Category Archives: Nutrition
Nitric Oxide Supplement For Cycling
One of the key things to consider when cycling is getting nutrients and oxygen to your muscles. Without this oxygen and nutrition, your body becomes vulnerable to fatigue and inefficient recovery.
Nitric Oxide is the natural performance booster that strengthens your heart, lungs, and nerves, along with every cell in your body. It also allows you to prolong your exercise, and prolonged exercise increases NO levels in your body. It’s a virtuous cycle that can lead to improved athletic performance and better health.
For the cyclist seeking enhance performance, endurance and strength, as well as faster recovery, the availability of Nitric Oxide in the body is critically important. As any endurance athlete can tell you, a mountain bike race or road race or other long-distance event becomes a competition between body parts over demand for the blood supply. The skin wants the blood circulating to dissipate heat, but the muscles are screaming for the oxygen and nutrients that the blood carries. Meanwhile, the stomach needs blood to digest food and make those nutrients available in the first place. It’s not hard to see how Nitric Oxide, with its ability to increase circulation, would be critical to athletic performance.
Nitric Oxide is a short-lived, gaseous molecule that is produced in your cells. Once released into the bloodstream, it signals the body to perform certain functions such as vasodilatation opening up the blood vessels and capillaries to increase blood flow and deliver oxygen and critical nutrients throughout your body at the time it needs them most.
But as additional research is beginning to show us, NO doesn’t stop with cardiovascular benefits. It now appears that Nitric Oxide is the “master signaling molecule” throughout the body and that maintaining sufficient levels through exercise and nutrition not only improves cardiovascular condition but also optimizes the function of every body system; this leads to superior athletic results and greater wellness, quality of life, and even longevity.
Nobel Laureate in Medicine Dr. Louis Ignarro and Naturopathic Physician Dr. Andrew Myers have written a new book about about supplementation for athletic performance:
Health Is Wealth: Performance Nutrition for the Competitive Edge
And read about Nitric Oxide Supplements in the USA and in Europe.
Nutrtion for Cyclists
I wanted to share these ideas from Dr. John Heiss of Herbalife on nutrition forcyclists, how to ‘Eat to Compete – 5 Reasons Why Endurance Athletes Need Fuel 24/7.’
1. Cyclists need to fuel up in the morning, since their stored fuel reserves will have dropped during an overnight fast. Training and racing take a toll on the body, and starting the day with a healthy meal balanced with carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and minerals provides a solid nutritional foundation for performance.
2. Hydration is an essential need all people share. Because hydration directly impacts athletic performance, it is even more important for athletes to keep fluid levels topped off – especially during an event as demanding as a multi-day tour when cyclists can lose multiple liters of fluid in a single stage. Hydration is essential, as are electrolytes – important body salts which support proper muscle function and help regulate body temperature. It’s important to hydrate during the event, but also important to sip fluid throughout the day to fully rehydrate before the next stage. Sports drinks provide not only necessary fluid, but also electrolytes that have been lost through perspiration. Sports drinks contribute carbohydrates, too, to help fuel working muscles during the event.
3. Carbohydrates are the primary fuel during exercise and they’re essential to keep the body running. In an endurance race, calories are king and getting enough is essential for performance. Making sure to get plenty of carbohydrates both before and during the race is key, and proper nutrition on the bike also helps shorten recovery time, which is very important in a multi-day event. In addition to carbohydrates, a small amount of protein during exercise can help speed recovery.
4. After a race, the body needs the right ratios of carbohydrates and protein to begin recovering. Recovery is two-fold, and requires carbohydrate for replacing glycogen stores as well as protein for rebuilding damaged muscle.
5. Supplementation in a race is essential, as the nutritional needs of cyclists are so extreme that they can’t be met with food alone. But that being said, it is important to keep in mind that supplementation is just that – a supplement to a regular healthy diet. Every athlete should get the majority of their calories and nutrients from whole foods, primarily healthy sources of healthy carbohydrates – whole grains, fruits and vegetables – and protein from lean meats, poultry, fish, low fat dairy products and plant sources such as soy.
Written by Susan Bowerman, MS, RD, CSSD. Susan is a paid consultant for Herbalife.