Did you know you can get a free vitamin supplement almost every day! It’s true and all you have to do is go out and… well that’s about it. The vitamin I’m talking about is vitamin D3. Your body can actually produce this micronutrient itself as long as your skin is exposed to sunlight. Many of you may already have known this but did you know that a staggering 50-70% of people are deficient in this particular vitamin. Being deficient is mainly associated with poor bone health but some research suggests that not getting enough vitamin D may also be linked to heart conditions, diabetes, asthma and cognitive impairment. If you think about it it’s easy to see why so many people are deficient as a lot of our time we are under a roof of some kind. You leave your house in the morning and then get in your car and unless it’s a convertible you’re hiding from the sun all the way to work as the ultraviolet B rays your body needs are blocked by the glass and then you might sit inside for another 8 hours and its dark by the time you leave.
We all seem to worry so much about supplementation for performance in the gym from protein to antioxidants but vitamin D is often hardly given a second thought. However there has been a lot of research out there that seems to indicate meeting your RDA has great performance benefits, a review article by Shuler et al (2012) sums up a lot of the research nicely. Studies seem to suggest that vitamin D sufficiency has a strong correlation with optimal muscle function. Increasing levels of vitamin D reduce inflammation, pain and myopathy while increasing muscle protein synthesis, ATP concentration, strength, jump height, jump velocity, jump power, exercise capacity, and physical performance.
It’s not too hard to keep from being deficient as you need only 200-400 IU according to UK recommendations (some other health organization feel this should be higher at about 600 IU)10-20 minutes outside on a sunny day is enough for that .You could also supplement a little with D3 tablets if you feel it’s necessary especially in the winter and get some from your diet by including oily fish ,eggs and mushrooms like shiitake or Portobello, but just being outside in the sun for a while is so much easier! Even when it’s not sunny and its overcast you still get it but just at a slower rate so you would want to think about increasing the amount of time spent exposed. This is also true if you have a darker skin tone as the melanin pigment works as a double edged sword in that it protects you from some of the damaging effects of over exposure to sun but also reduces the amount of ultraviolet rays that actually can be utilised for vitamin production. Be sensible about sun exposure especially in the summer as you don’t want to risk getting sun burn or causing heat stroke etc. little and often is usually the best approach in the summer. With that in mind I hope next time you see the sun shining from your window that you get out there and get your free vitamin D!
Jas Sandhu
Exercise Specialist
Better Body Group, Sevenoaks
Reference
Shuler, F.D., Wingate, M.K., Moore, G.H. and Giangarra, C. (2012) ‘Sports health benefits of vitamin D’, Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach, 4(6), pp. 496–501.
