pay attention to each body building supplement that you plan on taking to ensure that there will not be interaction between supplements that could affect your health.

If you are unsure, then it is wise not take a body building nutritional supplement. Alternatively, ask your doctor or pharmacist about the supplement in question.

You need to finalize your diet and supplements only after a professional has evaluated your body weight and height so that the person can recommend the best combination of supplements for maximum fat loss and maximum muscle gain.

The goal of bodybuilding as a sport is to improve your health while providing you with an enviable physique that is attained through long hours of training and strict diets. The correct supplements will help maintain your health by feeding your body with vitamins and the nutrients that are missing from your daily diet.

Ryan Simpson
http://www.articlesbase.com/sports-and-fitness-articles/using-supplements-to-enhance-your-bodybuilding-134285.html

Find Out Why Bodybuilding Supplements May not be Necessary

To supplement or not to supplement – that is the question on more bodybuilder’s lips than ever before. Are they safe? Have you ever wondered what works and what doesn’t?

Lets have a look at the basics.

There are various reasons why athletes may be interested in supplementation.

* Concern about getting adequate nutrients from our food

supply.

* Suspicion of pharmaceuticals.

* Belief that diet alone will not achieve optimal nutrition

Supplements include the following:

* Vitamins

* Minerals

* Amino Acids

* Herbs

The concerning thing about supplements is that anything classified as a dietary supplement is not required to meet any FDA or other standards! Think about that! there are no regulations in place that guarantee the safety or purity of something sold as a supplement.

They are also not made to meet the similar safety requirements as prescription drugs or any other manufacturing standards. They are not required to meet product potency or purity ratings and are not required to prove the effectiveness of any health claim that is made.

Studies suggest that a number of supplements may deliver on advertising claims. However, trainees are spending large sums of money on products that have little or no proven usefulness.

Personally I find the use of supplements over rated and as with strength training, supplementation asks the same question

“If a little is good then maybe more has to be better”

Supplementation and steroids started to proliferate when volume strength training became the training system of the day. Young strength trainees slaving in the gym for five to six days a week was seen as normal. All this without making any progress or putting on any size whatsoever.

They then turned to the latest supplement or steroid thinking that this is the magic bullet to put on that added muscle when all the time they were just plain

“Overtraining”

The cold hard facts are that the majority of the regular trainees in your gym are overtraining. The sad reality is that the type of training that you find in bodybuilding books and magazines (and used by the stars) are irrelevant to the majority of

the population and has a high failure rate.

If more bodybuilders started using more infrequent, short, high intensity weight training sessions, followed by the required amount of time to recover and become stronger…

“Most of the Muscle building supplements and steroids available today would not be needed”

. The bottom line on weight gain supplements

* Before taking a supplement try to make modifications to your

diet that might achieve the same goals.

* Only choose products that show the amount of active

ingredients on the label that are required.

* Be aware that “natural” does not mean ’safe’

* Some herbal supplements may have unpleasant side effects.

Listed below are some popular bodybuilding supplements available on the market today:

Creatine monohydrate

Creatine was first introduced to the market place some eight years ago and has since become the most popular bodybuilding supplement of all time.

Creatine is said to significantly increase lean muscle mass, improve performance, increase energy levels and speed up recovery rates.

Creatine also stimulates the uptake of amino acids in the proteins, which means that the more that it’s used the more muscle that may be grown.

Dosage: A loading phase of 20grams a day for the first five days then a maintenance phase of 5grams a day from then on.

Whey Protein isolate

The highest yield of protein currently available and is extracted from milk. This is another popular supplement for athletes and bodybuilders because of its high proportion of amino acids.

It is supposed to be high in potassium, which is essential

for muscle growth and is an antioxidant and a good immune system builder.

Dosage: 20gms – 100gms a day.

Tribulus Terrestris

Tribulus terrestris is a plant that grows in many tropical and moderate areas of the world and is very rich in chemical compounds such as saponins, flavonoids and alkaloids.

Tribulus terrestris is supposedly a testosterone enhancer and increases sex drives in both men and women.

Dosage as per bottle.

Glutamine

Is a non-essential amino acid, which makes up to 60% of the amino acids in the bodies muscles. Glutamine containing products are protein shakes and good quality protein powders; it can also be added to protein shakes for added potency.

Dosage: 5grams to 15 grams per day.

So there you have it, a supplement is something added to the diet to make up for a nutritional deficiency or imbalance, they are not intended to substitute for eating a balanced diet. If they are to be taken at all they should only be used to supplement the diet and not replace it.

Gary Matthews
http://www.articlesbase.com/supplements-and-vitamins-articles/find-out-why-bodybuilding-supplements-may-not-be-necessary-122481.html