As athletes, we all want to keep moving, performing and excelling for as long as possible. Whether you’re an aging athlete, a Masters athlete, or a younger athlete planning ahead, maintaining your performance in the long run is key to enjoying and getting the most fulfillment from your sport.
Many athletes turn to supplementation to help them maintain their vitality, strength, and performance over time and, in this article, we’ll discuss the supplements you can take to ensure your longevity as an athlete.
Here’s what you can expect to learn:
- Why longevity is crucial for all athletes
- 5 types of supplements you can take to ensure your longevity
- Our top product recommendations for each supplement type
Why Longevity Matters for Athletes
Longevity is about extending your active life and enabling you to continue participating in the sports and activities you love. Maintaining your athletic performance and physical health over the long term reduces your risk of injuries and chronic conditions that can limit your athleticism. Long-term athleticism also brings additional benefits like supporting your mental health and providing social engagement.
Prioritizing your longevity ensures that you can stay active and competitive, set and achieve new athletic goals, remain fit and healthy for everyday activities, and enjoy a higher quality of life for longer.
Read on to learn about the 5 types of supplements that can help you ensure your longevity as an athlete: creatine, HMB, egg white protein, beta-alanine and a comprehensive multivitamin.
Creatine: Maintain Your Strength and Brain Function
Creatine is a fundamental supplement for maintaining muscle strength and cognitive function as you age. It helps you build and keep muscle mass and enhance your overall performance by replenishing your body’s ATP stores. ATP is the energy currency used by your muscles during high-intensity activities like weightlifting and sprinting.
Maintaining muscle mass is crucial for your health and longevity as you age, as muscle loss can lead to decreased mobility and a higher risk of injuries. Creatine supplementation helps combat these effects, making your training and other physical activities like hiking easier.
Beyond its muscle health benefits, creatine also supports your brain health by increasing energy availability in your brain, which supports cognitive function. This can aid your mental clarity and focus over time, which benefits both your training and daily life.
Our recommendation for an additive-free, effectively dosed creatine supplement is HMB+ Creatine.
HMB: Preserve Your Muscle Integrity
HMB (beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate), specifically calcium HMB, is highly effective in preventing muscle breakdown and supporting recovery, which is essential for long-term athletic performance and overall health. It promotes new muscle protein synthesis and reduces muscle protein breakdown, preserving your muscle mass as you age.
Muscle loss, or sarcopenia, is a significant concern as athletes get older since it leads to decreased strength, an increased risk of injury and functional decline. By preserving your muscle integrity, HMB helps you maintain your strength and continue performing at a high level in your sport for longer.
Our recommendation for a pure, effectively dosed calcium HMB supplement is HMB Sport, but if you also want the benefits of creatine monohydrate, consider HMB+ Creatine.
Egg White Protein: Maintain Your Lean Muscle Mass
Egg white protein is an ideal choice for maintaining your muscle mass and supporting your longevity. Unlike highly processed protein powders such as whey, casein and soy, which can often lead to digestive discomfort, egg white protein is a minimally processed, real food option that is gentle on your digestive system. It’s a clean, efficient protein source from real food that’s easy for your body to understand and utilize, which is particularly crucial for athletes to preserve their muscle health over the long term.
Over time, our digestive efficiency can decline, making it more challenging to break down and absorb nutrients properly. This is where egg white protein shines; its high digestibility means that your body can readily use it for muscle repair and growth, ensuring that you continue to maintain your muscle integrity and support your overall physical health.
Our recommendation for a complete, real-food protein supplement is Egg White Protein Isolate.
Beta-Alanine: Aid Your Muscle Endurance and Reduce Fatigue
Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid that enhances muscle endurance and reduces fatigue by increasing carnosine levels in your muscles, which buffers lactic acid buildup during high-intensity exercise. This allows you to train longer and harder, contributing to better muscle health and fitness levels, particularly in the long run when muscle endurance and overall exercise capacity tend to decline.
As we get older, maintaining muscle carnosine levels becomes particularly crucial for offsetting the natural decline in muscle function and physical performance. By incorporating beta-alanine into your supplement routine, you can sustain your endurance, reduce fatigue, and remain active in the sports and activities you love for longer.
Our recommendation for a pure, additive- and preservative-free beta-alanine supplement is Beta Alanine.
Multivitamins: Support Your Overall Health
While specific supplements like creatine, HMB, egg white protein and beta-alanine play crucial roles in muscle health and performance, overall nutritional balance is equally important for longevity. A comprehensive multivitamin ensures that your body receives all the essential vitamins and minerals it needs to function optimally, supporting everything from your immune health to bone density and energy levels.
Our bodies undergo changes over time that can affect our metabolism, appetite and nutrient absorption, making it more difficult to get all the necessary nutrients from diet alone. A multivitamin helps fill any potential nutritional gaps, preventing deficiencies that could compromise your health and longevity.
Our recommendation for a comprehensive multivitamin is Multivit+.
Key Takeaway: Prioritize Your Longevity
Incorporating supplementation in your sports nutrition routine, or improving your current routine with a focus on the future, can provide significant performance benefits, helping you maintain your strength, muscle mass, endurance and overall health over time.
No matter what type of athlete you are, prioritizing your longevity can make all the difference in the long term and help you perform your best for longer.
If you learned something new from this article and are curious to know more, head to the Blonyx Blog or our growing list of weekly research summaries where we help you further improve your athletic performance by keeping you up to date on the latest findings from the world of sports nutrition.
— That’s all for now, train hard!