“You know what that chicken on your plate has been through right? Meat is bad for you! It gives you cancer. It is pumped with steroids and hormones that will make you fat!”

“Well, my food is shitting on your rabbit food! Do you know research shows vegans have lower IQ than meat eaters? Enjoy your carrot.”

This scenario has happened to me, many times.

You may have been caught in the middle of the following lover’s quarrel:

“You know what that chicken on your plate has been through right? Meat is bad for you! It gives you cancer. It is pumped with steroids and hormones that will make you fat!”

“Well, my food is shitting on your rabbit food! Do you know research shows vegans have lower IQ than meat eaters? Enjoy your carrot.”

This scenario has happened to me, many times.

If there’s one thing there’s not a lack of in 2018, it’s opinions. How many times have you turned to Google for nutrition advice, only to be left even more confused 5 minutes later? It’s easy to find countless nutrition gurus giving you the “best diet to lose weight, get stronger, and perform at your best” only to be turned on its head by another charismatic character telling you about their “new nutrition program created especially for you this Christmas.”

No wonder we bounce like yo-yos from one thing to the next. The goal with this article is to help you filter through the noise and to figure out what advice to take and what you should trash.

A 6-Step Goals Assessment

There are some very important things to consider before moving forward with any nutrition plan:

1. What’s your goal? Where are you in relation to that goal?
2. Evaluate your current diet and your past dietary habits.
3. Your body composition will also determine what your total calorie consumption and nutrient balance need to be—this is the most fundamental component.
4. Examine your health and performance history.
5. Use biochemical testing. If you really want to nail this down to perfection then biochemical testing is an important step.
6. Consider a nutrition-focused clinical examination. This means having a doctor examining you from top to toe, assessing your physical appearance as well as internal function to help determine your nutritional status. This assessment helps to uncover any signs of malnutrition, deficiencies or nutrient toxicities.

Before you start any specific diet, it’s worth looking at the research. Who’s the study performed with? Is that relevant for me and will it benefit my goal? Does it take bias into an account?

Some other components to keep in mind:

• Sex
• Ethnicity
• Culture
• Lifestyle
• Age

What About Supplements?

When an athlete has reached an appropriate level of maturity and competition-readiness supplements can be considered. It is imperative that a good training plan, recovery plan, and nutrition plan are all in place. Something to make a note on in the massive use of supplements used by everyday athletes today.

Does it really make a difference or is it an excuse to not actually do the work that will allow you to reach your goals? With athletes, the use of supplements has been carefully evaluated and only supplements with good evidence of efficacy, in at least some exercise models, are used.

If you choose to include supplements, use products that are backed with research and avoid supplements with a lot of additives.

Nothing Beats the Basics

Before you choose one diet over another, the most important thing to keep in mind is that you should focus on nutritional basics—namely macronutrients.

Protein

Protein is your body’s building blocks. It helps maintain and build new muscle mass and can reduce muscular damage. This equals faster recovery and a better adaptation to exercise long term.

You need between 1.2-2 grams of protein per kg of body weight—choose the higher end of grams if you’re training hard.

Carbohydrates

Carbs are the best source of energy to fuel your training. They improve high-intensity performance and preserve muscle and liver glycogen. Carbs are what tell your brain you are well fed and help to increase muscle retention and growth.

Carbs stimulate the release of insulin which, when combined with protein, improves protein synthesis and helps to prevent muscle breakdown.

Fats

When it comes to sports performance, fats do not seem to improve or diminish your results. Fats slow down digestion and this helps maintain blood glucose and insulin levels to keep you on an even keel. Fats are crucial for the uptake of certain vitamins and minerals, help to optimize nerve signaling, and help balance your hormones.

What About Superfoods?

The term “superfoods” is the result of brilliant marketing if you think superfoods are weird foods you can’t pronounce the name of. However, superfood by definition is: “A food that is rich in compounds (such as antioxidants, fiber, or fatty acids) considered beneficial for one’s health.”

Superfoods include the following:

• Blueberries, raspberries, and cherries
• Fish
• Dark, leafy greens
• Nuts
• Olive oil
• Whole grains
• Yogurt
• Cruciferous veggies (cabbage, broccoli)
• Legumes
• Tomatoes

Superfoods are worth stashing in your diet for sure, but there’s no need to slim your wallet purchasing acai, goji berries, or goddess juice from Machu Picchu.

What About Nutrient Timing?

Make sure you keep things real with yourself while taking all the above into consideration.

Unless you are a high performing athlete you have a lot more flexibility when it comes to timing and the key is to make your timing as simple as possible.

Below are a few worthy guidelines if you want to perfect the diet towards your training goals.

