Athletes Should Drink Tea (Green and Black)

General Health Benefits of Teas

Can you name another beverage that’s black, green, or white, enjoyed either hot or cold, lowers cholesterol, protects against several types of cancer, reduces blood pressure, improves heart, dental and bone health, burns body fat, eliminates bad breath, fights infection and boosts your immune system? No other beverage matches black tea, green tea, and the increasingly popular white tea.
The ancient beverage was discovered in 2737 B.C. by Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung. The Greeks regarded tea as the ‘divine leaf’ that cures asthma, colds and bronchitis,  aids digestion and improves cardiovascular health. The Greeks, you might recall, were the World’s first Olympians – they invented it!

Tea with honey rather than using sugar is the best way for athletes to sweeten tea because honey provides it’s own nutrition and boosts the body’s immunity. Black tea and green tea contains niacin, potassium and riboflavin and traces of thiamin, zinc, manganese, and calcium.

Regulates Blood Sugar

In the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers gave green and black teas to diabetic rats for three months to determine the beneficial effects of tea on diabetes. They found both kinds of tea had a blood-sugar-lowering effect and also reduced the occurrence of diabetes-related cataracts in the eye. “Black and green tea represent a potentially inexpensive, nontoxic, and, in fact, pleasurable [blood-sugar-lowering] agent,” the researchers write. “Tea may be a simple, inexpensive means of preventing or retarding human diabetes and the ensuing complications.”

To get the same dose of tea given to the rats, a 143-pound person would have to drink 4.5 8-ounce cups of tea every day.

Boosts Energy and Increases Stamina

Many athletes are conscious about drinking tea but they don’t have an idea how useful it can be for them. Tea contains some reasonable amounts of caffeine which boosts energy levels and increases stamina.  This is what an athlete is always looking for: high energy and more activeness. But, for those who are sensitive to caffeine, tea contains less caffeine than coffee and, of course, like coffee, is also available in a decaffeinated version.

Builds Bone and Burns FAT

Both green and black tea help build bone density, according to Reader’s Digest (November 2000). Besides building bone, green tea also burns fat. Men’s Fitness (September 2002) reports that green tea “appears to give an extra boost by encouraging your body to burn fat rather than carbohydrates.”

Another study into the benefits of consuming green tea was conducted by Takatoshi Murase and colleagues at the Biological Sciences Laboratories of Kao Corp. in Tochigi, Japan; a company that makes green tea beverages and has been investigating the tea’s anti-obesity effects. Among other findings, the researchers found green tea boosts exercise endurance in mice up to 24% while spurring the use of fat as energy.

Japanese researchers estimates that to match the effects athletes weighing 75 kilograms (165 pounds) would need to drink about four cups of green tea a day and over several weeks. “One of our important findings,” says Murase, “was that a single high-dose of green tea or its active ingredients didn’t affect performance. So it’s the long-term ingestion of [Green Tea] that is beneficial.“ The researchers say their findings show that green tea extract can boost exercise capacity and support the hypothesis that stimulating the use of fatty acids can improve endurance.

While acknowledging that the impact of dietary interventions on performance is controversial, the researchers note that compounds in green tea called catechins have already been found to have various physiological effects. These include counteracting obesity from a high-fat diet, for which the researchers recently demonstrated evidence. This finding suggested that catechins stimulate fat oxidation. It’s thought that this might improve exercise performance by allowing the body to get energy from fat rather than carbohydrates during endurance activities.

Improves Post-Workout Recovery

All types of tea are equally beneficial for the health of athletes but using green tea would be the best as it has more antioxidants than others. Antioxidants are compounds that protect the body from the oxidation effect of exercise and other forms of intense physical activity such as sports. The antioxidants in green tea can offset the oxidative stress that comes from physical workouts. This means your body can recover more quickly from physical exercise and have less damage after a workout.

A recent Brazilian study shows consumption of green tea is associated with a 64 per cent reduction in the levels of lipid hydroperoxide after exercise, while blood levels of polyphenols were approximately 27 per cent high before and after exercise. Moreover, post-exercise levels of glutathione, a protein that is important in protecting the body from oxidative (free radical) damage, were approximately 37 per cent higher in the green tea group.

“There is evidence that supplementation with antioxidants may decrease the oxidation of blood GSH after exercise,” stated the researchers. “Furthermore, our findings demonstrate that dietary strategies, such as daily [green tea] intake, may also benefit the glutathione system of athletes by elevating blood GSH levels before and after effort…Consumption of green tea, a beverage rich in polyphenols, may offer protection against the oxidative damage caused by exercise, and dietary guidance for sports participants should be emphasized,” concluded the researchers.

So if you exercise, try adding FOUR CUPS of green (or black) tea to your diet per day, then track the results you get.

One More Thing: Athelete’s Foot and Jock Itch can be Treated with Tea!

Athlete’s foot {Tinea pedis) is a common fungal infection that affects 20 percent of the population at any given time. These fungi, called dermatophytes, infect the skin of the foot, which may result in an intensely itchy, red, scaly rash on the soles of the feet and between the toes. The fungi that cause athlete’s foot grow in warm, moist environments, so it may be picked up easily by walking barefoot in public areas such as bathrooms, swimming pools, saunas, showers, and locker rooms. Athlete’s foot is difficult to get rid of because in socks and shoes, feet provide the same ideal environ­ment for the fungi to thrive. If you are exposed to the fungi that cause athlete’s foot, you may be contagious, even if you don’t develop athlete’s foot. Once you have had athlete’s foot, you are more susceptible to reinfection.

Because the fungi that cause athlete’s foot can grow on human skin, this type of fungal infection may spread to other parts of the body such as the groin (known as jock itch), scalp, and underarm. This is most likely to happen when people touch or scratch the in­fected area and then touch another part of their body without washing their hands. Be sure to wash your hands regularly while treating an athlete’s foot infection. Also, after a bath or shower, use a different towel to dry an infected area than for the remainder of your body. Hot-water wash and dry towels immediately after each use.

Soaking in green tea baths has been noted as an effective home remedy for Athlete’s Foot. To prepare a Green Tea Foot Soak:

  1. Use 5 – 8 normal teabags, or 1 – 3 family size teabags, or 1 full cup of loose leaves
  2. Steep tea in a quart of boiling water.
  3. Allow the strong green tea to cool to a comfortable temperature and soak your feet for 10 to 15 minutes.
  4. Remove your feet and pat dry, do not rinse.
  5. If a quart isn’t enough for your foot soak, double or triple the recipe.
  6. Soak your feet daily until it subsides.
  7. If you live in a humid climate like Hawaii, soaking your feet once or twice a week can help prevent reinfection.
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