Reasons to include omega-three fats in your endurance sports nutrition plan

A new study by Iranian and German researchers provides evidence that fish oil supplementation may enhance lung function in athletes. Forty teenage competitive wrestlers were separated into four groups. Two of the four groups received fitness training. One of these two groups also received daily fish oil supplementation. The other two groups received no fitness training, and one of these two groups also received daily fish oil supplementation.

The researchers took several measurements of lung function in all of the subjects before and after the intervention period. They found increases of 41 percent in one-second forced expiratory volume (the volume of air subjects could forcibly exhale in one second) and 53 percent in total lung volume in the fish oil-supplemented groups compared to the non-supplemented groups.

From Wrestlers to Endurance Athletes

Although this study involved strength/power athletes, the results should be of interest to those in 10K training, half-marathon training, marathon training, and triathlon training because the lung function variables measured are associated with endurance performance. But before you get too excited, note that no study has ever found that fish oil supplementation actually enhances endurance performance. For example, a 1997 study by Norwegian researchers found that fish oil had no effect on aerobic power, anaerobic threshold, or running performance in soccer players.

Previous studies have, however, shown other intriguing effects of fish oil supplementation in athletes. A 2008 study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, for instance, showed that fish oil supplementation increased heart stroke volume (or the amount of blood the heart pumps with each contraction) and cardiac output (or the total amount of blood pumped by the heart) during low- to moderate-intensity exercise. Again, there is no performance effect shown here, but it is clear that fish oil supplementation does effect the underlying physiology of athletes in ways that can only be described as beneficial.

A Smart Sports Nutrition Strategy

The apparent benefits of fish oil are probably related to the known ability of the omega-3 essential fats in the oil to enhance the flexibility of cell membranes and the elasticity of blood vessels. Omega-3 fats also improve nervous system function and have anti-inflammatory effects.

Because omega-3 fats are scarce in most foods and generally lacking in the American diet, daily supplementation with an omega-3 source such as fish oil or flaxseed oil is widely considered to be a good idea, for health reasons. So even though it still remains to be seen whether endurance athletes can reap specific performance benefits from such supplementation, a daily dose of 2 to 3 g of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA combined can contribute to your overall well-being.