Pre-Workout Guidelines

In the three hours before your workout ideally want to eat something that helps you:

• Sustain energy
• Boost performance
• Hydrate
• Preserve muscle mass
• Speed recovery

Post Workout Recommendations

After your workout, you will want to eat something that can help you:

• Recover
• Rehydrate
• Refuel
• Build muscle (and improve future performance)

If you train first thing in the morning/fasted, it becomes more important for you to eat something as soon as possible after your training session. If you’ve eaten before your workout, you have more flexibility with the so-called “anabolic window.”

The Paleo Diet

The paleo diet consists mainly of clean meat, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fruit—ideally organic. One of the good things about the paleo diet is that it’s hard to overeat on unprocessed food, even if I have no doubt some people could pull it off.

If I was going to favor one diet over the others it would be paleo. It’s simple, it’s clean, and includes tons of veggies and no artificial fluff. Meat is, without doubt, the best source of protein for getting strong and optimizing performance. Eating organic meat would be ideal when following the paleo diet due to the mass production of non-organic meat and the use of growth hormones.

Following the paleo diet may not be for you if:

1. You’re allergic to nuts. It may be hard for you to get all the nutrients you need.
2. If you’re an endurance athlete, super lean, or struggle to gain weight. Skipping the golden resource of carbs you get from oats, rice, and pasta might be biting your own tail.
3. If you have a history of eating disorders, malnutrition or have struggled with deficiencies in the past. If this applies to you then always pursue ‘restricted diets’ with caution. If your body interprets a restriction in the diet, it can trigger a stress response in your body.

Using a Vegan Diet

The good thing about a vegan diet is that if done correctly it’s full of vegetables and clean foods like the paleo diet, apart from the fact it excludes meat and eggs. Following a vegan diet is certainly the best you can do regarding sustainability and animal welfare.

With the development of supplements and the increasing quality of the nutrients in those supplements, you can use a slow transition phase and function well on a vegan diet. A lot of athletes have shown that already. What you should keep in mind is that meat has a higher protein quality, and for the simple reason that meat is more similar to human flesh than a piece of broccoli, you will want to increase your overall intake of protein to above the recommended doses to make up for this.

As with the paleo diet, if you have a history of malnutrition, deficiencies, or eating disorders, it might be harder for you to physiologically thrive on a vegan diet. The body remembers your past circumstances, and if it picks up indicators that food might not be available, it easily turns into “survival mode” increasing stress hormones in your body.

The Keto Diet

In the most basic form, the keto diet involves keeping carbs close to zero (or less than 50 grams a day). Simply put, it’s a high-fat/low carb, low protein diet. The keto diet has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity and help your body burn fat for fuel more efficiently, which can be good if you’re struggling to lose weight.

Using a High Carb Diet

Diets are like fashion—a hype. One day fat is bad, the other day it’s carbs.

Carbs make you gain weight if you eat more calories than you burn. It’s easier to eat more calories from carbs than proteins because carbs don’t make you feel as satiated as proteins. Carbs are the best fuel for high performance in training and for your energy levels. However, a high carb diet is mostly relevant for endurance athletes that do high volume training. If you eat a high carb diet and this is not the case, you are likely to miss out on important nutrients from fat and proteins.

Use Your Best Judgement

Before you decide to follow a diet, ask yourself:

1. What’s my goal?
2. Where am I today?
3. Will this help me close the gap?
4. Is it realistic based on my lifestyle?
5. Is there any reason why this might not be a great idea?

Remember, you must have some nutritional habits in place. From there, play around and see what works for you. As with everything, there is no one size fits all.

The post Create Your Ultimate Diet appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It’s a controversial topic and one I think we’ll never fully agree on as a species.

Is it possible that we can have it all? Attain mastery, reach the ultimate limits of our potential, save the planet, and fix the problem of animal welfare at the same time?

It’s a controversial topic and one I think we’ll never fully agree on as a species.

What Science Says about Humans and Animal Protein

There are solidly backed up science that establishes the reason for the development of our brain to the complexity it has today has to do with the fact we got access to higher quality proteins through the development of weapons and fire, allowing us to digest animal protein. It can’t really be argued, simply because animal meat is more similar to our own flesh than your daily serving of broccoli.

Obviously, there are other components as well, and the intake of meat should not be given the full credit for the world how we see it today, but it’s worth noting. However, science is smart and has gifted us with knowledge and tools to help us get the necessary nutrients, even if we choose to exclude animals products from our diet.

Thriving as a Vegan Athlete

If you take the right precautions and are mindful with your diet, you can still thrive as a vegan, but this will depend on lifestyle, your background, your ancestors (from where in the world your roots are from), and so on. There are so many factors involved.

