The life of an endurance athlete is hard. You put your body through an insane amount of stress, training for hours and hours each day, getting to the point of exhaustion and fatigue. You’ll regularly find yourself hitting a figurative wall, having to force yourself to push through and keep going when your body feels like it’s about to quit.
With all the physical and mental demands of endurance sports, good nutrition is non-negotiable. And while you may be able to get everything you need with a complete and carefully planned diet, certain supplements are perfect for endurance athletes who want to push further and get an edge.
Read on for the best supplements for endurance athletes, and more nutrition tips to help make training easier and help you perform at a higher level.
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1. Beta-Alanine
Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid, which is produced naturally within our bodies. We also get beta-alanine from various food sources, primarily meat, poultry and fish.
The main function of beta-alanine in the body is to help produce a substance called carnosine. Carnosine helps reduce the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles, and make more glucose available as fuel for the muscles.
This results in benefits for athletic performance, most notably by reducing time to exhaustion, which is perfect for endurance athletes, as it allows you to exercise for longer before fatigue kicks in.
Though we produce beta-alanine naturally (unlike essential amino acids, which we need to get from external sources), studies have shown a significant increase in muscle carnosine levels by supplementing with beta-alanine, providing increased benefits for endurance athletes.
2. Glutamine
Glutamine (or L-glutamine) is another non-essential amino acid, which is the most abundant amino acid in the blood and bodily fluids.
Along with being produced naturally in our body, glutamine is abundant in many animal products, as well as some plant-based foods, and is also popular in supplement form.
Glutamine has a number of benefits for health and performance, such as boosting immune function, supporting intestinal health, and aiding recovery.
Glutamine is particularly effective for endurance athletes. Taking glutamine after working out helps reduce muscle mass breakdown and boost the immune system, both of which can be an issue for endurance athletes.
After a long workout, it’s common for the body to break down muscle protein in order to sustain itself. The immune system also takes a hit, which leaves endurance athletes more susceptible to infection.
Supplementing with glutamine helps prevent this, allowing you to stay healthier and recover faster while maintaining a high training volume.
3. Electrolytes
One thing you can be pretty sure of – during a long run, or bike ride, or whatever your exercise of choice, you’re going to sweat a lot.
When you sweat, you lose a lot of key vitamins and minerals, most notably things like sodium, potassium and magnesium.
These compounds are known as electrolytes, and are extremely important for many bodily functions, particularly muscle function.
It’s essential to replenish the electrolytes you lose during exercise, or else you’re likely to experience intense fatigues, muscle cramps, brain fog and more unwelcome side effects after a long training session.
We get electrolytes from food sources, but if you’re putting in high-volume training sessions, you’ll almost certainly need to top up your electrolyte intake with supplements – ideally both during and after training.
4. Caffeine
Many people use caffeine to get a mental boost, such as a morning coffee that makes you feel more alert and awake.
But caffeine also has benefits for exercise performance. Caffeine has been shown to reduce time to exhaustion, and increase performance for endurance athletes, helping you work out for longer, and increase output.
It’s worth mentioning that caffeine also has side-effects at high doses, so you don’t want to overdo it. But a cup of coffee or a caffeine supplement taken an hour or so prior to training could help you push a little bit further in your session.
5. Protein
Finally we come to one of the most ubiquitous supplements in the fitness industry, protein.
Protein is essential for many bodily functions, but particularly for growing/maintaining muscle.
For this reason, protein is routinely taken by strength athletes. But endurance athletes can get huge benefits from protein supplements too.
Whether it’s a long run, bike, swim or any other activity, you’re going to be putting your muscles through a lot of work over the course of your workout.
This will result in a ton of soreness/fatigue after your training session. Supplementing with protein after training will provide the body with the building blocks it needs to repair damaged muscle fibers, and help shorten recovery time and let you work out at 100% again much quicker.
Balanced Nutrition for Endurance Athletes
Supplements can have huge benefits for endurance athletes, but first and foremost, you need to have good nutritional habits. Supplements don’t make up for a poor diet.
Your diet needs to provide enough energy to sustain the energy output from training or competing. You’ll typically burn 1000-1400 calories in a half marathon. The average diet contains 2000-2500 calories per day, most of which are already used to support normal bodily function.
If you’re an endurance athlete, you’ll need to increase calorie intake to support the increased output. Olympic athlete Michael Phelps used to eat 10,000 calories per day to support his training. You don’t need to go this extreme, but it gives you an idea of how important calorie intake is.
On top of this, make sure you get a good balance of macros in your diet. Protein is important, as we’ve discussed, but carbs and fats are also vital, as these are the macronutrients that the body uses as energy.
If you try to persist with a low-fat, low-carb diet as an endurance athlete, you won’t have nearly enough energy to keep up with your body’s needs.
Make sure you prioritize a clean, healthy diet with balanced levels of protein, carbs and fats. On top of this, supplement your diet with the compounds listed above, and you’ll find yourself able to perform at a higher level, for longer, reaching new highs as an athlete.
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