The Antioxidant System

Endurance athletes often require additional nutrients because of high levels of training and competition. But the most important fact is that you can obtain most of the nutrients your body needs for optimal endurance from a healthy diet. So where does that leave the role of supplements? Should they ever be used? And, if so, in what special circumstances? To answer these questions, we need to turn our attention to the athlete’s body—and how it functions under the stress of training and racing.

One of the most important aspects of nutrition for endurance athletes is associated with the antioxidant system. This part of our body is related to immune function, and when it’s not working well, training and competition can lead to illness and poor muscle function. This is a common problem and an important aspect of the overtraining syndrome.

广告：个人专属 VPN，独立 IP，无限流量，多机房切换，还可以屏蔽广告和恶意软件，每月最低仅 5 美元

Physiological stress triggers the release of a variety of chemicals that can influence muscle function and recovery. Some of these chemicals promote acute inflammation to help in the recovery of muscles and other areas following training. Aerobic training offers improved immune function because it produces these chemicals in sufficient amounts, but does not overproduce them.

Anaerobic training, competition, and probably long aerobic training sessions can overproduce these same chemicals, and the body cannot control them as easily. That’s why a longer period of recovery is necessary. The problem is that sometimes these chemicals impair performance because the body doesn’t have all the nutrients to recover properly. For example, these same chemicals produced in high levels can disturb muscle function, increase muscle fatigue, promote chronic inflammation, hinder protein and fat metabolism, and slow muscle recover. They can also reduce immune function, leading to more illness, such as infections. They can even to be the start of a long process leading to chronic disease including cancer and heart disease.

Many of the chemicals triggered by training and competition are associated with oxygen. These are called oxygen free radicals. Fortunately, the human body is equipped with a system to control these free radicals—the antioxidant system. This system, an important component of aerobic muscle fibers, uses a variety of nutrients called antioxidants to break down oxygen free radicals into safe chemicals. However, in high amounts these free radicals are not well controlled by our antioxidant system and they turn harmful. The antioxidant system works throughout the body, and developing the aerobic system enhances the body’s antioxidant system significantly and offers protection during the racing season. However, if the aerobic system is not well developed or the anaerobic system is overworked, our antioxidant mechanism can be less effective, leading to the problems noted above.

Likewise, if you don’t provide the antioxidant system with the raw materials it needs to function well, problems can occur. One of the most important groups of nutrients is the antioxidant group. These include vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, selenium, zinc, and others that are easily obtained by eating a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds, and other foods. Athletes who don’t consume sufficient antioxidants can run into health problems because the body is making more oxygen free radicals than it can control with its antioxidants. This problem can be even worse with the addition of anaerobic training and or racing.

Even athletes consuming the recommended daily amounts of antioxidants from their diets can become deficient during longer periods of anaerobic training and competition. This scenario has led many athletes to consume dietary supplements composed of antioxidants. Unfortunately, antioxidant supplements don’t provide the same nutrients that are obtained from the diet, even though the names of these nutrients are often the same. And these dietary supplements don’t accomplish the task that the dietary nutrients provide. In fact, recent studies show that dietary supplements of antioxidants not only don’t help our antioxidant mechanism, but can also impair its function and even have side effects.