If you are a fitness freak, or a fitness freak wannabe, you might want to try one of the following 3 hacks to improve your performance:
1. Peppermint Water: A study found that athletes who added just one drop of peppermint essential oil in a bottle of water for 10 days prior to performing, experienced a significant increase is respiratory efficiency. If you don’t want to drink the actual essential oil, try crushing a handful of fresh mint leaves in your hands, and stuff them into your water bottle. Add a few slices of lemon and you are all set!
2. Drink Beet Juice: Sipping on 2 cups of beet juice a day (you don’t need to slug it all in one go, and it can be mixed with other juices), can dramatically improve energy levels during a hard workout. If you are a crazy spinner or marathon runner, give this a try and you will be amazed.
3. Nutritional Yeast: Here’s a funny thing: Exercise can increase your immunity to respiratory infections to a point, which is why it’s great to exercise moderately everyday. However, it’s been found that hard core exercise, such as training for a marathon or doing 2 hours of hard cycling (as in 2 back-to-back spin classes), can increase your chances of developing a respiratory infection. The great news is that you can counteract this decline in immunity by added just 1 tsp of Nutritional Yeast to your diet everyday. I love this cheesy stuff and add it to salads, popcorn, soups and homemade vegan cheeses.
Mercifully all three hacks are easy and inexpensive solutions to keeping ourselves in tip top condition while we work out. And for those of you who are running a marathon this year (I know a few), Good Luck!
