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Push “Phytos” to Minimize Muscle Damage
 I once read a book titled “We Get Too Old Young, and Too Old Smart”. The catchy title was the best part of the book. The author, now forgotten, was convinced that high dose vitamin supplements were the solution to chronic disease and eternal youth.
Of course, at times it is tempting to believe in the power of the medicine cabinet. Got a cold? Take vitamin C. Need an energy boost? Pop some Ginkgo. Can’t fire up for training? St. John’s Wort is the answer. Pills are easy.
Life, however, is not easy. You know that. And your intuition tells you that pill popping is probably not going to cut the mustard, especially when it comes to athletic performance. Biking is fun –except for that last 10K in a 30-mile an hour headwind. Or the marathon that included 500 feet of climb under 90 degree temps. Energy output. Effort. Satisfaction. The ying and the yang. That’s what silent sports are all about.
Getting smart. Let’s get back to my point here. No matter how consistently you try to train, there are always those unexpected situations. Times when your muscles get beat up, and your psyche gets tested. Sometimes even us old, smart athletes get caught overdoing it. That’s when it is tempting to reach for a quick fix in the form of a supplement.
By now you know that I am not going to advocate a list of supplements to help you avoid muscle damage. I have a better solution: just eat. Well, O.K. There is more to it that a trip to McDonald’s. But your diet can be a powerful tool to protect you from the forces that cause muscle damage, namely free radicals. Here’s how it works.
Muscle Damage
Aerobic exercise like running or biking can increase the demand for oxygen by fifteen fold. Research on muscle function has demonstrated that during intense muscle contraction, a considerable amount of reactive oxygen is generated. This reactive oxygen specie, often called a "free radical” is a busy fellow. Because he is zinging around with an unpaired electron, it’s as though he is constantly looking for a fight. Something to react with. He’s all charged up and ready to go.
Free radicals have a bad reputation. It looks like they may be the force behind a lot of undesirable changes, like aging, cancer, and heart disease. They also have been suspected of causing muscle damage. In fact, when the whole notion of free radical damage was conceptualized, early research focused on the role of antioxidants like vitamin E supplements in reducing the amount of free radicals.
But skeletal muscles are complex machines. One of the nagging questions that researchers at Ohio State University have been struggling with is this: if aerobic exercise generates so many free radicals, then how come runners and bikers aren’t dying off at an earlier age than the rest of the population? Good question.
Although they haven’t quite got the details all figured out yet, it seems that the normal muscle function is actually somewhat dependent upon a certain level of free radical production. In order for muscle contraction to take place, these researchers suspect certain proteins or metabolic enzymes have to be “fired” by reactive oxygen.
The body, it seems, has a handle on just how much reactive oxygen is safe. It actually produces more natural antioxidants in response to regular training. But there are some situations where the levels of natural antioxidants seem to be insufficient, and this is when muscle damage can occur. Let’s see if you have been in any of these situations. Here’s the list: stretch-induced injury, eccentric exercise (running downhill), weekend warrior type of behavior, and severe heat stress. These are the conditions that upset the chemical balance within the muscle and causes free radical damage. So what can you do to minimize the damage?
Supplements Are Controversial
Relying on antioxidant vitamins like C and E seems like a logical solution to free radical damage. In fact, many of the early nutrition studies focused on how performance was affected by supplementing with high doses of vitamins. The problem is nobody knows how high is too high. If muscle contraction is somewhat dependent upon the chemical milieu that free radicals create, could supplementation actually work against performance? Another good question, but the doubts about the safety of high dose supplementation is great enough that most researchers are advocating a safer route to promote natural antioxidants. This is regular training and a diet high in phytochemicals.
Phytochemical Power: 1 + 1 = 3
They’re not vitamins or minerals. But they are chemical compounds present in plants that act as potent antioxidants. Fruits and vegetables with deep colors such as blueberries, plums, spinach and tomatoes are loaded with antioxidant power. Supplement manufacturers are catching on that these nutrients are important; even the run of the mill brands of vitamins like Century now advertise “contains lutein” one of the hundreds of antioxidants present in plants. But the true potency of phytochemicals really lies in the synergistic effect that occurs when the whole plant is consumed at once. The presence of two phytochemicals found together in one plant may more than double their antioxidant effect. That’s a good return on an investment on a spinach salad. Or pasta primavera. Maybe you prefer guacamole and salsa on a bean burrito, or a vegetarian pizza with the works. I think you get the idea. Really, pushing phytochemicals in your diet can be one of the more pleasant aspects of a total training program.
How Much Is Enough?
The jury is still out on how many servings of fruits and vegetables are needed to protect against free radical damage. It makes sense, however, to follow similar guidelines established by researchers for the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. For them, the magic number is nine. Nine – not the usual three that most Americans get.
Can’t picture 9 servings a day in your busy day? Here’s an example: breakfast: raisins, dried cranberries on oatmeal, glass of orange juice; lunch: head for Subway with the works on veggies; snack: banana; dinner: potatoes, green beans, salad, and – oh my gosh – only one more serving to go! Time for a piece of apple pie for dessert.
Nine a day? You can do it, a get muscle damage protection with phytochemicals.
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