You may remember I reported in my last article, how I doubled my maximum daily pushups from 30 to 60 after trialling our new product Fruit Antioxidant.
It seemed impossible that it was due to just one capsule a day, but when I stopped taking the capsules for a week, I was back down to 30 pushups again. And when I resumed taking them, I could do 60 pushups again.
I start my second bottle
Well, after five weeks, I had completed the sample bottle my son Mike had given me to test. As I work from my home office, it was about 10 days before I obtained another bottle. Again, while I was not taking them, my pushups steadily dropped, not quite down to
30 this time, but still down to 40.
But a few days after I started the new bottle, I could again do 60, but I find it more comfortable to do 50.
Was it just me or will they work for others?
I’ve since wondered whether it is just me, or whether the Fruit Antioxidant will do the same for everybody. When I mentioned this to Mike, he replied, “well it didn’t work for me. I have been taking it every day and don’t feel any different.”
I said, “but did you try doing some exercise where you had previously exhausted your muscles?”
He admitted that he hadn’t.
So, I said, “well I don’t feel any different either, but when I exercise to my limit, I can do far more than I could previously.”
Stamina increase proven in athletic antioxidant studies
After I’d prepared the above short follow-up article, I sent it to Mike for comments. He soon got back to me and said that, he had reviewed some scientific studies on ‘antioxidants and enhanced athletic performance’ and found many studies supporting this phenomenon. He asked me to research a bit more and explain the benefits I’m getting from this product:
A NIH study states: "In recent years, antioxidant supplements have gained significant attention as a non-invasive approach to mitigate muscle damage, enhance exercise performance, prevent oxidative stress, improve lifespan and performance, and reduce the risk of adverse health effects associated with intense exercise in athletes."
The stamina increase I am experiencing is not unique after all. Blackcurrants in particular, the main extracts in our Fruit Antioxidant product, were mentioned several times in the studies.
There is ample evidence in studies that athletes benefit from antioxidant supplements to combat muscle damage, fatigue and enhance their performance.
Antioxidants are stored in our muscle and lung cells
The reason for this is very interesting. When we are reasonably fit, the muscle pain and fatigue we experience when we exercise a group of muscles to the maximum, is our body’s way of protecting those muscles from free radical damage.
This damage is caused by the massive number of free radicals, generated by the huge amounts of oxygen needed for high muscle energy output.
This huge oxygen requirement is also the reason why our heart beats faster and we breath more heavily during vigorous exercise. As one of the studies stated, "the body’s oxygen intake during intense activity is 10 to 15 times larger than at rest, and the oxygen uptake by active muscles is approximately 100 times greater."
So, when the antioxidants stored in our muscles begin to get used up, our body generates unpleasant pain and fatigue to prompt us to stop exercising to limit muscle damage from the free radicals.
Although, if we’re unfit, lack of oxygen will cause us to become breathless long before our muscles run out of antioxidants and generate fatigue and pain.
However, for fit persons, with an efficient oxygen supply, muscle fatigue and pain will normally kick in before breathlessness, because of the depletion of the antioxidant stores in our muscles.
Recovery pain
However, the following day, after extreme muscle exertion, fit people feel muscle pain during recovery. This is due to the body’s repairing of the free radical damage, it also discourages further exercise, to allow time for the muscle cells to replenish their antioxidant reserves.