Taking probiotics offers many benefits to one’s health, including stronger immune system and the better ability to fight off disease, but it may be particularly beneficial to athletes as a healthy gut may improve athletic performance through a number of factors, including these.
When it comes to athletic performance, the first thing that probably comes to mind is muscle. While it’s true that much of that performance originates in the muscles, there are other systems in the body that contribute to that, including your gut. In fact, it may have a much more significant role than you might have imagined. The bacteria in your gut is a major factor in how healthy your immune system is, and it also has a key role in the inflammatory response, whether or not you develop certain diseases, as well as affecting your emotional and mental health, including the potential development of anxiety and depression.
What are probiotics? They are the healthy bacteria that live in the gut, and can also be found in raw, living and fermented foods. While they are essential for health and wellness, the benefits they offer are also significant for endurance athletes.
How can probiotics specifically help improve your athletic performance?
Those who took probiotics were shown to experience improved peak torque production within 72 hours after exercise, which indicated to the researchers that probiotics were behind the enhanced performance.
Healthy bacteria helps to improve digestion by improving the absorption and bioavailability of fats and protein. Good bacteria can also aid in the digestion of nutrients in the stomach and intestines. As athletes have especially high nutritional needs, those needs can best be met when improvements are made to the digestive system. Plus, improving nutrient absorption can help lower the risk of developing illness and disease.
This leads the experts to believe that a stronger immune system thanks to probiotics may equal improved athletic performance.
Adding or increasing probiotics in your diet can also help improve your ability to tolerate training in hot conditions. In a 2014 study published in the European Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers looked at effects of a multi-strain probiotic supplement on runners over the course of four weeks and found that supplementation increased the amount of time it took before the runners became fatigued.
Optimizing your gut health is not only important for optimal health, including lowering the risk of most diseases, it may give your athletic performance a boost as well. In addition to feeding your gut with healthy bacteria by consuming more fermented foods and taking a high quality probiotic supplement, it’s also important to lower your intake of sugar as much as possible – without that crucial step, you’ll be counteracting those efforts to rebuild healthy gut flora – which is like taking one step forward and moving one step back at the same time.
Schwartz Bioresearch probiotic supplement guarantees high-quality, shelf stable probiotic strains which maintain at least 20 billion CFU until the labeled expiration date and survive harsh stomach acids to reach the intestinal tract where they exert their greatest benefits. Most probiotics have weak strains that don’t survive the shipping and storing processes, let alone stomach acids and bile. Some manufacturers are even offering probiotics with a chemical-filled coating so the weak strains won’t die in the stomach. Schwartz Bioresearch is one of only a very few brands that can guarantee potency until expiration date; strength of our probiotic lies in the high quality strains we work with, not in artificial coatings.