MMA Athletes and the Supplements They Should be Taking
The public life of a mma fighter looks glamorous to me. They are tough, in excellent shape, and seem to be in love with what they do for the most part. That’s what’s displayed to us the audience. Behind closed gym doors and padded walls, it is nothing but brutal. Hours are spent training; becoming a legitimate fighter takes dedication, sacrifice, and hard work. One aspect that is crucial to pay attention to is proper supplementation. Unless you are getting absolutely EVERYTHING you need from your diet, which is highly doubtful, you need to ensure that you are getting the proper amounts of nutrients, minerals, and protein. This will benefit your overall health, your recovery periods, and your growth. If you don’t have those three things in tune during your training, you won’t be at your full potential when camp ends. There are tons of useful supplements on the market; here we are going to look at three that could help the mma fighter. Creatine, whey protein, and branched chain amino acids. First we will look at one of the sports nutrition staples, one of the most proven supplements, creatine.
Creatine is a non-essential amino acid that may be formed in your liver, pancreas, and kidneys. You may also get creatine from dietary sources such as meat and fish. The reason creatine is so widely used by combat athletes or serious athletes in general is because it assists with converting a spent energy compound back into a readily usable one. Think of supplementing with creatine like having a seven shooter gun in a six shooter duel. By the time you come around after having fired six shots, your creatine has already reloaded a seventh round while your opponent has already used up all of his. As a mixed martial artist this is significant for a couple of factors. First this allows you to train harder and for longer durations. Having the ability to train harder and longer will lead to an improved cardiovascular system along with a increased lean muscle mass. It’s simple to see why having a superior cardio system would be beneficial for a fighter. And second, you might be able to dig deeper when needed like finishing off a round with a strong, unanswered flurry. In a nutshell, creatine leads to an increase in muscular strength and lean body mass when combined with training and improves muscle performance during exercise sessions of high intensity. While creatine is a supplement that assists with making an energy conversion, whey protein is a more of a fuel source, a building block.
The serious mma athlete will be breaking down their bodies routinely all in the name of training. From weightlifting to cardiovascular to sparring to rolling, you need to be certain that you are ingesting enough protein to recover and rebuild, and to rebuild yourself stronger at that. Whey is one of the top muscle building proteins around, it has a higher biological value than dairy or eggs. Having a higher biological value means that per gram, more protein is being delivered to your cells with whey as opposed to other sources. It obviously supports muscle growth as well as increasing muscle mass, just like creatine. Whey protein is also much easier to digest than conventional sources. This also benefits the athlete in that the body can focus on repair and regeneration of muscle tissue or other bodily processes rather than investing energy in the digestion of some chunk of protein. Some whey proteins already contain bcaa’s, our next supplement, and glutamine, both of which have been shown to have positive effects on combat athletes.
Branched chain amino acids, bcaa’s, are absolutely essential in muscle growth and recovery. Intense training, aggressive sparring, or even just cutting weight all deplete your stockpile of bcaa’s. Branched chain amino acids are composed of leucine, valine, and isoleucine. Since your body does not produce any of these on its own, you have to get them either through diet or supplementation. Your body can be so taxed and worn that if it doesn’t have an adequate supply of bcaa’s, it will break down existing muscle tissue in order to gain access to those amino acids. And like we mentioned above, branched chain amino acids are closely tied with glutamine. Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid and it plays a large role in the synthesis of protein which aids in recovery.
Rather than waiting for your body to catch up and convert useless, expended energy back into a functional one, supplement with creatine for improved strength and explosive power. For recovery and growth, and also just to meet your daily requirement of protein consumption, look into a high quality whey protein. And lastly to ensure muscle growth and to prevent the catabolism of your muscle tissue, a decent bcaa or glutamine supplement would be a wise choice. Being a mma fighter has to be one of the most strenuous jobs around with all of the training and sacrifices leading up to a fight! make those training sessions and subsequent recovery periods as painless and profitable as possible by figuring out which supplements benefit you the most.
Processing your request, Please wait....
