But there are clear benefits for athletes, namely improved ability to track a moving target, shift focus efficiently, and peripheral vision acuity as well as increased focus and concentration, and improved thinking and reaction time. This can be done through a concussion baseline assessment pre-season, and then additional assessments throughout the season.

Doing so will enable you to monitor your brain health and could help identify ways to ward off brain injuries and time off the pitch or field. This is simple. Energy in must suffice for the energy out — you must properly nourish your body to enable it to perform at its peak.

This includes things like proper hydration during and after exercise, as well as eating a diet designed to help you succeed, rich in protein. Alongside eating properly, your body will need time to recover after performance. Contact us to learn more about our athletic recovery services. Remember, this list is not exhaustive, this is just the beginning.

Our Advance Performance packages utilize critical information from baseline assessments to build customized training programs that help you perform better in sport and life. A Great Strategy for Improving Athletic Performance. Exercise Like we said, exercise is still an important piece of the puzzle.

Focus on Exercise Plans With Variation This is critical because otherwise, when repeating the same exercise or plan, you will reach a plateau in both your athletic performance and the results that you see. Push Yourself — But Not Too Hard This may sound obvious, but many of the sports injuries that doctors see each year are related to overexertion.

Taking Time To Recover Alongside eating properly, your body will need time to recover after performance. For a full, personalized plan to help you become a stronger athlete, reach out to our team today.

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While you might not be able to take advantage of some of the pricier systems, affordable fitness wearables can provide a ton of in-depth information. You can even record your workouts on camera for later review. It should go without saying, but staying hydrated needs to be your top priority during your workout.

This increases your core body temperature by quite a bit. During a particularly intense exercise routine, your body could lose up to 45 ounces of water an hour. Dehydration can happen very quickly. You can start to lose consciousness in the middle of a hard rep and injure yourself.

Drinking plenty of water before and after exercising is also a must. Beforehand, it ensures that your body is hydrated enough to produce sweat. Afterward, the water will help with recovery.

With all that said, you should also avoid drinking too much water. Contrary to popular belief, drinking a gallon of water before you start working those muscles is not a good idea. It could lead to bloating and nausea, which will ultimately affect your performance.

Stick to the recommended 20 to 40 ounces and you should be good to go. The recovery process is just as important as the workout itself.

There are several reasons for this. One, it helps to prevent injury. Your muscles need time to heal. Every time you exercise, your muscle tissue is experiencing tiny little tears.

A lack of proper recovery is one of the most common causes of muscle tears and serious injuries. Secondly, you need to replenish your store of energy. Muscle glycogen, which is basically the stored form of carbohydrates, is used when you exercise.

During the recovery phase, you can restore your muscle glycogen supply for the next workout. There are several ways to promote healing and properly recover. The easiest is to just take some rest days. Give specific muscle groups a day or two to recover before you push them any further.

You can also avoid intense cardio or not work out at all a few days a week. Just stagger your exercise days to give your body all the time it needs. Post-exercise stretching is another great idea. While most of us know to stretch the muscles to prevent injury before a workout, not too many people will go to that extra trouble after an intense exercise session.

Stretching allows the muscles to cool down slowly instead of abruptly. What does this do for your body? Well, it prevents that awful feeling of muscle tightness and joint stiffness. A few stretches can keep the muscles pliable. With regular practice, a good stretching regime could even improve your range of motion and give you some better performance results.

Soft tissue massages can make a huge difference in recovery time. Many athletes swear by them. Massages from a professional masseuse can help to realign muscle tissue, reduce inflammation, and get rid of tightness. Plus, it improves the circulatory system. After intense exercise, lymphatic fluid builds up in the muscles.

Massages can mobilize the lymphatic fluid, essentially flushing it from your system. At the same time, your blood will have an easier time flowing around your body. As a result, your heart can pump oxygenated blood and essential nutrients directly to your sore muscles to speed up the recovery process.

You can always use a foam roller. These inexpensive accessories are great for performing a self-massage. Most rollers are fitted with thick grooves and unique surface designs.

They make it easier for you to target specific muscle groups and painful connective tissue. All you have to do is place the device on the floor and roll your body over it. Your weight will do all of the work for you.

In fact, training your brain is one of the most effective ways to improve your athletic performance and gain an advantage over the competition. Most sports rely heavily on your mental abilities as well. For example, football, soccer, and hockey players have to make thousands of split-second decisions, and any one of them can drastically impact the outcome of the game.

This means if you want to improve your athletic performance, you need to train your brain as well! Many of these devices take advantage of visual stimulants. Performing mental exercises involves responding to the stimulant as quickly and accurately as possible.

There are many sports vision training tools available that can improve your athletic performance, but Reflexion offers a proven and convenient array of exercises that are on the cutting-edge. When you combine it with the ability to track your progress, you have a very powerful tool at your disposal.

Cognitive performance exercises are being done by professional athletes all over the world to help improve response times, visual accuracy, memory, and so much more. You are what you eat, right?

For some, improving athletic performance can be as simple as eating the right foods.

However, there are some basic guidelines that will enable you to eliminate much of the guesswork, so you can more rapidly learn how to properly fuel your body during workouts and races. Before you subscribe to and follow those suggestions, consider the words of Bill Misner, Ph.

The human body has so many survival safeguards by which it regulates living one more minute, that when we try too hard to fulfill all its needs we interfere, doing more harm than good.