It will be a trial and error, as we are not educated as a society to eat a plant-based diet. We need to take responsibility and acquire the knowledge to make this transition successfully increasing the odds for it to work well for our bodies without having our health deteriorating.

With all this being said, below you will find the five most important supplements vegans, without doubt, should be taking, vegan athlete or not. Then as a bonus, you will find an additional four supplements that will help you thrive as a vegan athlete. I’ve included the recommended doses along with trusted sources of quality supplements that have a high absorption rate.

There are no affiliates or sponsorships involved—this is purely from having researched and compared the products on the market, talking to vegans, non-vegans (omnivores), nutritionists, and coaches. This has simply turned into a summary of my expriences and research.

Let’s dig in!

EPA + DHA

EPA + DHA more commonly put under the umbrella of Omega 3 and is what I would rank the supplement of all supplements for both vegan and omnivores alike. EPA and DHA play an important role in optimal brain function and mood stabilization. People with low levels of EPA + DHA have shown to have higher rates of depression, and a deficiency in adolescent years can affect the development of the brain’s cognitive function.

It’s also massively involved with fighting inflammation and along that same line accelerates recovery from intense training. As an icing on the cake, research suggests EPA + DHA is beneficial aid for fat loss.

EPA + DHA are often confused with ALA, the third Omega 3, but it’s important to note the difference. The body can convert ALA into EPA and DHA but the conversion rate is so low, that even non-vegans would have a struggle to get the sufficient doses required daily.

Recommended Usage Information:

• Ideally, a supplement with a 3:2 ratio of EPA + DHA is recommended for general health.
• Specifically for body composition Charles Poliquin recommends a 3:1 ratio, however, this will be quite a challenge to dig up on the vegan market.
• To get the most bang for the back of taking the supplement, it should be taken post-workout along with vitamin D.
• 1500-3000mg is the daily recommendation, and as your vegan option of Omega 3 is not seen as effective as its non-vegan mates, you would want to lean towards the higher end of the scale.
• EPA + DHA are derived from marine sources such as fish and algae.
• ALA is found in plant sources like flax, chia, walnuts, and canola.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is advised for both vegans and non-vegans. It’s crucial for building strong, healthy bones and helps to prevent osteoporosis due to its role in the absorption of calcium and phosphate. A strong supply of vitamin D strengthens your immune system, prevents muscle weakness, and reduces your risk of injury.

Low levels of vitamin D are a performance limiting factor, yet when levels are optimal, vitamin D enhances performance. You will often see a performance peak in the summer months with a low point in March where we often find the lowest levels of vitamin D.

Recommended Usage Information:

• The best way to get your vitamin D is through the sun—that’s how your body best absorbs it. However, if you live in a city with your umbrella as one of your best friends, taking vitamin D as a supplement is advised.
• You would want to choose Vitamin D3, being the most absorbable source. You can get D2 from yeast, but it’s far less effective, and a much higher dose is required.
• Moderate supplementation is considered a daily dose of 1000-2000 IU.
• As a vegan you can benefit from leaning towards the higher end of the scale especially during periods of heavy training.
• Another way to determine the dose would be to multiply with your body weight in the ratio of 20-80 IU /kg daily.
• Another smart thing to do is to take your supplement along with a meal or source of fat, like your Omega 3s.

Vitamin B12

B12 is non-existent in plant sources, so for the vegan diet to work for you, you have to take a note on this, and make sure this vitamin is not forgotten.

Vitamin B12 is essential for optimal brain and nerve function. Also, a note for those of you who spend a lot of time in the gym, remember that vitamin B12 plays a significant role in energy metabolism via the production of the oxygen-carrying red blood cells.

A deficiency in B12 can affect strength and power performance due to its role in maintaining the sheath that covers the nerve fibers. If these nerve fibers are altered, the transmission of nervous signals are interrupted and causes a reduced muscular function.

Recommended Usage Information:

• B12 is now found in a lot of processed and fortified foods such as cereals, bread, soy, tempeh, and tofu. As a vegan, to make sure you get the amount you need, taking it as a supplement is advised.
• Solgar is a trusted supplement company by fitness professionals and nutritionists for their quality products and ingredients. BetterYou is another brand, where you get B12 in a spray form, which is what I personally use.

Iron

Iron is another supplement critical to anyone that does heavy training, vegan or not. Women should be especially mindful of deficiencies. Iron plays an important role in your metabolism as it helps the transport of oxygen to tissues. The cells in your body burn calories to create energy through a process that requires iron, so when your iron is low, this process gets compromised and general fatigue can occur.

