The Potential of Prebiotics
in Sports Nutrition

With prebiotics becoming more and more popular over the last several years, athletes and sportspeople are increasingly recognizing their potential as a valuable addition to their nutritional strategies. Take a look at how this is pictured in the following study.

Study Context: "Effects of 24-week prebiotic intervention on self-reported upper respiratory symptoms, gastrointestinal (stomach and intestine) symptoms, and markers of immunity in elite rugby players". A study revealing the potential of prebiotics for any athlete or sportsperson, to support their health and performance. In short:

• The study examined how Prebiotics (Bimuno GOS) could lower illness occurrence and endurance in elite athletes during a competitive season. Over 24 weeks, the study tracked daily upper respiratory symptoms, weekly gastrointestinal symptoms, and immune function biomarkers.

• It showed that taking 2.8g of Prebiotics (Bimuno GOS) daily reduced cold or flu-like symptoms in players by 2.4 days (24%) compared to the placebo group's (group not taking prebiotics) 10 days.

• During the 24-week program, players who took prebiotic supplements saw a decrease in gastrointestinal symptoms. The Prebiotics group, in particular, had fewer weekly upper gastrointestinal symptoms scores compared to the placebo group.

Takeaway: These findings suggest, that

1. using prebiotics could lower missed training and competition days,

2. as well as potentially seeing an  increase in production of antibodies responsible for fighting off respiratory infections.

Now this is not to be seen as an instantaneous solution for curing all diseases.
What prebiotics do, is improving the body’s tolerance and ability to fight off diseases, not instantly kill them.
Also make sure to check and further inform on yourself about the topic before taking action.

More information / whole study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17461391.2023.2216657

^{published in the European Journal of Sports Science, conducted by Research Team of Nottingham Trent University | This is not medical advice!}

🔐 Victory Vault

What it takes to succeed🏆

What do you think about, when asked: What’s getting you to success?
Many would answer: It must be motivation! “I can’t succeed at something being unmotivated or doing something I don’t want to do.”
And frankly, that is right, at least to a certain degree. Because most, initially miss the second variable: Discipline.
Now combine motivation and discipline and what you’ll find is a very powerful combination. One alone mostly won’t stand that long.
Consider the following graphic, this is how I view it:

Discipline is a totally mental concept, that requires immense resilience.
Mostly nothing stops discipline besides the person itself by giving in to mental constructs.
Failure can cut off motivation. But when you’re conscious of what you want to achieve and why, that should be all you need to keep getting back up and stay in the game.
Now to make the importance of discipline more clear, motivation can come and go, as long as you’re still disciplined and train you don’t lose any volume. Put it the other way around and you might miss getting in your exercise here and there and all of a sudden you see yourself falling behind.

So what’s the takeaway from this?
First of all doing something you don’t enjoy as a sport is an absolutely terrible idea. So Motivation and the fun that comes with it are definitely one key variable to success.
But lets face it, winning can be a long stretch and in times of failure or times you just don’t feel like getting up, is when discipline comes into play and safes the day.
Put together, always remind yourself of why you do what you do to motivate yourself and benefit from staying dedicated and disciplined when others aren’t.

^{What did you think of this topic and how it was covered? Let me know!
Email to: [email protected]!}

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