Article first published as A Little Known Secret to Help Athletes Achieve Higher Endurance, Agility on Technorati.
Scientists have found that “brain
carbohydrate-loading” can make the difference between an ordinary workout
session and an extraordinary, sustained workout program. Athletes for example, who
perform prolonged rigorous exercises, rapidly become hypoglycemic, depleting
circulating blood glucose levels and glycogen stores in the muscles and brain;
these changes are linked to early fatigue.
If an athlete were to simply load up on a small, healthy dose of carbs, in between
workouts they would perform at a higher cognitive level, achieving longer
endurance, and agility.
In part 1 of a new experiment, published last
year in The Journal of Physiology,
scientists revealed just how counter-productive depleted brain glycogen stores
are to persons who engage in strenuous exercises for a living. Problems such as
muscle injury, early fatigue, and reduced cognitive functions are detrimental
terms to athletes.
Brain glycogen, the storage form of glucose
that feeds neurons in the brain during exhaustive exercises, is a critical
energy source for sports competitors “when the glucose supply from the blood is
inadequate.”
By “using [their] clever glycogen detection
methods, they [scientists] discovered that prolonged exercise significantly
lowered the brain’s stores of energy, and that the losses were especially
noticeable in certain areas of the
brain, like the frontal cortex and the hippocampus, that are involved in
thinking and memory, as well as in the mechanics of moving.”
The good news is that part 2 follow-up
experiment, showed that after a bout of exhaustive exercise, rest, then feeding,
brain levels of glycogen in lab mice, surpassed its normal storage level by as
much as 60 percent. This “overcompensation” resulted in a kind of brain
carbo-loading, specific to areas of the brain responsible for higher learning
and movement. The study appears in this month’s issue of The Journal of
Physiology.
The spike in brain glycogen lasted 24 hours, and
then returned to normal. But, in a fascinating twist in results, when
consistent high intensity workout is maintained over time, the brain “super-compensated”
becoming a super storage site as the new norm over baseline levels of glycogen. Again, these brain carbo-loading occurred in-between
sessions of intense workout, in areas known as the “seats of higher learning,” which
is the cortex, in addition to the hippocampus, for the development of a better
sharper brain.
The implications of these experiments are far
reaching. They reveal that a brain, with more fuel reserves, is potentially a
higher functioning brain that can sustain and direct movements longer. It opens up a whole new realm in sports where
contenders can fuel their own super-compensating brain in between competitions
by having a wholesome form of glucose (not sugary sports drink) such as
chocolate milk, bananas, or fruit shakes to rev up their performance.
A highly functioning brain is one that is
capable of achieving phenomenal feats. Athletes can achieve these feats through
brain carbo-loading, a scientific term that refers to creating fuel reserves in
the brain in between exercises, for peak performance.
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