If I replace all the fuels I lose at the rate of calories per hour, I bloat, vomit, present diarrhea, and finish the event walking or at an aid station. If I replace all the fluids lost all at once, I end up in the emergency tent with an IV for dilutional hyponatremia.

Pretty bold words and warnings , indeed. If you follow our suggestions, we believe you will not only avoid performance-ruining and potentially health-threatening consequences, you will also have much more enjoyable experiences and achieve better performances in your workouts and races.

These suggestions have their roots in science and have been proven time and time again and again and again over the course of several years. You have nothing to lose, and a whole lot to gain, by testing them in your training.

Acute overhydration can cause hyponatremic low sodium induced coma and death. Cool weather exercise might require only a little over half of that. Big athlete, very hot and humid conditions—maybe up to ml. Sure, you can sweat more than that, but you cannot physiologically replace it ounce-for-ounce.

Regular fluid intake close to or over a liter hourly really increases the potential for serious performance and health problems, so keep that in mind before you indiscriminately gulp down excessive amounts of fluid. Sound like a good strategy to you?

Far too many athletes think they need to match calories out with equal amounts of calories in. Guess what—simple sugars glucose, sucrose, fructose, and dextrose are garbage. They have no place in your body. Simple sugars give you energy peaks and crashes, and they also have a severe limitation on absorption.

Complex carbohydrates, however, absorb at about three times the rate as simple sugars. Plus you get smooth, steady, reliable energy—no peaks and valleys.

Yes, complex carbohydrates do contain, as part of their naturally occurring structure, a small percentage of 1- or 2-chain sugars. You have two choices:. Do not use it before or during because the added glutamine quickly degrades to produce ammonia.

Soy or rice gives you the protein you need with minimal extra ammonia production. After exercise, when ammonia production is not an issue, glutamine-enhanced whey protein is great for immune system boosting, muscle tissue rebuilding, and enhanced glycogen synthesis.

Solid food is harder to digest than liquid, and it requires more time, water, and electrolytes. Relying too heavily on solid foods can leave you feeling lethargic, bloated, and nauseated. Liquid fuels digest and absorb readily, so you avoid those unwanted maladies.

Most of all, avoid all junk foods, which contain lots of saturated fats and refined sugars, at all times. Instead, you get cramps, spasms, muscle revolt, irregular and rapid heartbeat, and major bonk.

Salt is just one of several electrolytes you need to replenish during exercise. Calcium, magnesium, and potassium also play key roles in fulfilling electrolyte requirements. How much salt is enough? You need to experiment and find your own range for any given weather condition and duration of exercise.

These all must be tested and refined in training. Because all Hammer fuels are specific and formulated to easily combine with one another, you have all the flexibility you need to ensure that you can tailor a fueling program for any length of race, regardless of conditions. Caloric intakes that worked during training may not be appropriate during a race; you may need to consume slightly less in a race than you did during training.

Increased anxiety, increased pace, and increased potential for dehydration all contribute to the possibility of a less-than-optimally functioning digestive system. In addition, at the increased pace during a race, more blood is diverted from digestion and directed toward maintaining muscle performance.

You may need to alter that game plan which may mean a slightly lower hourly intake of calories to accommodate the possibility of a less-than-optimal digestive system.

Equally important as your workout muscle exhaustion and nutrient depletion is what you do immediately following your workout muscle repair and nutrient replenishment. An ideal and easy-to-use post-workout fuel is Recoverite, with its ratio of complex carbohydrates and protein.

The ChiefsGameDayChallenge offers healthy recipe hacks and exercises for staying active while you watch the the game. Skip Navigation Home News Room Blogs 7 Ways to Turbocharge Your Athletic Performance. Print Share. Make sure you eat enough. Choose whole foods often. Choose Greek yogurt for your fruit smoothie instead of protein powder.

Greek yogurt has about 20 grams of protein in a single cup. Opt for a granola bar and cheese stick instead of a protein bar. Protein bars sometimes contain ingredients that can upset your stomach, like artificial fibers.

Grill some chicken breasts instead of using collagen powder. Here are some snack ideas: A peanut butter and honey sandwich on whole-wheat bread is a delicious way to get in carbohydrates, fiber, fats and protein between meals.

A homemade Lunchable with crackers, cheese and deli meat is an easy, energy-sustaining snack. A tall glass of electrolyte-packed chocolate milk can replenish your body following an intense activity session.

Pair a pack of fruit snacks with some nuts for a quick and convenient option. Monitor your hydration. Check your urine: Look at how much and what color your urine is. It should be a light yellow, like lemonade, not clear. Monitor your weight loss around practice: If appropriate, you can weigh yourself before and after you play.

Weight loss during activity will generally only be from sweating. Train your gut. Here are some steps to take: Determine if you should be fueling during your training.

You can use the guidance provided above or meet with a sports dietitian. Select the products you will be using on race day or during an event, such as sports drinks, gels or others. Choose carbohydrate-containing sports drinks and gels for sessions under hours.

Solid foods work better for longer activity sessions. Begin practicing using the products early in your training, during activity sessions per week. This is not something to begin right before a competition or race.

Gradually increase carbohydrates per hour each week until you hit your target. Most athletes may benefit from consuming grams of carbs per hour of training. Keep a journal of what you consume and how you feel.

Note how it affects your energy, digestion, performance and recovery from training. Get advice from a sports dietitian familiar with intra-workout fueling.

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