Astaxanthin

The Last Kid On The Block

By Xavier Fox

Oxygen…we need it to live, and it is a vital component to the livelihood of every living organism. Unfortunately, it also reacts with most elements to cause degradation. What sustains life also helps mortality. As we age, daily reactions in our body cause oxidation of elements in organs, tissues, and many systems. It is why we become slower, heavier, and weaker as we age. However, the process is greatly accelerated when the body trains with weights, and ruining your workout and chance to put on more muscle is much more important than growing old.

When you workout, your body requires a lot more oxygen. If it didn’t, then you wouldn’t breathe heavy while training. Those deep breaths bring in a bunch of oxygen that your body uses to create energy. Well, when chemicals in your body react to make energy, there will be by-products. The by-products that the bodybuilder needs to worry about are free radicals. They cause fatigue, nerve cell damage, accelerated aging, and possibly even damage to your DNA. That sounds like some pretty hard-core stuff. Luckily for you, astaxanthin is a super powerful supplement that will kick free radicals in the groin and send them crying home to mummy.
Just what are free radicals, and how do they come to be? Well, if you can remember back to the days of elementary school, atoms are made up of a nucleus containing neutrons and protons and there are electrons orbiting the nucleus keeping the atom stable. Protons are the positively charged particles that keep balance with the orbiting electrons that are negatively charged. The protons are what determine how many electrons are needed for stability. The electrons are the particles that the atoms use to bond with other atoms to create molecules. As the bonds are made or broken, the molecules change properties.
However, when it comes to atoms, the thing that distinguishes them is the amount of electrons in their outer orbital shell, because this is what determines the atoms’ electric charge and ability to bond with other atoms. If the outer shell is full, then the atom will have no need to react with other atoms. It is already in a stable state. Just like your body, atoms always want to be in a stable state. That also means that if for some reason an atom has an outer shell that is not full, it will seek to bond with other atoms or steal electrons from their outer shells. An atom that does not have an outer shell full of electrons will not be able to perform its intended functions.
When chemical reactions are occurring in your body, such as the break down of ATP for energy inside the mitochondria, bonds will be broken between atoms. Sometimes, the outer electron shells of these atoms will be left missing an electron or two, and there will be an unpaired electron. It then needs to find a way to become stable again, so it goes on a search-and-destroy mission. It finds a girly-man atom that isn’t strong enough to hold onto the electrons in its outer shell and steals one. That atom now becomes a free radical, because it was once stable, and it is suddenly missing an electron. So, guess what happens? The newly created free radical goes on the prowl searching for a weaker atom to steal an electron from.
This chain reaction continues from atom to atom, and if it goes on unchecked, atoms just continue to attack each other, and it can actually damage the entire cell. Imagine what would happen if the mitochondria in your muscles were so damaged by free radicals that they could no longer function properly. The result would be the inability to produce energy for your intense workouts. You wouldn’t be gaining too much muscle if your body couldn’t even produce the energy it needed to train.
Not to scare you, but when you workout, you initiate millions of chemical reactions in your body due to the production of energy, breathing, and muscles generating forces. Your body becomes a free radical producing machine. Then, you eat right after you are done training, and free radicals just continue to be born because of the metabolizing of food. Then, to top it all off, even when you are out of the gym every day factors such as pollution, radiation from the sun, and even pesticides can cause your body to create free radicals. Your body is under constant attack from free radicals. So if you want to age prematurely or fall victim to excessive cell damage, fatigue, and muscle wasting, just let those free radicals continue to roam your system.
Of course, you don’t want your body to be damaged by free radicals. That is the reason that you make sure that you consume plenty of antioxidants. Once again, that Mother Nature is one smart cookie. Knowing that our bodies would need a way to combat free radicals so that we would not become extremely sick, atoms that had electrons to spare were created. Antioxidants are atoms that have the ability to donate an electron from their outer shells without becoming unstable. Even though their outer shell is incomplete, they can still keep their chemical properties and do the job they were intended to.
