What Are The Best Vitamins And Minerals For Athletes?

When it comes to athletes, the nutrition story is pretty simple: “they’re like everyone else, only more so”.

Nowhere is this quite as obvious as vitamins and minerals. These ‘micronutrients’ are specifically related to the processes that the body uses to maintain homeostasis, especially in response to physical activity and stress.

When you’re an athlete, stressful physical activity is either a hobby or a profession. So, when we look at the increased metabolic needs of athletes, we’re also looking at people who need a proportional increase in their vitamin and mineral intake.

Sadly, 100% of your RDA just isn’t going to cut it if you’re performing strenuous training regularly. These needs are closely related to your activity levels and your respective calorie requirements.There are a few different types of needs that athletes present, and it’s best to work through them one step at a time:

• Preventing deficiency
• Preventing loss of performance in clinically sufficient athletes
• Optimizing performance above sufficiency

These might not make much sense in a list, but don’t worry – we’re going to drop in on each of these levels and discuss what kind of needs they represent. We’re also going to look at which examples are most important at each level and why.

B vitamins: A general-level approach

You need a baseline of B vitamins to support your metabolic needs. These are commonly deficient, and the role they play in post-exercise recovery makes them especially important for athletes.

These are some of the most difficult to achieve daily requirements, due to the bioavailability of B vitamins. Give your body the best chance to get it right by checking in on your B intake and even considering a B-complex supplement.

Electrolytes and Cramping: Sodium-Potassium

Deficiency in key electrolytes, specifically sodium and potassium, is a shortcut to massive muscle cramping.

This is a horrible experience, as you well know, and it comes with the additional horrible side effect of increased muscle damage risk.

As an athlete, these are two of the worst things in the world, and it’s crucial to not be scared of sodium. It’s also important to make sure you’re getting plenty of potassium, which antagonizes sodium and keeps you healthy despite increased salt consumption.

Magnesium

Magnesium is also an electrolyte, but it’s important because it’s one of the most common forms of deficiency in the world. Along with things like zinc and vitamin D, magnesium intake needs to be near the top of your priority list.

The risks of magnesium deficiency are very wide-ranging because it’s one of the main enzymes in 100s of processes in the body. Dropping the ball on Magnesium isn’t something we can point at in just one process, but it does undermine your efforts across a wide variety of systems.

Chromium and Iodine

These are two trace minerals you don’t hear much about, but they’re crucial for maintaining a healthy metabolism.

Chromium is involved in the weight-loss process, making it easier to control body weight, which is important in high-activity people.

Iodine, on the other hand, binds to your thyroid hormones producing T3 and T4. These are essential for fat metabolism and metabolic regulation – cornerstones of health and performance alike.

Vitamin D

The world’s most common deficiency, and one that comes from a mixture of poor sunlight-exposure and poor dietary quality.

Vitamin D is also a really easy and commonplace supplement, so there’s not really much excuse to be lacking in vitamin D as a serious athlete. It’s your bread and butter – it’s in fish, seafood, and various other staple foods of an effective diet.

Try and get D3, if you’re supplementing, as it’s the most effective supplementary form.

Iron

Iron is a common deficiency, and especially among women. It’s a factor in the health of our blood, as well as bone marrow, and plays a key role in systemic energy transfer.

Iron deficiency commonly descends into anemia, which can produce serious health problems and, needless to say, a huge dip in performance. Eating high-quality meats and combining supplementation of Iron and vitamin B12 can help deal with this issue.

Zinc

This is another compound that is involved in 100+ processes in the body, specifically concerning hormonal and metabolic regulation.

As an athlete, you’ll be leaning more heavily on these processes, and they require proper care. Zinc intake is, like magnesium, controlled through dietary factors like nut, seed, and wholegrain intake. It’s also found in high-quality animal foods, like seafood and red meat.

Vitamin A

As a powerful antioxidant vitamin, this is a crucial part of any diet. The increased oxidative stress athletes place on themselves through exercise and stress only increases the amount of antioxidant effect they need.

This is primarily found in foods athletes may want to focus on anyway: red-orange plant foods like bell peppers, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.

B vitamins: Specifics to types of performance

We’ve talked briefly about B vitamins already, but in athletes, there’s an increased risk of deficiency. Not only that, but a deficiency in these areas specifically impacts athletic performance, with B1 and B6 offering different risks.

Vitamin B1 is all about supporting endurance performance, as it’s the key coenzyme in converting carbohydrates into energy. It’s specifically useful for function in the heart, alongside all the other muscles.

Scientists say the heart is quite important.

On the other hand, B6 is a crucial vitamin for proper strength training and muscular recovery/growth. It’s a protein and amino acid metabolism regulator, putting it right at the center of muscle protein synthesis.

Vitamin E

Just like vitamin A, the main benefits of vitamin E are in its prevention of excessive stress on the cells. This is important for reducing the risk of illness and knock-on effects through oxidative stress and inflammation.

These are primarily useful for maintaining a healthy hormonal environment, allowing for better recovery and growth in response to training.

Vitamin K

This is a vitamin that often flies under the radar but is crucial in the proper regulation of proteins required for blood health.

Athletes have increased vitamin K needs, and the quality of blood is a key factor in maintaining health and effective performance in athletes. This is obviously going to be more important in endurance athletes.

It’s also a key factor in the maintenance and remodeling of bones, making it a crucial part of the injury-prevention process for these endurance athletes.

Especially those like runners and triathletes, who are going to experience repetitive impact under bodyweight load.

Closing Remarks

The different levels of vitamin and mineral focus that we’ve discussed today are levels you should aim to move up as you progress.

Dietary adherence and its effects on top-level performance only become more obvious and important when it gets to chasing that small %-point changes.

Small changes to the performance and recovery environment make huge differences when multiplied across months, years, or an entire athletic career. Small changes to what “enough” means are huge for athletes.

We’ve outlined some of the most important micronutrients for athletes, but this mentality of preventing deficiency and then chasing optimal levels applies to everything you eat.

From calories to macros, through these vitamins and minerals, and into the risk-to-reward profile of pseudovitamins and supplements.

Whatever you do, you’re focusing on those incremental tweaks that improve diet. The ones mentioned here aren’t tweaks - they’re the eating habits that are required to be an elite athlete.