Another note for vegans is that vegan, and even vegetarian, food contains non-heme iron which is poorly absorbed by the body compared to heme-iron found in animal products. You can, however, improve non-heme absorption by eating foods high in vitamin C like beets and tomatoes along with your non-heme iron foods. You also want to avoid food with tannins like green tea when you grab your iron, as it hinders the absorption of iron in your body.

Recommended Usage Information:

• Be mindful that supplementation is known to be constipating and can cause oxidative stress.
• Floradix-iron with herbs is one vegan option known to be without these side effects.
• Daily dose: 8mg for men and 18mg for women (menstruating)

Protein

You can’t really avoid a conversation with a vegan and non-vegan without bumping into the topic of protein. I guess you’ve probably heard this already, but the role of protein is indeed something to keep in mind, especially leucine.

Protein is your building block. It repairs damaged tissue and improves brain function. It’s shown to affect your motivation due to its ability to support neurotransmitter levels. As a vegan, your daily intake of protein (especially when you hit the gym quite a lot) should ideally be higher than is the case for omnivores, since the body can’t use vegetable-derived protein as efficiently as animal protein.

Recommended Usage Information:

• 1-2g protein per kg mass per day is recommended.
• When you look for protein powders, make sure you get powder that has a complete amino acid profile. If it does, it’s likely to be mentioned and highlighted on the package.
• A good go to would be to choose a protein powder that uses several different sources of plant protein such as pea, rice, and hemp protein.
• Quality products I would recommend are Form Nutrition, SunWarrior, and Vega.

Zinc

An essential micro-mineral seen as an immune-boosting supplement as well as being involved in protein synthesis and hormone production. Adequate zinc is necessary for the body to repair tissue and eliminate oxidative stress from training. During heavy training, even non-vegans can struggle with low levels of zinc and supplementation becomes important.

Recommended Usage Information:

• Many vegetarian foods contain zinc, but with low bioavailability, which means the body is not very good at using it. If you do a lot of training, you would want to add in zinc as a supplement.
• A trusted source is Garden of Eden.
• 5-10mg is considered a low dose.
• 25-45mg can be taken if there’s a risk of deficiency.

Creatine

Creatine serves as an energy reserve for the body for periods of short intensive training such as heavy weight training, sprinting, and explosive work such as gymnastics. Supplementing with creatine has shown to increase performance by 15% as well as boosting brain function in both vegans and non-vegans. This is because stress decreases creatine sources in the brain. Creatine is derived from meat and fish. The body can produce small amounts on its own, but not enough for peak performance.

Vegan muscles will be deficient in creatine, and it’s actually shown that vegans supplementing with creatine have greater improvement in performance as compared to omnivores when taking creatine as a supplement.

Recommended Usage Information:

• Supplementing with 3-5 grams a day for vegans can equalize the training field with omnivores and radically improve muscle and brain function.
• For a fully vegan athlete, Now Foods has a non-gelatin capsule.

Taurine

Taurine is an amino acid only found in animal protein. It has a key role in regulating the stress response and cortisol levels in the body. It helps to raise the neurotransmitter GABA, which is the neurotransmitter that helps you calm down and sleep at night. It’s also involved with regulating your blood glucose levels while supporting a stable blood pressure.

Studies show that sufficient taurine levels help athletes manage physical and mental stress better as well as decreasing levels of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). It does this by removing free radicals, and helps to repair damaged tissue, while improving water content in the muscle.

Recommended Usage Information:

• Taurine is mostly found in eggs and milk. Supplementation is advised for vegans.
• 6 grams a day can help improve mental and athletic performance.
• Now Foods/Solgar had quality vegan options.

Carnitine

Carnitine is derived from an amino acid and found in nearly all cells of the body. It plays a critical role in energy production and transporting fatty acids into the cells to be burned for energy. The body can synthesize carnitine from amino acids but it might not be able to keep up with energy needs if you’re a hard-charging vegan athlete. Supplementing may improve fat burning, metabolic function, insulin sensitivity, and play a role in reducing inflammation.

Athletic performance can benefit carnitine supplementation even for meat eaters. A study found that meat eating triathletes taking 2g carnitine every day for 24 weeks had an increased work output of 35% compared to that of the placebo. Lactate and RPE levels were significantly lower than in the placebo group, indicating that carnitine supplementation reduced fatigue and allowed the athletes a better training tolerance.

Recommended Usage Information:

• Now Foods has a vegan option.
• Note that studies show that performance benefits may only occur after long-term supplementation (ie. triathletes taking carnitine for 6 months at 2-6 grams a day).