What does this mean to you? Well, as you train like a monster and eat like a herd of cattle, the antioxidants that you consume will gladly give up an electron to any free radical that passes by. Instead of a free radical stealing an electron from an atom and creating a chain reaction of free radical production, the antioxidant gives up an electron to the free radical and stops the process dead. This allows the cell to stay intact. No fatigue… no wasted muscle… no damaged tissues… and no premature ageing. You simply need to find the antioxidants that will help you the most.
The fact that this article is about a supplement called astaxanthin is probably a good hint that astaxanthin is a strong antioxidant. It is not just strong, it is one of the strongest of all. As a matter-of-fact, some studies have suggested it is almost 500 times more powerful than vitamin E, and vitamin E is known to be one tough mother when it comes to battling free radicals. Astaxanthin attaches itself onto cell membranes and crosses the cell membrane bi-layer of fat and water where free radical damage begins. This enables astaxanthin to stop the destruction of proteins in cell and mitochondrial membranes caused by oxidation. Astaxanthin is just the antioxidant that you need to keep your body operating at 100% so you can tear up the gym and win bodybuilding contests.
The benefits of astaxanthin go beyond just simply obliterating free radicals. Its antioxidant properties also provide another advantage that is of particular interest to bodybuilders, and that is the fact that astaxanthin helps accelerate the burning of body fat. Studies reported in the Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications that were performed on mice demonstrated that when astaxanthin was taken by a group of mice that exercised, they lost a statistically significant greater amount of body fat than a group that only exercised and did not use astaxanthin.
Supplementing with astaxanthin enables the bodybuilder to utilize fat as energy during exercise due to its antioxidant effect. It also leads to increased endurance which allows you to prolong exercise as well as get a couple of extra reps. If you are able to do more in the gym and also in the cardio room, you will definitely be burning more body fat as a result. The fact that the mitochondria are not being destroyed by free radicals means that they can continue to act as an energy power plant to keep your workouts at their highest level, and that leads to leaner and larger muscles.
One of the important aspects to being a successful bodybuilder is keeping your general health as good as you can. If you are not feeling well, or if you are having troubles with illnesses, you sure are not going to be in the gym as much as you should be. And, when you are in the gym, you certainly will not be performing at levels that are consistent with developing gargantuan portions of muscle. Astaxanthin has the ability to trap peroxyl radicals, thus inhibiting the pathway of lipid peroxidation and stifling the harmful properties of peroxyl radicals. This enables astaxanthin to keep the immune system in top condition. Guarding against peroxyl radicals will protect your body against tumours, skin cancer, retinal degeneration of the eyes, and damaging of the central nervous system.
Your overall health is important, but so is your cardiovascular health. If your heart is diseased, your workouts are not going to be exactly stellar. Physicians measure cardiovascular health by cholesterol levels, in particular high density lipoproteins (HDL, or “good” cholesterol). The higher the ratio of HDL in your total cholesterol level, the healthier you are, and the less of a chance of having health issues related to your heart will be. A study at the University of Panama measured cholesterol levels of rats that were given astaxanthin and other supplements. The astaxanthin group showed a significant improvement in HDL ratios as compared to all other groups. It is much more effective at reducing LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and increasing HDL cholesterol. Remember, you want a bodybuilding judge examining your body… not a coroner.
Not only will having a healthy cardiovascular system keep you healthy and in the gym, but the ability of you heart to function at peak levels is vital to your ability to train like an animal. In addition, you do not want arteries being clogged due to waste left behind from LDL cholesterol. Your heart pumps the blood in your body to the muscles and lungs where it is needed to bring oxygen and nutrients that keep you growing at optimal levels. The better your heart works, and the more open your arteries are, the more efficient your bodybuilding capabilities are. The more oxygen and nutrients that can get to where they need to be the faster and easier you can build more muscle and recuperate from workouts. It’s like keeping the fuel injectors, fuel lines, fuel filters, oil filters, and air filters in your car as clean as they could possibly be. Your bodybuilding motor runs a lot better when the cardiovascular system allows free flow of blood.
Don’t allow free radicals created by oxidation to waste muscle tissue away, cause fatigue, and cause premature ageing. Supplement with one of the most powerful antioxidants available on the market – astaxanthin – and you will experience more energy and muscle growth than ever before. In addition to that you will burn more fat and stay healthy so you spend more time in the gym where the muscle-building and fat-burning occurs. There’s no doubt about it… astaxanthin will bring your training to the next level.