Hey you guys I'm Dr. Jason Barker with the Natural Athlete's Clinic and when we talk
about supplements, that can mean hundreds of different compounds. Things like
vitamins, minerals, amino acids, botanical medicines, nutraceuticals. The list goes
on and on and on. So I want to kind of break a few of these down over the next
series of videos and today I want to talk about adaptogenic botanical
medicines. Otherwise known as adaptogens. Now adaptogens do a lot of what their
name sounds like and that is, they help you adapt to stressors. So a more
specific definition is that adaptogens help increase a state of nonspecific
resistance in the body. And they also decrease your sensitivity to stressors.
So what does that mean? Well stress comes in many different forms as you know, so
stress can be mental emotional, or it can be physical. It really doesn't matter
because that stress gets in your brain and that's how your brain perceives it.
And then your brain carries out its functions and helping you deal with the
stressors. So adaptogens help limit how stress affects you. Now, interesting the
research behind a lot of the adaptogens began back in the World War 2 era when
the Soviets were looking at ways that they can help their soldiers persevere
and survive in adverse environments. And then of course the scientists took their
cues from the indigenous people who'd been using adaptogens for the last
probably hundreds if not thousands of years. So there are seven main adaptogens
that we want to think about and the first one is rhodiola. There's
astragalus, ashwagandha cordyceps, schisandra, panax ginseng and
eleutherococcus which is also sometimes billed as siberian ginseng. Now when we
look at all of the studies on adaptations they of course all fall
under the heading of how do these help the physiology of a person decrease or
limit the effects of stress on it. Now interestingly some of these studies have
started to look at how endurance athletes fare using them. And especially
a lot of studies have been done using rhodiola and endurance athletes. And now
there's a common thread with the rhodiola studies and athletes and that
is that we know that adaptogens and especially rhodiola can help endurance
athletes perform at higher intensities for longer amount of time. And also helps
us recover more quickly with fewer side effects. Now interestingly in a couple of
these studies too we've also seen increases in max vo2. So that's really a big
deal. Now are all the studies positive with adaptogens and especially rhodiola?
No, they're not. Many of them are equivocal to showing that there were no
changes in athletes who use these. However I would just remind you of the
very very small window by which victory is won right. So think about the Olympics
when we see people getting a gold medal or the difference between a gold medal
and no medal is just hundreds of a seconds - a misfire of a muscle, not
enough burst of power at the end there. So one thing to remember what the
adaptogen is, is that they have a very very wide margin of safety and very very
few reports of adverse side effects. So I feel like these are very safe and I feel
like they're something that every endurance athlete should incorporate
into their training regimen just because of the potential the benefit of how it
decreases your sensitivity to stress and how your organism or your physiology
perceives that stress. And remember stress is essentially us worrying about
things that aren't necessarily going on yet so a lot of our stress today exists
in the mental emotional realm. So if we can save that energy and put it more
towards your training and more towards your adaptation to the training changes,
you're going to wind up probably having a better experience as an athlete. Now in
the clinic, I see a lot of athletes or even just people who have been stressed
out who I've put on a trial of different adaptogens and they come back and they
only say the same thing: I feel a lot more balanced, I feel like I can tolerate
the stressors better or I'm not as thrown off by the stresses. So I would
really encourage you again to use these in your regimen. Now you can start using
adaptogens maybe like two or three weeks prior to the big event a big race or
even a big training block. And of course they're very helpful in the off season
too. Even when you're not training but you've got a lot of life stress going on.
You can go ahead and incorporate using those adaptogens too. Now my favorites
are rhodiola and course cordyceps. I end up using a lot of those in the clinic and
of course we use a lot of adrenal b-complex which contains rhodiola, panax
ginseng and the ashwagandha along with a whole host of B vitamins which help feed
the adrenal glands which of course take the brunt and interpret how your brain
is telling your body to respond to that stress. So think about using some of
those or of course any of the other adaptogens. You've got a lot of them to
choose from. I think they'll help benefit you and
your everyday life. And I'm also of course in your life as an endurance
athlete. So if you enjoyed found it useful, please give me a like.
Please subscribe to our Channel. And of course, please share the video with your
endurance buddies or someone you know who is stressed out all the time.
The adaptions are a really good way to go and will help decrease your stress!