Today’s vocabulary word
is ergogenic. It means performance-enhancing. Of course, in the context of fitness,
steroids spring to mind as soon as we start discussing performance enhancement. However, that is just one kind of ergogenic
substance or process, the pharmacological kind.
Speaking for myself, I
could not do without my biomechanical ergogenic products: my wrist wraps and tennis elbow supports
allow me to ride my spin bike and sometimes even my actual bike without hand
failure and severe pain and inability to squeeze the brakes. My fancy bike itself is biomechanically ergogenic,
as are my tech fabric exercise clothes.
People who do other sports will recognize their goggles, shoes,
racquets, pads, and the like as ergogenic.
Also all those ankle wraps, knee braces, and other supports.
Way on the other end of
the ergogenic spectrum, we have the psychological stuff, the visualization,
relaxation, and the classic locker room half time speech.
In the middle, we have
the key stuff, the physiological and nutritional stuff that makes us go faster
and heavier and more beautifully. Physiological
ergogenics, at base, are training practices, the cardio and strength training
we do, those pesky intervals, our often-neglected stretching and warm-ups. As with all ergogenics, at the extremes we
can find some shady stuff, like blood doping, but let’s not go there. We’ll keep on with our well-balanced, varied
training.
Well-balanced and varied
are the best words to use to describe ergogenic eating. There are approximately 8 gazillion
supplements out there with more and less outlandish claims about what they can
do for our performance. In the absence
of an actual deficiency, none of them is as good as a diet composed of a
reasonable balance of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate, fat) chosen from
many different foods to ensure appropriate amounts of micronutrients (vitamins
and minerals). If we want to get fancy
and we are endurance athletes, we can add nutritional techniques like carbohydrate
loading, but those of us who do our workouts and get on with our lives don’t
need to sort that out.
We all want to perform
well. The good news is that it isn’t
that hard. We get the right stuff, we
talk nicely to ourselves, we work hard, and we eat decent food.
Now go play.
