A Good Multivitamin – The Most Important Supplement for an Athlete
I’m sure there will be many readers scratching their head saying “What? A multivitamin.” How is that supposed to be the most important supplement for athletes? Wouldn’t it be something like creatine of protein powder? Don’t those make more significant improvements in an athlete’s performance?
I hear what you’re saying and I’m sure that the argument could be made for something other than just a vitamin but what I am basing my argument on has less to due with giving the athlete something extra and instead focuses on removing the athlete’s deficiencies which could end up hurting performance significantly.
Health is the basis of athletic performance and ability.
How many of you know of an accomplished athlete that is consistently sick? Not many I bet. And there are good reasons for that. Such as the obvious one of not being able to perform on game day due to sickness. But also the fact that you can’t train properly when sick and without proper training your athletic performance on game day will suffer greatly.
Now having reduced health to the point of actually becoming sick is an extreme example. Most likely the average athlete will not be consistently sick. But something that is much more common would be an athlete who is just slightly unhealthy due to some kind of deficiency. Which may not even be noticed because it is the normal state of health for the aspiring athlete. In fact if it was pointed out to them they may not even be concerned with this but in sports where the slightest increase in speed, power or endurance may be the difference between being the winner or loser, these things matter.
What happens when you don’t get your vitamins?
Probably the best example of the detrimental effect on athletics if you have a deficiency in the micro-nutrients (vitamins) you take in is what happens when you don’t have sufficient B-vitamins. A deficiency in those essential nutrients may effect the body’s ability to repair itself. This is because B-vitamins are used during the production and repair of cells. To put in the most simple terms, if you don’t have your B-vitamins you don’t recover from your workouts properly and if that happens then your next workout is sub-par. Then you probably won’t even recover well from that sub-par workout.
So how do I get my daily vitamins?
Well the most obvious thing to do would be to eat a well balanced meal which would give you all the nutrients and micro-nutrients (vitamins) that you need. Make sure to include all food groups, including plenty of vegetables and fruits. And if your not able to get in all those well balanced meals that you need to get all your vitamins then you may want to consider a good multivitamin.
Photo Credit: otama
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