But science is beginning to show that large doses of it are anti-inflammatory in nature, which as an athlete means that it could inhibit natural repair and rebuild mechanisms. We think of this vitamin as doing only good things for our body. (NOTE: getting too little saturated fat in one’s diet is something that very few people have a problem with.) A less obvious inhibitor is Vitamin C. If you don’t take in any saturated fats in your diet your body has a harder time creating an inflammatory response**. What might inhibit that response? The most common is to take an anti-inflammatory. Anything that reduces that response is reducing your ultimate adaptation and ultimate fitness gains you can gain from those sessions. That process is made possible through the inflammation that takes place in the damaged muscles. So if you do a stellar strength session in the gym or a long run that leaves your legs feeling pretty torn up, your muscles need to be rebuilt. Without inflammation we don’t get a really good adaptive response in the body. Is flushing the muscle and generating blood flow the same as anti-inflammatory measures? So what’s all the noise about anti-inflammatories?Īre there situations where therapies should be applied that do reduce inflammation? The body needs to reduce its inflammation to signal that the job has been accomplished and the area is ready to function normally again*. Once the repair is completed the opposite process has to take place. It needs inflammation to stop and repair. Without the inflammation, the internal repair crew that cruises around inside your body at night while you sleep will keep on moving. In fact, it is the inflammation in our tired muscles that are the signposts signaling all the repair mechanisms that these are the spots to go to work on. Inflammation is both good and bad, one just needs to learn how and when to manage it. As you know if you read the first piece in this three part series, our body knows where the repair and rebuild processes need to take place because those areas get inflamed. We build the adaptations that make us into perfect athletes when we recover from our workouts. One of the most basic concepts that I knew as it related to sports was that we don’t get more fit and stronger from working out directly. I knew about what went on in the body that was smaller than the eye could see, but that in the bigger picture of health we would certainly be able to see the impact of. In other words, I entered the sport of triathlons two years after graduating college with my brain still at least half full of bio-info that before racing seemed to have little relevance to my day-to-day life. My degree from UC San Diego was in Biology with an emphasis on microbiology. I was a triathlete by trade, but was brought up in an environment that was very scientific and physiology-oriented by education. Mark Allen running in the famous Iron War of 1989.
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