Make Sure Your Supplements Are Set

Your top priorities as a vegan, and even more so if you spend a lot of time in the gym, are

Omega 3, vitamin D, B12, iron, and protein. This list is non-negotiable if you want to optimize both health and performance.

Make sure you get these supplements from quality products. Overall, you want to keep in mind that as a vegan going slightly higher than the daily recommended dose can be beneficial for you. You can get all you need from a vegan diet, whether it will be as optimal as what you would get as an omnivore is a controversial topic. But if you make sure you spend that extra time and money to add what’s likely to be missing, you have a better chance of setting yourself up for success.

The post The Top 5 Supplements for the Vegan Athlete appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Have you tried this new drink with 156 different vitamins and minerals? Did you know that this new vitamin unicorn jelly bean will make you feel more awake and you’ll be able to do backflips in your sleep?

Every day new supplements are introduced to the market with one good marketing campaign after the other, and the shelf is stacked with yet another colorful bottle promised to make us more awesome. No wonder we get confused about supplements, overwhelmed, or simply decide to skip them altogether.

It is important to consider two questions:

1. Should you be taking supplements in the first place?
2. And if so, which ones are worth its place on your drug shelf?

Firstly, Your Diet Is Crucial

I cannot talk about supplements without covering a thing or two about food. Supplements are in the end just that, supplements.

A supplement by definition is something added to something else in order to complete or enhance it. What that means is that a supplement cannot fix a diet that looks like a mix between Starbucks, take-away food, and an occasional carrot.

Even if we do get our daily veggies, nailing the nutrition variation game by stacking up with clean meat, complex carbs, and a decent amount of healthy fat, the quality of the nutrients are not guaranteed. This is due to mass production, how the food is manufactured, transported, kept, the shelf life, and all the things added along the way to make it last longer than a couple of days.

All this is to make the point that supplements might indeed be worth your time. But which ones?

The Supplement Front

I could make an elaborate speech about what groups of people and lifestyles should be taking what supplements, but that is beyond the scope of this article.

My focus is the everyday athletes. Those of us who hit the gym floor 4-6 days a week, like to lift some heavy stuff, want to optimize health, focus, and overall, perform at our best.

We work hard and want the highest possible ROI for the effort, thank you very much.

There are certain groups that should take special notice on adding any supplement to their diet or why you might benefit from skipping it altogether.

I’d like to look beyond the traditional protein, casein, and caffeine supplements, which you’ve probably read too many articles about already. So, without further ado, here are my top supplements—you should look them up because like all nutrition advice, it’s what works for you and not what you’re told should work. We are all different and have unique responses to supplements.

Supplement Suggestion #1: Omega 3

If I was to favor one supplement over another, I would vote for Omega 3. Keep in mind there’s a massive difference in the quality of the supplements you get on the market. A low quality, cheap version and you might as well save what you considered spending.

Omega 3 fatty acids is an umbrella term for the following:

• EPA+DHA – marine sources such as algae
• ALA – Plant sources such as flax, chia, walnuts, canola

To optimize your health, performance, cognitive function, and get the most in return for your drug investment, your main focus should be EPA+DHA.

The body can convert ALA found in plants to EPA and DHA, but the conversion rate is low to the point even non-athletes will struggle to get an efficient amount, compared to if EPA and DHA were taken by themselves.

EPA+DHA counters inflammation, accelerates recovery from intense training, and also serves as a protection for you against injuries and illness. They’re crucial for optimal brain function and play an important role in mood stabilization.

EPA and DHA are also important in order to balance out the massive amount of Omega 6 fatty acids that we often find in our diets today. Omega 6 is found in nuts, seeds, and the oils extracted from them. Most snack food we eat today like chips, cookies, crackers, and sweets heavily rely on these oils (sunflower, soy, and corn oil) which means we tend to get way more than we need.

When the Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids are balanced you then get the benefit of Omega 6 (such as lowering the risk of heart disease, as well as your LDL, while increasing HDL) without the additional inflammation that comes along as a bi-product, due to Omega 3’s role in reducing inflammation.

The roles of EPA and DHA are important to recognize that EPA is present structurally only in small quantities. It’s always being utilized and is under constant demand to be replaced. EPA seems to be the dominant functional fatty acid in many areas of your body’s health, especially with regard to reducing inflammation. EPA also protects our genes and cell cycles while keeping our stress responses regulated. An adequate supply of EPA during adult life can help prevent a range of chronic illnesses.

DHA has more of a structural role in your body. It’s seen as a physiologically-essential nutrient in the brain for normal functioning of neural tissue including cognitive performance, learning ability, memory, as well as your vision.

