By Marc Lobliner
CMO Tigerfitness.com
Doctors are there to keep you alive, not make you thrive, so it just makes sense that you will need to seek help to optimize performance outside of the medical industry.
I recently had a young athlete come to me. This athlete had blood markers that clearly indicated something was off.
The doctor offered no help, not a thing, because the blood work was “close enough.” The most they got was, “Rest more.”
Good luck getting an elite athlete to rest.
This is a 16-year-old elite athlete with aspirations of playing Division I college sports and in my opinion, has the potential to play beyond that.
This kid is a beast. They (not being politically correct, just not disclosing gender for complete anonymity) would go 120% on the field until literally, they gassed out. And by gassing out, I mean 100% failure. For you MD readers, it’s like doing a drop set when on the last drop, you can’t even lift your arms.
This would happen in important games, and the athlete was left frustrated, confused, and disappointed in themselves.
Specialist after specialist were consulted but to no avail. It was beyond hopeless.
That is when this athlete’s parents reached out to me, a simple performance coach known for making kids stronger and way faster but with a background in performance nutrition. I took all information, called a few colleagues including my good friend Alex Kikel, and spent hours studying this because there is no better feeling than helping a kid achieve greatness.
We finally devised a plan. It was a simple plan that angered me because it was a glaring solution that a literal doctor couldn’t figure out. It took a coach who CARED!
The athlete had systemic fatigue, a state of overstress or failure to adapt to an exercise load and/or drop in performance levels.
Essentially, a classic case of a young, elite athlete overdoing it.
The “treatment” for this to start was straightforward:
• Blood work indicates dehydration.
– We increased water to 70 ounces of water minimum for the ~130-pound athlete and even more if a strenuous competition day.
– Electrolytes added to water if desired: salt, magnesium, potassium, and calcium.
– Salt every meal with Himalayan pink salt or sea salt.
• We added in 1-2 high-carb refeed days per week. We double carbs for the day. Since we don’t have youth athletes measure food, an example would be if you normally have one bagel, have two. This will help the system cope with the training and recovery needs.
• While not critical, I want the athlete to make sure to get a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.
Immune support supplements were also recommended. Simple, non-pill forms because young people tend to hate pills.
Lacuna Nutrition
Ambrosia Nektar® – the organs need some support to recover from what they have been through with the systemic fatigue, so we will take 1 scoop per day to help support their function. Nektar® is an advanced organ and overall health formula.
Vitamin D – not as important since the athlete gets plenty of sun, but 2,500-5,000iu to support immune function can help.
Sleep is also essential, 8+ hours per night, and athletes tend to stress out a lot about their performance. Meditation and rest are recommended.
The results:
Literally in one day, the athlete played a game with zero issues feeling their best in a long time!
So, do doctors really suck?
NO, THEY DON’T. Well, some do I am sure, but most are great. Unfortunately, after they get that degree, they tend to stop learning and when a patient comes in, one out of the 20 they see in one day, they don’t have time to care. They go to their Big Pharma tool chest and take the fastest and easiest route possible. While effective for old folks with GERD, it’s terrible for someone like this athlete looking to be optimal. Doctors are there to keep you alive, not make you thrive, so it just makes sense that you will need to seek help to optimize performance outside of the medical industry.
This is why we do what we do at Legacy at Carbon (LegacyatCarbon.com). Help make kids greater now to dominate now and later in life. The main ingredients are loving and caring about our athletes, and this is why I do what I do.
Go to the doctor if something is off, get you yearly checkup but realize they most likely do not have all the answers.
Until next month, be great and dominate life!
The post Doctors Suck first appeared on FitnessRX for Women.