How to Optimize Your Performance by Understanding Your Critical Blood Bio-Markers

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How do you know if your nutritional intake is primed for optimal performance?

While many runners eat a healthy diet in general, it’s still possible to have low or inadequate levels of important nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. For example, Recent research indicates that almost 56 percent of joggers and competitive runners suffer from an iron deficiency that severely hampers performance.

The problem for runners is that it’s not easy to know if you’re deficient in some of these key bio-markers. Further, following general nutritional recommendations doesn’t specifically apply to your training load, lifestyle or genetics. Plus, it can be difficult to appreciate how those recommended numbers translate to what an actual daily diet looks like.

One company is trying to solve that problem – and doing a great job at it. Gil Blander is the co-founder of InsideTracker, which offers a nutritional service that analyzes your blood to measure key performance bio-markers. More importantly, based on your specific needs, InsideTracker provides a detailed, scientifically-backed plan to optimize your levels.

On our show today, Gil is going to discuss how InsideTracker works and cover:

  • Some of the key bio-markers important for runners and how they impact health and performance. For example, how creatine kinase and testosterone levels can help determine if you’re overtraining or fully recovered after a marathon.
  • How InsideTracker is able to provide individual bio-marker recommendations based on lifestyle, training and genetics. More importantly, why following general recommendations or trying the shotgun approach (taking multivitamins for example) isn’t effective.
  • Gil is also going to dive into some great examples of elite athletes who’ve seen dramatic results from using their service. One example is how an Olympic triathlete found the key to her sleeping issues was low magnesium.

I strongly believe that InsideTracker offers a unique and innovative approach to optimizing performance through nutrition. As such, we’ve worked out a special deal with their team to offer you a 10 percent discount on any of their service. Simply use the code RUNCON3014 at purchase and they’ll take 10% off your order.

To be upfront, we do receive an affiliate commission when you use this code. However, I would never recommend something I didn’t 100% believe in. This is absolutely a service I wish has been available when I was competing professionally (especially since getting a doctor to provide a blood test can be a pain).

As an example, the InsideTracker biomarkers include tracking hemoglobin, ferritin and total iron binding capacity, all of which are critical to your running performance. Most basic blood tests only provide hemoglobin numbers, but even if your hemoglobin is normal, your running can still be affected if you have low ferritin. Having a concrete number for all the factors – and how, when and why you should improve them – could help catch any potential issues before they impact your training and racing.

Enjoy the interview and if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section and I’ll definitely get them answered for you.

Watch this week’s show now