Food Supplements for Mountain Bikers...?

Which supplements do we really need...?

In this article, we'd like to share our personal experiences with supplements and how they've influenced our everyday life as mountain bikers and MTB skills instructors.

We coach as our full-time job, which means, we're on our bikes 4-6 days a week, training riders of all levels and thanks to our home training platform, we currently also simultaneously train many riders all around the world. This means, we're not only physically, but also mentally challenged daily 😊

That's why both our physical and mental performance are very important to us.

In this article, we share:

• Why we started taking supplements,

• Which supplements have really made a noticeable difference for us and

• Which ones we think we really need - especially as athletes and riders who are also exposed to a lot of "stress" daily

• How we manage to stay highly efficient and productive over years of very intense work

What do we mean by "stress” and "very intense work"?

During the main coaching season, which is about 8-10 months per year, a typical work day usually starts at around 7 am and we rarely get to rest before 10:30 pm. Often 7 days a week. Why? Because we are fuelled by passion 😬

That this amount of work hours is not ideal, nor "recommended", is another matter (maybe something we'll write about in a future blog or talk about in a podcast 😇)- but fact is: we still want to be able to perform well and, above all, we want to stay and feel healthy during these periods!

During very intense periods of stress we noticed the following “symptoms”:

• a decreased ability to concentrate

• slower wound healing

• less regeneration

• fatigue

• muscle twitching

• sleep difficulties

• hunger attacks

After these super intense periods we noticed the following:

• susceptibility to infections

• headaches

• increased tendency to herpes infections

• irritability (sorry, mom!)

• lethargy

Why we thought supplements may help:

A doctor who we were coaching said she would recommend supplementing, especially as we're on a 90% vegetarian and 25% vegan diet.

So the first thing we did was to have blood work done, which revealed that our vitamin D levels were far too low, as were our iron levels.

We weren't surprised about our iron levels being too low, but we were very surprised about our vitamin D levels being low! After all, we live in Spain and spend a LOT of time outdoors.

Unfortunately, blood work doesn't easily reveal whether you have other deficiencies (vitamins, minerals), too, so we started taking the supplements our doctor friend recommended to see if we felt a difference.

We were honestly very surprised at how quickly and how noticeably we DID feel a difference!

The first difference was that we got sick MUCH less often!

We have been supplementing for about 5 years now and since then, apart from 2 x COVID and 1 x food poisoning, we have not been sick seriously, once. (Knock on wood!)

BUT: I have to mention that we were ill about 4 times yearly prior to taking supplements...

We also noticed that we:

• started to sleep better,

• regenerated faster,

• were generally more resilient,

• were able to concentrate much better,

• and I had virtually no more herpes outbreaks and far fewer headaches.

What did we take and how do you know what supplements you need?

We started taking quite high doses of vitamin D, vitamin C and B vitamins, amino acids and omega 3 and generally supplementing with minerals such as calcium and magnesium.

For magnesium and calcium, we opted for Pulverreich, a very practical powder that, unlike other products, dissolves without leaving any residue - so we just added it to our hydration bladders during our rides/coaching sessions.

We have already written an article about this in German - as this company is from Germany.

A big challenge, however, was to find the right dosage and, above all, the right composition of the supplements.

And that's why, in this article, we'd like to share something that has simplified supplementing for us immensely!

We found personalized food supplements - supplements that are put together individually with the help of a quiz - and that are then delivered in practical daily pouches!

This means that we no longer needed to worry about the composition, nor about WHEN to take which supplement...!

This is how our supplement stock looked before we found these personalized supplements:

And this is how our supplement stock looks now:

What used to be a range of pills spread throughout the day, is now only one pouch per day, at the same time, no more guessing, no more trying, nor planning. (And less possibilities to forget about them...)

Riise has microgranules with a slow release formula, so the ingredients don't clash and this release over time also ensures optimal absorption.

So we can simply take everything at once and no longer need to worry about whether some of the contents inhibit the absorption of another, etc.

