Knowledge Hub

The importance of blood biomarker monitoring for athletes

Written by sports dietician Dina Griffin Blood biomarker monitoring is an inexpensive and simple method for assessing health and athletic performance status. Unfortunately, many athletes don’t know the reasons blood testing should be an essential part of their training plan.  If you’ve been confused about this testing or want to better understand how it can help you, take a quick read to understand more. WHY Blood testing? The question may be better posed as “Why Read more…

athletes blood pressure

Blood Pressure in Athletes and Runners

It has been well-established in countless studies that moderate levels of routine aerobic exercise can help decrease blood pressure in populations with high or normal blood pressure. (1) The American Academy of Family Physicians cites the prevalence of hypertension in a fit individual is about half of the general population but adds that some athletes may have an increased risk of hypertension. (2) Other studies indicate that systolic blood pressure (top number) is elevated during Read more…

hemoglobin levels in runners

Hemoglobin levels for runners

What is hemoglobin? Hemoglobin is a protein in the red blood cell that help transport oxygen. Many athletes, especially runners and other endurance athletes, are concerned about their iron levels. This is because iron is a crucial component of hemoglobin. Anemia occurs when hemoglobin levels decrease below the normal range, with the most common cause being an iron deficiency. For a more detailed description of iron deficiency in endurance athletes, read our blog post here. How does running Read more…

Avoid the training bonk!

We are very often counseling our athletes to not just test when they’re feeling symptomatic of something.  Sure we can help you identify why you’re symptomatic and what the proper coarse correction is, but we’d rather help you avoid the symptoms to begin with! Thomas Gerlach is a Professional Triathlete who has been using ABT in this capacity for years and states this perfect, “As endurance athletes we push our bodies beyond what they are designed to do Read more…

Blood test for athletes

Understand the importance of knowing your physiology and how it’s directly correlated to your performance. Listen to the expert, The Happy Athlete.

Understand the importance of knowing your physiology and how it directly is correlated to your performance?  Listen to the expert, The Happy Athlete. Dr. Joe Sheppard runs The Happy Athlete (http://www.thehappyathlete.net), which is a website dedicated solely for the athlete and provides reviews of various products and services that as athletes, we all use.  I would suggest you check it out and use as one of your key resources! ABT was fortunate in that we Read more…

How low iron ended a season

What happens when your metabolism essentially shuts down on you? “After what would be a normal work out for me and feeling the obvious fatigue I was experiencing, it became clear I had a bigger problem” says Betty Elite and AthleteBloodTest.com athlete Susan McNamee. She got into endurance sports later than most and the majority of Americans have resorted to a relatively sedentary life void of any major challenges. Not Susan McNamee! Susan opted to challenge herself Read more…

Ever wondered how a pro triathlete such as Thomas Gerlach processes AthleteBloodTest.com insights?!

AthleteBloodTest.com athlete Thomas Gerlach lifts the hood on his physiology and invites everyone in to see how he consumes the critical insights we provide him through our Performance Panels (http://www.athletebloodtest.com/our-test-panels/). For him, it is very critical to his training and race performances that he is able to identify anything that is going on BEFORE it becomes a major issue.  See his full post for details: http://www.thomasgerlach.com/2017/07/Blood-work-testing-labcorp-athlete-runner-triathlete-cyclist-endurance-biomarkers.html

Ladies, Know Your Iron Levels!

Iron deficiencies occur in up to 50% of female endurance athletes. Yes, 1 in 2 of you will have inadequate iron levels and may experience some of the consequences commonly associated with iron deficiency; performance declines, fatigue, dizziness, higher than normal heart rates during exercise, delayed recovery from workouts, muscle cramps, sleep problems…all the symptoms you don’t want to feel during training! This has been well reported and has led to widespread blind supplementation of Read more…

AthleteBloodTest.com featured by Red Bulletin – The Ironman Algorithm

AthleteBloodTest.com has been fortunate enough to be featured in a great article written by Will Cockrell with The Red Bulletin.  He does a fantastic job of telling the story of elite endurance athletes and how they use sports science and technology advancements to drive better performance. What is even more interesting is how the innovation starts with the professionals, but the common athlete often is the biggest benefactor of these advancements. Check out the full article at: https://www.redbull.com/us-en/theredbulletin/the-ironman-algorithm Read more…

Testing Options for Athletes: The Proven, Unproven, and TBD

Questions contact: [email protected] The wide world of sports is being inundated with physiology tests promising data to determine your unique physiological needs. From blood tests to genetic tests, saliva tests, and even hair analysis, the options seem to be expanding. For this reason, we decided to grade each testing method based on research available. The Four Factors used in scoring include: Validity – is the data factually sound? Reliability – is the data consistently accurate? Read more…

Subscribe to our Newsletter