Re: Lets get a list of all the best suplements a bodybuilder must have in their cabin
MikeMartial said:
I didn't know Vitamin C had an effect on either testosterone or cortisol.
Can you post some info regarding this?
There's some info on it here. I'll try to find something more in depth:
The body does not manufacture vitamin C on its own, nor does it store it. That's why it's important to include plenty of vitamin C in your daily diet. Large amounts of vitamin C are used by the body during any kind of healing process, whether it's from an infection, disease, injury, or surgery. In these cases extra vitamin C may be needed.
Vitamin C is important for connective tissue repair. Although beneficial to athletes participating in a variety of sports, vitamin C is especially important to body builders whose training causes the most connective tissue damage.
Vitamin C is also important to athletes because, as an antioxidant, it may help to reverse some of the oxidative damage that may occur from exercise. This oxidative damage, caused by free radicals, interferes with the cells ability to function normally and is believed to play a role in many different health conditions, including the aging process, cancer, and heart disease.
Vitamin C promotes a healthy immune system and may help to prevent the dip in immune function that can occur after exercise. In most well-controlled studies, exercise performance has not been shown to improve following supplementation with vitamin C, unless a deficiency exists, as might occur in someone trying to lose weight by following a low-calorie diet, or with unhealthy eating patterns [7, 8].
However, placebo-controlled research has shown that taking 400 to 3,000 milligrams of vitamin C per day for several days before and after intense exercise reduces pain and speeds up muscle strength recovery [3, 4, 5].
Vitamin C also appears to have a beneficial effect on cortisol levels following both resistance and aerobic exercise. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone that encourages the breakdown of muscle tissue. It's also linked with abdominal fat and various health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and depression. Cortisol may also weaken your immune system, leaving you more susceptible to illness.
A group of weightlifters, for example, consuming one gram of vitamin C daily for two weeks had lower cortisol levels 24 hours after exercise than a group using no vitamin C [10]. What's more, 500 milligrams of vitamin C daily for four weeks has also been shown to lower cortisol levels 48-hours after a 90-kilometer marathon [9].
Traditionally, vitamin C has been used to reduce the risk of "catching a cold." Since 1971, 21 studies have been carried out to establish whether vitamin C affects the common cold. In each of the 21 studies, vitamin C reduced the duration of episodes and the severity of the symptoms of the common cold by an average of 23% [1].
In one of them most recent trials, a group using vitamin C had significantly fewer colds (37 vs 50), fewer days challenged virally (85 vs 178), and a shorter duration of severe symptoms (1.8 vs 3.1 days). In other words, vitamin C users are less likely to get a cold. And if they do, they'll recover faster than people who don't use the supplement.
More recently, researchers have shown that vitamin C improves nitric oxide activity [2]. Nitric oxide acts as your body's master "cell-signalling" molecule, directing and ordering a complex array of activities. It regulates blood flow, muscle contraction, nerve signalling and muscle growth, to name just a few [6].
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