In addition, the composition of your daily pouch is PERSONALIZED with the help of a simple online quiz.

Of course, an online quiz does not replace professional blood work, but it does help to get a general overview.

What generally surprised us: These personalised supplements are not even more expensive - because if you buy all the supplements individually and put them together yourself, it is not only much more time-consuming, it's also actually more expensive...

We definitely wanted to share this tip with you, because maybe you already take supplements and/or feel the way we did - or simply want to give it a try.

At riise you can start your quiz directly, to get your personalised formula and a few days later you'll receive your daily pouches. Also, you can ask questions to their health professionals online and they are working on integrating more sophisticated tests in the future, to make their supplements even more personalised.

Tip: The two founders of riise (it's a young German start-up, by the way) were kind enough to provide a discount code. With the code ROXY15 you'll get a -15% discount!

Which other supplements do we take?

We also take Omega 3 (also available as a vegan supplement) and amino acids from another German Company: Artgerecht.

Omega 3 in particular noticeably improved our wound healing and the amino acids our regeneration. I (Roxy) personally like the vegan version even better and the taste is more neutral.

Both riise and Artgerecht are companies based in Germany that pay attention to sustainability and high-quality raw materials - in the case of riise, the ingredients come from France.

We believe it's particularly important to check the origin of food supplements, as many products come from Asia and we've already heard scary stories about contamination etc.

Which other habits have we found to help us endure "stress" over longer periods?

Even before taking dietary supplements we had already implemented a few habits to help us to stay fit even under very high stress:

1. Getting plenty of sleep

2. A healthy diet

3. Daily micro-meditations, breathing exercises + Gravity Yoga

4. Choosing our consumption consciously

5. Listening to what nourishes our soul instead of what feeds our ego

6. Performing daily gratitude rituals

Although these topics are too extensive to go into detail in this article, we would like to explain them briefly.

1. For us, getting plenty of sleep means making sure we sleep 7.5 to 8.5 hours.

2. A healthy diet means cooking fresh daily, eating lots of fruit and vegetables, eating meat rarely - and then making sure it's of good quality - and avoiding white flour and pork as much as possible.

3. "Micro-meditations" are pausing briefly several times a day and mindfully perceiving things in the NOW - this could be fully focusing on our morning coffee or cuddling our cats. Our daily breathing exercises are short but frequent 4-8 cycles to allow the nervous system to move into "regeneration mode" again and again (that is: inhaling to the count of 4 and exhaling to the count of 8). Also, we often only do a single pose of Gravity Yoga, but do this several times a week, ideally before going to bed.

4. For us, "consumption" includes everything that enters our system - via all our senses. We reduce mindless, trance-like scrolling, only buy what we still want (and need) after a week of rethinking, only watch documentaries or biographies that inspire us. We also don't consume any alcohol, other drugs or stimulants. (Except for 1-2 coffees per day 😬)

5. With every action, we question whether it's our ego or our soul driving us. We then only follows the actions that truly nourish our soul. Even if the hours we work are objectively A LOT, following our soul gives us the strength to keep "working", because we're know that we're creating good for ourselves and the world.

6. Every morning we start (and every evening we end) the day with gratitude. Pausing and simply feeling what this feeling does to us fuels us with an incredible amount of strength and motivation.

Conclusion:

We often read that supplements are unnecessary when on a healthy diet. This was actually one of the reasons why we didn't take any supplements for a long time and why we were very skeptical at first, especially as we were already leading a very healthy lifestyle.

However, we simply gave it a try - and very quickly noticed a difference.

We are neither doctors nor nutritionists - and can't promise that you will feel the effects of taking them as impressively as we did. But we simply wanted to share our experiences with you, because it really was a huge increase in quality of life and improvement of performance for us.

Also, we have to admit that we wish we would've found these products earlier - so we hope you find this article helpful. ☺️

Do let us know below!

Your coaches Roxy & Berni

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