Sports can be divided into professional and popular sports. Professional sports need to maximize and improve the potential of individuals in terms of physical fitness, physical ability and athletic ability, and to conduct scientific and systematic training and competitions. Then, sports nutrition food becomes the necessary food for professional athletes’ training and competition.

In 2016, the State Council issued the National Fitness Program (2016-2020), pointing out that the implementation of the National Fitness Program is an important national development strategy.

By 2020, the number of people who participate in physical exercise once a week or more will reach 700 million, the number of people who regularly participate in physical exercise will reach 435 million, and the total scale of sports consumption will reach 1.5 trillion yuan.

Based on this background, sports nutrition food experts and industry representatives generally believe that China’s sports nutrition food industry will usher in the best time to grow from small to large and from serving professional sports to facing mass sports.

Concept and Classification of Sports Nutrition Food

Sports nutrition food is a kind of functional food related to sports. In recent years, sports nutrition food has been popular around the world and developing rapidly.

According to the National Standard for Food Safety General Principles for Sports Nutrition Food (GB 24154-2015), sports nutrition food is divided into 3 categories for different needs of energy and protein, i.e., energy supplementation, energy control and protein supplementation, and 3 categories for the special needs of different sports, i.e., speed and strength, endurance, and post-exercise recovery.

Overview of functional components of sports nutrition food

Adding a certain amount of functional ingredients to sports nutrition food can effectively alleviate energy depletion, accumulation of metabolic products such as lactic acid, free radical damage and central nervous system fatigue, etc., which occur in the body during exercise, and play an important role in regulating the body’s functions, accelerating the elimination of fatigue, and promoting the recovery of functions.

2.1 Peptides and branched-chain amino acids

Recent studies have confirmed that the active polypeptides obtained by enzymatic digestion of many proteins have better functional properties than the original proteins. It is also shown that small molecule peptides are more easily absorbed than proteins or amino acids, which can enable the exercise body to rapidly recover and enhance physical strength, and reduce the negative balance of skeletal muscle proteins.

Branched-chain amino acid metabolism is closely related to exercise fatigue, and prolonged exercise causes changes in the plasma amino acid profile, causing central fatigue.

Supplementing a certain amount of branched-chain amino acids during exercise can delay the onset of fatigue, promote the utilization of amino acids in muscle tissue, save muscle glycogen, and reduce muscle catabolism.

In addition, studies have shown that branched-chain amino acids can reduce the free radical damage caused by exercise, reduce the concentration of blood lactate after exercise, and have a certain effect on the recovery of physical strength after exercise, and improve the body’s exercise capacity.

Glutamine is a non-essential amino acid, but it has received much attention from the medical nutrition community and is widely used in sports nutrition.

Glutamine is the amino acid that exists most in brain, muscle and blood, and it is the precursor substance of many kinds of amino acids, so glutamine is highly utilized and consumed faster during exercise, at this time, if it can be supplemented in time, it will help the physical recovery of sports personnel.

At present, the research confirms that soybean polypeptide, peanut polypeptide, maca polypeptide, rice residue peptide, glutathione and so on have the effect of anti-sport fatigue.

2.2 Plant active substances

In recent years, many plant active substances have been found to have anti-exercise fatigue function and can be applied to sports nutrition food.

In terms of plant polysaccharides, chestnut polysaccharides can significantly improve exercise endurance, reduce the content of blood lactate and blood urea nitrogen after exercise, and increase the content of muscle glycogen and liver glycogen;

Sha jujube polysaccharide can prolong the time of weight-bearing swimming in mice, increase the content of hepatic glycogen, reduce the content of serum urea nitrogen, and lower the content of blood lactate;

Polysaccharides from Sheepshead prolonged weight-bearing swimming time, increased hepatic glycogen content, enhanced serum SOD activity, and decreased serum MDA, creatine lactate and serum urea content in mice.

In addition, polysaccharides isolated and extracted from Ganoderma lucidum, Cordyceps sinensis, and Aloe vera have also been shown to have anti-exercise fatigue activity.

In terms of pigment anti-fatigue, beet red pigment can prolong the weight-bearing swimming time, reduce the content and accelerate the clearance rate of blood lactate and serum urea nitrogen, increase the content of hepatic glycogen and myo-glycogen in mice, and have anti-fatigue effects;

Moonflower pigments can significantly prolong the time from swimming to exhaustion, increase the activities of SOD and GSH-PX in serum and skeletal muscle, and reduce the content of blood lactate in serum and skeletal muscle.

In terms of flavonoids against fatigue, soy isoflavones significantly prolonged the time of swimming exhaustion in mice, increased serum free fatty acid content, and reduced blood lactate and urea nitrogen;

Fisetin flavonoids can significantly prolong the time of weight-bearing swimming in mice, clear the accumulation of blood lactate, slow down the decomposition of nitrogenous substances in the body after exercise, increase the reserve of hepatic glycogen in exercise mice, and have anti-fatigue activity;

Gannan navel orange peel flavonoids can prolong the weight-bearing exhaustion swimming time in mice, reduce serum urea nitrogen, liver tissue malondialdehyde content, and significantly improve superoxide dismutase activity, orange peel flavonoids have strong anti-fatigue activity.

In terms of polyphenol anti-fatigue, gorgonian seed coat polyphenols can increase liver glycogen and muscle glycogen reserves, reduce serum urea nitrogen level, and increase lactate dehydrogenase content in serum and liver in fatigued mice, and gorgonian seed coat polyphenols have anti-fatigue and improve hypoxia tolerance;

Tea polyphenols can prolong the exhaustion time of rats, reduce the content of urea and blood lactate, and increase the activity of blood lactate dehydrogenase in rats after exercise, and the anti-fatigue effect was most significant at a dose of 300 mg/kg.

2.3 Taurine

Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid of human body, which can maintain the stability of membrane structure and regulate osmotic balance, and prevent the lipid peroxidation reaction of cell membrane, which is an important cytoprotective agent.

The free radicals generated during exercise increase, and the free radicals can cause lipid peroxidation reaction in the body’s biofilm, thus contributing to the reduction of exercise capacity, while taurine can improve the vitality of the body’s antioxidant enzyme system, thus enhancing the body’s antioxidant capacity and enhancing the body’s exercise capacity.

In addition, taurine can effectively regulate Ca2+ homeostatic disorder, exercise fatigue will lead to lipid peroxidation, Ca2+ homeostatic disorder, and taurine has a good effect on them. Therefore, taurine is often added to sports nutrition food as a functional component.

In summary, in addition to peptides and branched-chain amino acids, the research on functional components of sports nutrition food has also carried out extensive research on polysaccharides, polyphenols, pigments and other functional components in recent years, and with the deepening of the research, we believe that there will be more functional components applied to sports nutrition food for the majority of sports people.