3 Things to Add to Your Diet During the Season

As we prepare for the 2023 baseball season to start, we need to start focusing on recovery protocols just as much as getting bigger, faster, stronger, and improving our skills on the field. Being in season brings many new obstacles that athletes have not had to deal with in a long time. Late practices, games, and homework can cause many student athletes to fall out of their normal day to day routine and sacrifice sleep which over time will lead to poorer health and will inhibit their ability to recover from the increased workload. Although every athlete should focus on getting an optimal amount of sleep, sometimes it's just not possible to during the season. To combat a heavy workload and insufficient sleep there are some simple recovery protocols that athletes can utilize to help them recover physically, mentally and emotionally. 

In this article I want to talk about three things that you can add to your diet daily to help reduce inflammation, but first we must understand what inflammation is, what causes it and why chronic inflammation is harmful for our recovery. Inflammation is the body’s response to stress being placed upon it. This can be caused through practice, training, infection, disease, and a lot of different types of mental or emotional stress. After an intense training session, game or practice our muscle fibers will break down and have micro tears. Our body responds to this by activating our immune system to come in and clean out harmful waste products so our muscle fibers will be built back stronger than they were before. Inflammation is not necessarily a bad thing and is needed for the body to recover. The problem is when we have chronic inflammation. An increased amount of inflammation in the body is something that all athletes have to deal with when they are in-season due to an increased workload, and psychological stress. One way we can combat inflammation and optimize our recovery throughout the season is by adding these three things into your diet.

Turmeric:

The first thing that you should add to your diet to combat chronic inflammation is turmeric. Turmeric is a golden orange spice that has been used in traditional medicine in India and China for thousands of years. Turmeric has an active compound in it called curcumin that has both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Curcumin can help reduce the repetitive damage, inflammation and pain that athletes experience from hard training and games. Studies that took place in 2007 and 2020 showed that there was an enhanced rate of muscle recovery in mice that had turmeric in their diet. Other studies have shown that adding turmeric to your diet for 8-12 weeks reduced arthritis symptoms just as much as taking an ibuprofen daily. Studies also show that when you mix turmeric with black pepper or fat your body will absorb the curcumin better.

One of the hard things about adding turmeric to your diet is figuring out what foods to put it in. I personally add it and black pepper to the rice that I eat every day. I will also add it in my coffee occasionally as well. I have also heard of people putting turmeric and pepper into milk or tea. If you can’t find ways to get turmeric into your daily diet then there are also supplement pills that you can buy as well. 

Tart Cherry Juice

The next thing that you need to add to your daily diet in season is tart cherry juice. Tart cherries are loaded with vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin B6, calcium, iron, potassium and folic acid. All of these vitamins and nutrients are great for boosting your immune system and reducing oxidative stress. Tart cherry juice has anti inflammatory and antioxidant properties which helps aid athletes in the recovery process. This helps with the reduction of muscle soreness after intense workouts, games or practices. Studies also show that tart cherries also help with improving your quality of sleep because it helps your body release melatonin. This is another reason why it is important to add tart cherries to your diet in season. You will probably be getting less sleep than normal most days, due to your increased workload so it becomes vital that we focus on optimizing the sleep that we do get. 

I personally have begun drinking one cup of tart cherry juice every night before I go to bed. This has drastically improved my sleep quality and has helped with reducing muscle soreness. If you don’t want to drink juice directly you can also buy tart cherry extract and add it to a shake or smoothie.

Fish Oil - omega 3

There are many health benefits associated with taking a fish oil supplement. When athletes ask me about what supplements they should be taking, the first one I always tell them to start with is fish oil. Adding fish oil to your diet through oily fish such as salmon or mackerel, or from a supplement can improve your heart and brain health. It can also help with athletic performance and recovery. Fish oils help with lowering inflammation, reducing joint pain, and has been shown to improve aerobic capacity. Fish Oil or omega 3 fatty acid is a polyunsaturated fat, also known as a “healthy fat”. Omega 3 fatty acids are something that our bodies are not able to naturally produce, but we also can not live without them. The average American consumes a ratio of 20:1 or 30:1 omega 6 to omega 3, which is very unhealthy. An ideal ratio should be 1:1, but it is very difficult to add enough omega 3s into our diet without supplementation. Ideally you should be taking 1,000-2,000g of EPA or DHA per day.

It’s important to remember that when you begin adding natural remedies that help optimize your recovery that it will take time to begin noticing the effects. You can’t take turmeric, tart cherry juice or fish oil once and expect to feel different. You must add one, two or all three of these foods into your diet daily to begin noticing a difference. This is a much healthier way of dealing with soreness or inflammation than taking an NSAID anti inflammatory medicine. 

Feel free to email me at justin@aretetexas.net if you have any questions about how to improve your recovery during the season.