What do seniors, boomers & heavy weight-lifters all have in common? They all need extra joint support. I am not talking about braces or walkers. I am talking about promoting healthy cartilage, ligaments, tendons and collagen. You can get all this and more from good old crusteceans ! Glucosamine and Chondroitin.
This supplement is used for a range of conditions – joint pain, rigour, inflammation, cartilage repair and so on. So you might ask, why the heavy weight-lifter? This athlete, along with the aerobics instructor, the avid runner & serious cyclists are all putting a lot of stress on their joints, ligaments and tendons. They ask a lot of their bodies, so I recommend giving it a lot back , in the form of tissue support from glucosasmine and chondroitin.
When I asked my trainer about this, and I value her opinion and advice highly, she told me not only about the relief it gave her knees when she was an aerobics instructor, doing upwards of 200 squats/day. She also told me that among the trainers that she works with, none of them agree on what supplements should be suggested to their clients… however, they all agree on 3 supplements – the multi-vitamin, calcium and glucosasmine and chondroitin.
Naturally she stressed getting them from a good reputable source and not just buying anything the grocery store was pedaling. On this subject, I cannot be swayed; it is liquids all the way. The supplement industry is working feverishly on providing both food and beverage form products, i.e. vitamin water. This is the best way to have the nutrients absorb into the system and be used and retained in the system. Liquids provide up to 98% absorption, compared to 20-30% from pills.
There are numerous studies finding benefits of glucosasmine and chondroitin to the joint tissues and to arthritis sufferers. But people hear negative stories on supplements every day and are reticent to act. For those that want definitive information I send them to see what the National Institutes of Health has to say on the subject -
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/patient-glucosamine.html
For an analysis of many studies on the subject see this study -
http://www.rowingact.org.au/SDO/Masters/Glucosamine.html
and, of course, for more articles regarding glucosasmine, please see my site, www.fullperformancefitness.com/articles