An important nutrient for everyone, also for sportsmen and sportswomen.
Discover the sportsperson in yourself, competitive or recreational!
Each day half an hour of moderate intensive exercise gives you more energy and keeps your heart and blood vessels in shape. Moreover, it helps to sleep better so that you are less tired during the day. Moderate intensive exercise means that your heart will beat faster and your breathing will speed up, but you’re still able to talk normally.
In addition, after every 3 weeks of training, it is best for sporters to use 1 week of relative rest in which the training volume is halved. Training is simply training and recuperating.
Finally, sports can go hand in hand with muscle pain, stiffness, cramps, …. Intensive and recreational sports therefore require a lot of energy and strength. In order to recuperate optimally, the body sometimes needs extra nutrients. Magnesium, for example, is a well-known mineral for muscle support and energy metabolism, but have you heard of ubiquinol?
What is ubiquinol?
Ubiquinol is a vitamin-like substance and the active form of coenzyme Q10 (coQ10). This special nutrient is produced by the body itself and is present in every cell where it plays a crucial supporting role.
CoQ10 can occur in two different forms, a reduced form (ubiquinol) or an oxidised form (ubiquinone). The last one must first be converted to the active ubiquinol form before it can be used by the body. In young people, even 95% of all coQ10 is present in the blood plasma as ubiquinol.
The bioactive coQ10 or ubiquinol is ready to use, is better absorbed from the intestine and is about 4 times better available to the body than ubiquinone. Moreover, it is also an antioxidant.
Ubiquinol and sport
It is logical that when you have more energy, you can perform better in sports. Too little energy can make your body more sensitive to injuries and result in not optimal stamina. As mentioned earlier, coQ10 is present in every cell of our body, including our muscles. The important role of this special nutrient is to ensure that the muscles not only get enough energy but are also able to recover faster.
It is also an important substance for the health of the heart, an organ that needs a lot of energy. For example, during moderate to intensive exercise, the heart has to perform tremendously, so it is important to provide sufficient support and extra care for this organ. Ubiquinol is also a safe nutrient that is not considered doping. So keep your ubiquinol level as an athlete at the right level. You can always have this tested by your doctor.
Can I have a shortage of ubiquinol?
Ubiquinol is produced by the body itself, but various factors can cause this conversion to no longer take place optimally.
The following groups have a higher risk of a possible shortage:
- When exercising intensively (more than 2 times a week): Your body has a higher need for ubiquinol.
- When you are older than 45 years: The ability to convert ubiquinone into ubiquinol decreases with age. From the age of 30, the concentration in your body decreases. The largest decrease occurs in the heart. That is why it is useful for people over 45 to take ubiquinol directly as a dietary supplement.
- When taking cholesterol-lowering medication (statins).
- In case of long-term exposure to stress.
- Smokers.
- Unbalanced diet with little fresh food or in case of severe obesity.
How much ubiquinol does our nutrition contain?
Ubiquinol is present in almost everything we eat, but to get the recommended 100 mg per day, you would have to eat 3.5 kg of beef, 120 cans of sardines or 60 avocados a day.
Fortunately, the body itself also produces ubiquinol. From the age of 30, however, this production gradually decreases so that the body increasingly needs ubiquinol from food or when this is not sufficient via supplements.
Take ubiquinol with peace of mind
How much your body needs depends on person to person. Ubiquinol is a completely safe and thoroughly researched substance that you cannot take too much of. Usually daily doses of 50-100 mg are recommended, starting with a period of 200 mg for a few weeks. To determine whether your body needs extra, you can always ask your doctor for advice. If your body needs an ubiquinol supplement, it is best to take it at breakfast in the morning but it is also possible to take it at dinner.