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Recreation is an activity that an individual does out of work. It serves as a departure from daily work duties so the body would freshen up and recover psychophysically after a work day (the term recreation literally means creating again).
Unlike a hobby, which is a broader concept and besides activities it can include physically inactive forms of resting (eg. reading, collecting something and similar pastimes), recreation always has some physical activity attached to it, and usually it is some kind of sport.
Therefore, recreationists ordinarily do some kind of physical activity, and they don’t overdo it. By “not overdoing it” I mean that they don’t give in to a sport up to a high amateur, half professional or even professional level, but they are ordinarily active.
They should be differentiated from weekend-athletes that are not physically active during the week, but they play football or basketball with their friends on Saturday for example. Being that they surprise their body like that, injuries of locomotor system are not rare for them.
Hence, recreationists are, the golden middle between top professional athletes and inactive, sitting population that after work goes directly to the fridge, and after that to the couch. Nowadays recreationists are most likely aware of the fact that physical activity has a lot of benefits for their body, and they also know that with it a healthy, balanced diet.
Finally we get to one more of their needs that comes to the fore, and that is supplementation. This is not supplementation that some muscle enthusiast will immediately think of and that will help him get a greater muscle mass or polished definition. These are not the goals of a recreationist.
Their goal is to maintain and improve their health, and supplementation is often just a piece that is missing so that the puzzle of health would be complete. Below there will be 5 supplements listed, that recreationists should use, and it has been proven that they contribute in improving health and generally to better daily functioning.
1. Multivitamin/multimineral
Multivitamin additive to nutrition is an excellent way to avoid lots of tablets and to meet your daily vitamin needs with one composition. No matter how your diet is healthy, complete and balanced, there is always some element that can’t be present in sufficient amount in nutrition. A quality multivitamin-mineral composition solves this problem.
These kinds of compositions are especially useful for people that are missing certain nutrients due to their particular diet. I especially mean vegetarians and vegans (they will probably crucify me now, but what you going to do…), because some nutrients are only possible to take through meat or through supplements.
When choosing a multivitamin composition we should have in mind that they don’t all have the same ingredients and the same quality. A quality multivitamin contains micronutrients that have a proven bioavailability. A capsule (or a tablet) needs to be slab-sided with something that will degrade quickly in the body because this will increase absorption, but it won’t degrade before it gets to the absorption place. Also, we should make sure that the ingredients have been tested for contamination, eg. for heavy metal contamination.
Besides that, the need for multivitamin composition is not the same for both genders. If you are an adult man or a woman in post menopause, you will rarely need a supplement with additional iron (unless you have regular iron loss because of blood donation or something). On the other hand, this kind of supplement would be useful for thin (underfed) children, women in reproductive age and expectant mothers.
2. Omega-3 fish oil
These important fatty acids have well known benefits. Those benefits include better cardiovascular health, decrease of chronic inflammatory processes, better brain function, fat tissue loss, better insuline sensitivity, lower blood pressure etc.
Omega-3 fatty acids can improve health of literally every cell in the organism. With supplements we should be careful to take enough omega-3, to take omega-3 and not omega-6 and that total amount of fatty acid intake is balanced to benefit of omega-3 fatty acids.
In daily nutrition omega-6 are more present so the ratio omega-3:omega-6 goes in favor of omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-6 themselves have some benefits for the organism and they are not bad, but this kind of ratio is bad.
Omega-3 fatty acids are DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) I ALA (alpha linolenic acid). DHA and EPA are the most important, because they are harder to take through food. Sources of DHA and EPA are fish and wild animal meat and meat of the animals that eat grass.
Standard recommendation is to take 1-3g/kg, although new recommendations suggest taking 1-1,5g/kg of fat tissue. This kind of amount can seem large at first, but we can’t overdose with omega-3 fatty acids so there is no fear – just benefit!
3. Vitamin D
Vitamin D is one of the vitamins soluble in fats. This vitamin gets produced naturally in the body from cholesterol as a reaction to exposure to sunlight, so its shortage is more expressed during winter time.
However, adding vitamin D is needed over the whole year, considering the small amount that body produces. So, as much as vitamin D can be useful (immune system, bones, reproductive health, cancer and MS prevention…), we should be careful with it because it is possible to overdose.
Overdose causes hypercalcemia so the symptoms related to this disease are: anorexia, nausea, vomiting, insomnia, exaggerated urination and need to drink liquid, and in the hardest cases kidney failure.
A normal dose is not defined exactly because various institutions argue over it, but for an adult a safe daily dosage is 600 IU (international units).
4. Magnesium
Magnesium is one other element that people often don’t have enough. It is very useful for people who can’t sleep, and besides that it regulates important brain receptors, which means that it is needed for good memory and cognitive functioning.
Also, it affects muscle contraction, the level of testosterone, the strength and the absorbtion of other minerals like, for example, zinc. Individuals that are physically active (so, recreationists also), need more magnesium. It is important to have magnesium reserves, because it serves as a protection from heart diseases and immune disorders.
Nutrition satisfies around 15% of recommended magnesium intake. As 66% of magnesium is in bones, 33% in muscles and only 1% in blood, often by testing blood serum we get false dana that we don’t need magnesium. A fact that tells us the exact situation with magnesium in our body is corpuscular volume.
While choosing this supplement, it is important to choose its form that has adequate bioavailability in the body. Eg. magnesium oxide has poor bioavailability, while it is better with chloride, glycinate or sulphate.
As for the dosage, a minimal amount of 500mg/day is recommended, but it is better to take 1200mg/day for women and +/day for women.
5. Zinc
Same as magnesium, zinc deficite is one of the most common mineral deficiencies. If you don’t take zinc as a supplement, the probability that you are in the red is high. Its function is related to over 100 enzyme and hormon functions in the body. Being that body cannot store zinc, to keep its optimal level in the body, we need to take it through supplementation.