• Ideally, you would benefit from taking a supplement that has an EPA+DHA ratio of 3:1 or 3:2 which is what Charles Poliquin (a great coach who is always worth a look but who shockingly passed away too young) would recommend specifically for body composition.
• For general health, the American Heart Association recommends 1g of combined EPA+DHA.
• If you are physically active and spend a lot of time in the gym, you would benefit from stepping up the doses to between 1500-3000mg a day, leaning towards the higher doses during harder periods of training, or you’re if recovering from an injury.
• Take EPA+DHA with your vitamin D.
• Consider taking it post-workout.

Supplement Suggestion #2: Vitamin D

Whether you are an athlete, non-athlete, part-time athlete, or wannabe athlete, vitamin D is another supplement you would want to put on your list if you’re living in a big city or an area that sees that sun a lot less than you want.

Ideally, you would want to get your vitamin D from the sun. That’s how the body best absorbs it, and if you get a 30-minute walk in daylight a day, you should be fine. However, if your life is not based in San Francisco, Miami, or Bali and you cannot take a sunny holiday every other month, the second best thing will be to buy your vitamin D from the supplement shelf or click the appropriate button on Amazon.

Vitamin D plays an important role in the absorption of calcium and phosphate, which again are both crucial for building strong healthy bones and help to prevent bone loss and osteoporosis.

The absorption of calcium is dependent on vitamin D for it to happen in the first place.

A strong supply of vitamin D in your body also prevents muscle weakness and reduces your risk of injury. Low levels of vitamin D are strongly correlated with a higher risk of injury as well as being a performance limiting factor where strength and power can be significantly reduced.

When optimized, vitamin D is considered a performance-enhancing substance, and definitely something to keep in mind if you’re on the road to injury recovery. When vitamin D levels are highest during the summer months, you often see a peak performance in sports performance. A low-performance point is often seen in March, where we often find the lowest levels of vitamin D.

To get your vitamin D levels where they should be, keep the following in mind:

• Find the sun. Meat, fish, eggs, and dairy do have some vitamin D but have low amounts compared to the human need, which is why you would benefit from taking it as a supplement.
• When supplementing, choose vitamin D3 because it has a much higher percentage of absorption in your body than vitamin D2.
• For moderate supplementation choose a dose of 1000-2000 IU daily.
• During heavy training, you might want to step up the dose.
• You may benefit from taking your bodyweight into consideration when determining your vitamin D dose (calculate in the range of 20-80 IU/kg daily).
• Ideally, take your vitamin D with meals or with a source of fat.

Supplement Suggestion #3: B12

Vitamin B12 important for optimal brain and nerve function and in the creation of red blood cells and is essential for athletes because it plays role in energy metabolism. It can affect strength and power performance because it maintains the sheath that covers nerve fibers. If these nerve fibers are altered, and the transmission of nerve signals becomes interrupted, it can be the cause of reduced muscular function.

If you have a diet rich in animal products you might not need to supplement with additional B12. Vegans and vegetarians should especially keep an eye on their levels of B12 because it is found in animal products and is not present in plant foods.

How to use B12:

• 1000mcg (1mg) daily.
• The spray form seems to have a better absorption rate than the pill form.

Supplement Suggestion #4: Magnesium

Magnesium is often seen along the list of supplements that can help you calm down in the evening and make you sleep like a baby. However, there’s more to it than that, if that wasn’t reason enough to make sure you get your daily dose covered. Remember that magnesium is a macromineral, meaning you need more than 100mg daily.

Magnesium assists in the formation and strengthening of your bones and teeth. It also helps to level the amounts of calcium in the blood. Magnesium is important for optimal nerve and muscle function together with potassium, sodium, and calcium. It also assists in the making of protein for blood circulation and muscle contraction.

How to use magnesium:

• Not all magnesium supplements are as quality as others, so be sure to do some research on brand quality. Some have shown to cause gastrointestinal side effects like bloating or diarrhea due to low absorption rates.
• Magnesium citrate is in most cases your best go-to as it has shown to have the highest absorption rate in your body.
• Take 200-400mg daily.
• Take magnesium the evening, a few hours before going to bed is optimal.

Supplement Suggestion #5: Iron

Iron is critical for every athlete, and if you’re a woman reading this, even more so.

Iron is even more important if you do a lot of high impact work like running or gymnastics.

Iron transports oxygen to tissues and is important for metabolism. The cells in our body burn dietary calories to create energy through a process that requires iron. When iron is low this process gets compromised and general fatigue can occur. You also feel cold in general and just overall don’t feel very well.

The same as in the case with B12, you might not need extra supplementation if you get your daily intake from food—if you eat a lot of red meat or eat all parts of the animal, especially the liver.

