3 Recommended Nutritional Supplements

7th September 2014

In an ideal world, we’d get all of our required vitamins, minerals, and nutrients from our diet. Unfortunately, due to time restrictions, cost issues, and often just plain lack of relevant knowledge, a lot of active people (and even many professional athletes) struggle to cover all of the necessary nutritional bases.

Squash is obviously a very physically demanding sport, that places great strain on the body – it is especially important therefore that regular players make sure to cover this full spectrum of essential dietary requirements, in particular, to enable them to optimally recover and get the full benefits of the training they undertake. This is where supplementation can be very useful in filling the gaps and helping to support our standard dietary food intake.

Dr John Berardi is one of the most respected names in the science of performance nutrition and research and is an author we’ve referenced several times before in our articles here on Squashskills. He wrote a great short blog post that summarises the three basic supplements that he recommends for very active people, to help support a standard healthy diet.

 

The three supplements are:

 

Greens Supplement – Greens formulas contain dried ground vegetables, fruits, and various other plant matter into an easy to use powder that can be drank alone, or added to other beverages or meals to top our recommended 5-a-day.

Fish Oil Supplement – Healthy oils from fish are processed into a capsule or liquid form, for ease of consumption of the vital EPA and DHA fats.

Protein Supplement – Standard protein supplements generally use either plain whey protein or a blend of different kinds of proteins, to produce a flavoured shake that can be quickly consumed to boost protein intake.

 

Berardi talks through each of these supplements briefly in his full post and explains his reasoning behind their usage. While nothing can replace a healthy diet, the blog is well worth a read if you feel you may benefit from adding some supplements to your nutritional programme but are unsure where to start.

 

Gary Nisbet 

B.Sc.(Hons), CSCS, NSCA-CPT, Dip. FTST
SquashSkills Fitness & Conditioning Director

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