The effects of our Atheltic Energy Stack on cognitive performance
Introduction
To get the most out of every session and to push your physical limits it is important to have your psychological state at its best.
Cognitive skills play an important role within overall performance whether that is through motor skills (balance and coordination), volitional skills (overcoming fatigue) or regulation of stress or pressure (1).
Different sports can pose different psychological demands, for instance boxing could be classed as an interceptive sport where visuospatial functioning and processing speed is important whereas as a more strategic sport such as football are likely to possess higher executive function which could include cognitive flexibility or working memory (2).
Mental fatigue can negatively impact performance by affecting your perception of effort or decrease your overall desire to train.
When needing to push through physical barriers a lowered perception of effort can help you get through that.
How our stack helps mental performance?
Panax ginseng contains antioxidants which may help in providing an anti-fatigue effect along with improving concentration, reaction speed and overall mood.
A clinical study has shown it to help with muscle recruitment and reducing perceived effort. It could also be speculated that the main active ingredient within panax ginseng, ginsenosides, may inhibit stress responses by inducing nitric oxide production in the brain.
The affect of this can provide sustained mental clarity along with improvements in subjective mental fatigue.
Rhodiola rosea is an adaptogen that provides anti-stress and anti-fatigue effects which can be incredibly useful for reducing mental fatigue and improving mental performance when under stress-induced fatigue [3].
Following supplementation of rhodiola improvements were seen in movement speed, accuracy, and quicker reaction times.
This could be linked to the active ingredient in rhodiola of salidrosides and its affect to improve neurotransmitter homeostasis in the brain, increase the ability of dopamine precursors and suppressing oxidative stress [4].
References
[1]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2010.01188.x
[2]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1612197X.2021.1956570
[3]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0944711300800550?via%3Dihub
[4]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753332223017973#:~:text=Salidroside%20can%20improve%20neurotransmitter%20homeostasis,49%5D%2C%20%5B64%5D.
[5]https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/apnm-2018-0050