How to take iron:

• 8mg per day for is recommended for men.
• 18mg per day is recommended for menstruating women (non-menstruating women should stick with 8mg).
• Because iron is a mineral it can be harmful if you take too much of it, which is why you should keep an eye on whether you get enough of it already in your diet.
• The daily tolerable upper intake level is 45 mg (when over 13 years old).
• You can improve your iron absorption from food by eating foods rich in vitamin C like tomatoes and beets.
• Avoid food with tannins, like green tea, when you take iron because it hinders the absorption of iron in your body.

Supplement Suggestion #6: Calcium

Calcium is considered a macromineral, due to the large amount required in the diet. A deficiency in calcium long-term is linked with osteoporosis, osteopenia, and rickets. Calcium in adequate doses is mainly found in dairy products including dairy-derived protein supplements such as whey and casein. If you follow a paleo, vegan, or dairy-free diet, calcium is definitely something you would want to consider adding as a supplement.

How to use calcium:

• 1000mg a day is recommended for adults between ages 19-50.
• If you train a lot, you might want to step up the dose.
• The maximum dose of calcium taken in supplement form should not exceed 500mg in one serving to avoid side effects such as abdominal cramping, bloating, and diarrhea.
• Companies such as SOLGAR and Doctor’s Best are trusted and popular sources both by fitness professionals and nutritionists.

Supplement Suggestion #7: Vitamin C

Vitamin C is mostly known to help reduce the symptoms of seasonal colds. It has shown to reduce the duration of a cold by 8-14% when it’s taken as a preventative measure or at the beginning of a cold. For an average, healthy population, it has not been shown to reduce the frequency of the common cold. However, research shows that an athlete supplementing with vitamin C can expect to cut the risk of getting a cold by 50%.

Vitamin C acts as an antioxidant and a pro-oxidant depending on what the body needs. The structure of vitamin C also allows it to interact with the pancreas and modulate cortisol. Overall, vitamin C protects you from oxidative stress, which is what you expose your body to by training.

How to take vitamin C:

• Again SOLGAR and Doctor’s Best are good go-to brands.
• The recommended daily intake is 100-200mg. Generally, to obtain this amount daily no supplementation is needed aside from your balanced diet.
• Higher doses up to 2000mg are used to support the immune system for athletes. I am not suggesting that you go all the way up to 2000mg because the training schedule for athletes, despite our solid efforts, is likely quite different to ours even if we hit the gym 5-6 times a week. But this is a trial and error thing you need to explore on your own. I would recommend 1000mg if you want to give it a go. It’s not a must, but you might find that it’s to your advantage to add it in.
• Optimize the absorption rate of iron through food when eaten along with vitamin C containing foods.

Lastly, Find What’s Best for You

The two most crucial supplements that pretty much everyone should grab are Omega 3 and vitamin D. From there it becomes more of a playing field depending on your goals, lifestyle, and general diet. These are suggestions that you might want to test to see if they can make a difference. It works for me.

The post Supplements: Are They Right for You and You for Them? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“Dude, I want to learn this thing, other people pull this off, so I should be able to do so, too. Come on, let’s do this.”

“No, if you don’t break your neck you will break your back, perhaps a leg, or two, and no one in the world will ever talk to you again, because you will look stupid.”

“No, no, no, no, You’re gonna die, I’m telling you, you’re gonna die. You will break your neck, you will crash into your neighbor—or worse make a complete fool of yourself!”

“Dude, I want to learn this thing, other people pull this off, so I should be able to do so, too. Come on, let’s do this.”

“No, if you don’t break your neck you will break your back, perhaps a leg, or two, and no one in the world will ever talk to you again, because you will look stupid.”

“Come on, we can do this. Let’s do this. It looks so fun.”

Handstand Mind Games

The mind is a world champion when it comes to coming up with excuses when you venture into unfamiliar territory—also known as doing something you’ve not done before.

It’s the same battle over and over, one side of us so wants to crush our current limits to infinity and beyond, learn new things, and test the edges of our potential.

The other side is terrified of anything it doesn’t know, and this part of our brain hasn’t seen daylight for centuries, so is still convinced we live in the stone age. In stoneage days, unfamiliar territory and new experiences were indeed to be pursued with caution as it was likely to be a lion, tiger, or some other crazy monster you’d not yet come across.

A Little Bit of Useful Science about Fear

Fear is our limbic system, in particular our lovely amygdala, that super old part of our brain, that has now much been left in the shadow in favor for our prefrontal cortex, the clever guy. However the amygdala is driven by emotions, and emotions will always be the main driver for our actions, so disregarding this part of our brain is a bit stupid if you want to set yourself up for success.

