By Dr. Mark Miller
Every tennis player understands the importance of physical endurance. The sport is often ‘stop-and-go’ and one that can last for hours at a time. Developing muscular endurance is key for keeping physically equipped to maintain this feverish pace, especially so in producing a series of serves in rapid succession throughout the game, using large muscle groups like one’s legs, pectorals and arms, at a time.
Most professional tennis players are on the court and in the gym training for hours each day in order to build up this endurance so that they can be more competitive on the court and during the game. So is there a safe, natural way to optimize your game? Thankfully there is and it’s inspired by the efforts of salmon, and they know something about fatigue.
Hey, you’re familiar with the orange carotenoid, beta-carotene of carrot fame, right? But did you know that there are other carotenoids, and the most potent free radical scavenger of them all is red, not orange? It goes by the funny name of astaxanthin (pronounced “asta zan thin”). It is red and it packs a punch. Astaxanthin is the reason why salmon are pink. The salmon use it to fight fatigue in their epic journey of swimming up fast flowing rivers to spawn. Now that is an endurance test!
So if it works for the salmon, imagine its impact on fatigue fighting for tennis and other sports players. Its key benefits are muscle strength and endurance because it protects the energy producing organelles in muscles, called mitochondria, optimizing energy production and negating the leak of damaging free radicals that leads to muscle soreness & inflammation. More energy & less damage, not a bad combination.
Examples of sports research studies include young elite soccer players, where astaxanthin in contrast to placebo resulted in reduced oxidative stress and muscle damage (Djordevic et al. J Sports Med Phys Fitness 2012: 52: 382 – 392). Similarly in cyclists, astaxanthin improved time trial performance and power output (Earnest CP et al Int J Sports Med 32: 882-888).
Astaxanthin’s benefits include enhanced performance, less inflammation in muscles and joints; improving visual performance & eye fatigue, which is critical for tennis with regard to depth perception; and in improving sustained energy and muscle strength, all of which are critical to maintaining the competitive edge of a professional tennis player or athlete.
The key to why Astaxanthin works so well is its unique combination of structure and quite remarkable free radical scavenging properties, where it protects from oxidative stress that is due to leaking free radicals. Its unique structure bridges membranes where it acts like a fishing net capturing free radicals that zoom around the lipid layer of membranes. Synthetic astaxanthin cannot do this as its structure is kinked and does not stretch across the membrane stream. So make sure your astaxanthin is natural, as nature got it right. Just ask the salmon.
If you’re looking to up your game, AstaReal® might be the best place to start. The company, which produces premium all natural Astaxanthin, was the first in the world to commercially produce natural Astaxanthin from microalgae (nature’s source), and has gone on to become the most studied brand of Astaxanthin in the world. The AstaReal® brand of the potent natural antioxidant, is cultivated and harvested right in the United States in its brand new manufacturing facility in Moses Lake, Washington.
