Exercise & Ketones: A Symbiotic Relationship?

Can the ketogenic diet and ketosis as a metabolic state improve physical performance?

Here are the top four benefits of the ketogenic diet and exogenous ketones for optimising exercise:  

 Increased Oxygen Efficiency = Faster Recovery Times

ATP (Adenosine triphosphate) is the available energy within a cell. When you switch from burning glucose to burning ketones, you more efficiently use ATP. This means that you have more energy to available and a lower oxygen requirement.

In comparison with sugar burning, ketosis minimises oxidative stress allowing your muscles to recover more quickly. This translates to improving your physical performance and speeding up your recovery times in between sets. 

Ketones are Muscle Sparing = Lean Muscle Mass Preservation

Beta-Hydroxybutyrate is a muscle sparing ketone body. In ketosis, your body uses dietary fat and mobilises body fat for energy. In contrast, if you are dependent on glucose (sugar burner), your body will be using glycogen stores from your liver and muscles for energy. Once these glycogen stores run out, gluconeogenesis begins.

Gluconeogenesis is when you catabolise (break down) lean muscle tissue into sugar to fuel the body. Now, if you weight-train or are aiming to be toned and strong, this is the last thing that you want to happen, all that hard-earned muscle depleted! 

Reduction in Joint Injuries and Quicker Muscle Recovery

To a degree, we do need inflammation for healing. However, sugar increases inflammation to the point where you can have achy joints and soreness for extended periods of time. Ketosis decreases, and often completely eliminates, inflammation in the brain and body (this is why the ketogenic diet works so well in preventing seizures in deep sea divers and epileptic patients).

Try just one week without sugar and you will notice how joint pain and headaches will just disappear. For an athlete, this translates to quicker recovery times and fewer injuries! Ketosis is also proving to heal Alzheimer’s, autoimmune diseases, diabetes type 2, ADHD, severe migraines and other inflammation-related illnesses.

Source your Energy from Ketones & Glucose = Increased Physical Performance

This is the real deal breaker! In ketosis, you can draw from both ketones and glucose if you have glycogen stores and exogenous ketones!

“Ketones fuel the brain very efficiently and effectively so your training can use muscle glycogen. While this is known, it’s still not fully understood as they may ALSO allow the brain to push the body beyond normal autonomic shutdown mechanisms.”

This means that normally, when your body would ‘hit the wall’ or ‘bonk’ you can mobilise both sources of fuel to power your body. You suddenly have two source of fuel to burn, instead of just one!

 

Discover Exogenous Ketones, the latest bio-hack to increase energy, improve mental focus and catalyse a fat-burning metabolism.

Find out more about fuelling your workouts here.

Optimise your recovery and repair here.