You must keep in mind that fear occurs when the following circumstances are present:

• You are about to do something you’ve not done before.
• You are about to venture into the unknown.
• You are about to do something that you don’t have full control over, yet.
• It’s unfamiliar territory, and so it’s interpreted as dangerous.

When something is new, the amygdala goes “there might be lions around here, better run away asap,” which is why you have some crazy emotions getting in the way for your handstand practice.

Now, we won’t be eaten by a lion when trying to balance on our hands, but like with anything new and unexplored the brain’s going to tell you to stop and activate a lot of survival mechanisms to “help you out”—making you go halfway in for what you want to achieve and learn, stops you from going all in, even if you know exactly what to do.

5 Simple Tricks To Conquer Your Handstand Fear

With the knowledge of the above, it’s easy. Since the mind freaks out because something is new and unfamiliar, our job then becomes to make this handstand game an explored playground.

The more familiar it feels, the more it will calm the mind down, preventing it from going into catastrophe mode, leaving you completely paralyzed. Then you will no longer be at the border of a nervous breakdown and you can focus on the task at hand.

1. Visualize it. The mind can’t distinguish between a thought and real experience if you can make this thought vivid enough. You do this by imagining in as much detail as possible how to do your handstand, everything from how you put your hands on the floor to the feeling of being upside down, or how you imagine it to be.
2. Watch other people do it over and over. Real life, YouTube, Instagram—train your mind to see it as “normal.”
3. Start with where you are today. Start small. Start with the smallest possible step. This is probably the most important step.
4. See the small wins along the way. This will help you build confidence in your abilities.
5. Challenge yourself in balance with your current skill level. Make the challenges challenging enough that you can focus on them, yet not too challenging or too easy. This will help your mind stay focused instead of thinking about being scared.

How to Practice and Challenge Fear In Action

The way I started my life upside down was with learning my headstand, then forearm stands, before eventually nailing my handstand. I’ve found this method to be useful for many. As a principle, I would recommend starting with the progression you find the least scary.

Starting with a headstand can be good because it’s easier to balance skill-wise. Then your focus will be on mastering the fear of seeing the world upside down. You must focus on one thing at the time. Then practice that component over and over, until it’s on autopilot.

Here’s a real-world example:

• I’m going to put my hands down on the floor 10 times and my focus is hand placement. That’s my one goal for that session—how I put my hands on the floor while notice how that feels.
• The next 10 tries, I will focus on looking in between my hands and think hips on top of head. And that’s my only two points of focus, for those 10 times I try to go up.
• Then the next 10 times I try to connect these dots: hands, hips, and where I look.

And so the journey continues.

Repetition, repetition, repetition, day in day out. Not tons, just 5 minutes of practice with an occasional day or two off.

Trust the Process

Trust the process, be patient, know that you will get frustrated, and remember that’s a good thing. Keep going anyway. The moments you feel most stuck, those are the moments you work the hardest, and you grow the most although you can’t see it.

At one point you might get so pissed off and go “I’ve had enough,“ and then you suddenly, finally break through. Perhaps you fall to the other side and you realize it wasn’t as dangerous as you thought.

Perhaps you get a little bruise, a small price for realizing that you can take a lot more than you thought, on top of a stronger sense of confidence from breaking new limits. Plus, you’ve also just learned how to fall out of a handstand.

Thoughts On The Wall

You might start with the wall if you are completely new. Simply to train your body to turn the right muscles on when you go upside down, but from there get away from the wall as soon as you can. Only use it once in a while as a check-in.

The mind likes to rely on the wall too much and ultimately it’s not going to help you in the long run. It’s fake safety, you start depending on something outside of yourself. The goal here is to start trusting yourself that you can figure this out.

The Fear of Crashing Into the Floor

You won’t learn anything until you practice it, so you need to fall to learn how to fall. Trust me on this—here’s where your survival instincts will make very good use of themselves. We have a survival mechanism installed in our brains that is capable of the craziest things to keep us safe. It will keep you safe. Plus you’re almost on the floor already.

When you get scared, that’s a good sign. It means you are going beyond your status quo, and that growth is waiting for you when you lean into it and go beyond.

• Trust the process.
• Above all, play with it.
• Feel the fear and move with it.
• Be curious about it.
• Explore it.
• Give yourself some solid credit along the way.
• Put your fear in a different light.

What’s the smallest step you can take to close the gap between where you are today and where you want to be?

You might also like:

• Get Ready For Handstands: Hand Position And Balance
• Develop Your Handstand: The Importance Of Progression
• My 4-Week Program For Achieving Handstand Happiness

The post Overcome Your Fear and Master Handstands appeared first on Breaking Muscle.