Power Up: Holistic Strategies to Enhance Your Exercise Routine

I initially found my way into the holistic health field beginning with nutrition and fitness. As a person who went from no exercise to working out 6 days a week, I was not used to the feeling of pushing myself physically. So as time went on, I found some great ways to ease the process of getting in shape and taking care of my physical body. After a busy summer of travel, I’m getting back into my fitness routine, and thought it would be a great time to talk about the things that have kept my energy levels up and kept me going while I train for a 5k at the end of September!

Sleep

Sleep and exercise seem to go hand-in-hand. If you’re a person that has trouble sleeping, you may want to consider that Exercise training improves sleep quality. In the same way that exercising can help you sleep, sleep has an impact on your athletic training as well. Not getting enough sleep can contribute to autonomic nervous system imbalances, which can imitate symptoms of overtraining. It can also impair muscle strength, unless there are motivational tactics used, whether that be exercising with a group or taking caffeine.

Natural Supplements

While I know there are a ton of useful herbs and supplements for exercise, I’ll only include the ones that I’ve tried and that have worked noticeably well for me!

Maca

Maca is a root cultivated in South America, it has a delicious, butterscotchy flavor and can be added to coffee, smoothies, or put into healthy snacks like energy bites. It has a variety of health benefits, being anti-inflammatory, antidepressant, antioxidant, and more. It can prevent fatigue, boost endurance, reduce oxidative stress and lactic acid buildup.

2. Ginseng

There are multiple types of ginseng, the one I’ll be discussing here will be American Ginseng (the ginseng from the East deals with more Yin energy, while American ginseng seems to boost more of the Yang energy).

Ginseng is a great tool to help you increase your exercise endurance, boost ATP production, and improving muscle regeneration and adaptability to exercise. It may be best to take a ginseng supplement earlier in the day, as some people anecdotally report that it seems to keep them awake at night.

3. Cordyceps

Cordyceps is my favorite supplement to take for exercise. Some people have told me they feel strange about taking a mushroom that grows out of caterpillars, but actually the cordyceps militaris that is typically found in commercial supplements is grown on brown rice or wood substrate, making them vegan-friendly.

There have been multiple studies that have shown that Cordyceps can improve recovery time after exercise by increasing stem cell production. While it feels to me like I get physically stronger when I take this mushroom, it seems like it’s not decreasing muscle fatigue, but increasing ATP production (the energy that powers your cells). My favorite brand of cordyceps can be found here- you can get them in capsules or in powder form to mix into coffee or smoothies.

4. Green Tea

While there are mixed reviews on the use of caffeine to enhance exercise performance, it does exist naturally in green tea. There seems to be conclusive evidence that the polyphenols in Green tea can help prevent oxidative damage caused by exercise. Another study I found said that it also can improve endurance performance.

5. Beets

Beets can also be bought in a powder form to be used in a supplemental way! Some people use it as a natural food coloring or put it in lattes, although you can always eat them raw or cooked. Beets can reduce inflammation caused by exercise, and have been shown to improve stamina and oxygen intake. This is expecially helpful if you live in a place with high elevation, like I do.

6. Magnesium

There’s an extensive and impressive review on the various health benefits of supplementing with magnesium. Some of the benefits include increasing glucose availability, supports the process of energy metabolism and assists the maintenance of normal muscle function. The review also found that the more you exercise, the higher need for magnesium. While you can take oral supplements (Look for a chelated magnesium, or a magnesium glucinate), you can also get a magnesium spray that can be applied directly to the body, or take an epsom salt bath at the end of the day after a workout.

Diversifying Workouts, Exercising in Groups, and Creating Goals

While it’s great to have a routine, I personally found that I’d end up getting bored with any type of fitness routine that I stuck with for too long. I started out initially because a friend asked me to join their workout group, so I ended up getting a set of DVDs of PiYo (a combination of Pilates and yoga). While it was tough, it was great to meet with a group every week. I felt like it held me accountable, and it was great to hear from other people going on the same type of journey as I was. After a few months of doing that, I decided I’d like to start going to the gym. I also became an avid hiker for a while, taking trips every weekend that I wasn’t working in the city to go immerse myself in nature. While I love hiking, I found that it wasn’t until I started doing consistent yoga that I was able to support myself on those long walks up and down the mountain. While this is mainly an anecdotal topic, I do find that challenging my body in different ways keeps me intrigued and wanting to continue on exploring. It’s also just good for you to combine aerobic and anaerobic exercise for the sake of one supporting the other- there’s a study that shows that explosive training and weight training can improve running economy in endurance athletes.

I also used to have ClassPass in New York, which was great for me! every week I would pick a new and different class, figuring out what was challenging me in ways I liked. It helped that I had other friends with the app that would come with me. Even when I didn’t feel like going on a certain day, if I’d agreed to meet a friend there, the chances were highly likely that I’d still put my gym clothes on and go. Even now, as I’m writing this a few days after finishing the 5K, I had felt like the race went by so much faster because I had found a few other women to run and chat with, taking my mind off the race and feeling excited to be around other like-minded people.

Finally, I’d like to include the benefit of creating specific goals to help you stay on track with your exercise routine. Whether the goal is to lose 20 pounds, to lift 300 pounds, to do a challenging yoga pose (I’m working on Crow pose right now!) or to increase running speed by a few minutes- picking a goal and creating a plan to get there is a really effective way to keep yourself motivated and to create a sense of satisfaction from doing something challenging.

I write about exercise in most of my blog posts on health, and that’s because of how effective it is for preventative care and for improving the quality of life you can have. I think this may have to do with the fact that any challenge we face and overcome creates a sense of satisfaction and discipline that helps you in all areas of life. My wish is that you feel inspired to use exercise as a way to support your health and wellbeing, and that you feel good while doing it!