We’ve all seen energy drinks advertised on social media, by influencers, and even by athletes.

And the number of people drinking these on an almost daily basis has been growing for years.

But the effect these energy drinks, as well as high levels of coffee have on our bodies, our health, our sleep, our stress levels, our mood, our hormones, and our ability to lose body fat and gain lean muscle is much more than most people think.

These energy drinks have high amounts of caffeine, sugars, and processed sugars, often under the guise of several different ingredients so you don’t see quite how much is in there.

While they may list 160 mg of caffeine as an ingredient, other ingredients listed supply even more caffeine and other types of stimulants.

How much stimulant is actually in them? I don’t know. But much more than anyone needs, especially when they’ve usually already had a couple cups of coffee in the morning.

And, while having one once, or very infrequently, may not be too bad, when continued over time, these can have a very significant impact on our long-term health, our aging, and our body’s ability to function at optimal levels.

Beyond this, many people who drink these are in their teens or twenties, when their bodies are still developing and growing, and the damage they do here can be far worse, leading to acute or even chronic health issues in the future.

This may seem small, but due to their prevalence and availability now, it’s very important.

In this article we cover how this works, and even go into the sleep/wake cycle, what occurs there, and how this affects it.

This is the first issue in a series on Extreme Athletes, those who push themselves to the max to achieve their goals and, possibly, greatness.

But, while the information in this series applies very strictly to extreme athletes, it applies just as much to anyone else trying to achieve peak performance for themselves in fitness and athletics, while staying healthy overall.

Also, while we will cover points individual to specific sports, most of the information is applicable to all sports and performance, energy, and recovery as a whole.

In this first article we’ll start with one of the key, over-riding aspects to maximize not only the ability and performance of an elite athlete, but of anyone.

Because, when you put your body through as much stress and pressure as an athlete does, every one of your organs, muscles, nerves, bones, hormones, etc., all play a part.

And, while any weak links will bring down the rest, improving any weak spots in health will help increase the energy production and performance of the overall.

Anyone who works out, runs, bikes or does any type of intense exercise, knows about DOMS — Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.

This is the soreness you feel not right after a workout or exercise, but 24-48 hours later.

At one point it was thought this was caused by lactic acid build up, but this isn’t the case.

(Lactic acid is an acid that starts to build up just before we reach our VO2 Max and can’t go any further in our exercise or workout.) But lactic acid actually helps you. Your body can metabolize it (burn it and use it as fuel).

So what really causes DOMS? And how can we prevent it or lessen it?

Let’s see.

Getting good sleep is one of the most important things we can do, not just for muscle building and fat loss but for our mood, energy levels, and overall health.

Sleep is when our body is able to recover and repair cells, a lack of it even affects our aging process, speeding it up internally, as well as visibly causing wrinkles and sagging skin. 

During the first few hours of deep sleep is when many hormones, including growth hormone and IGF (major fat-burning hormone) are released.

Getting enough sleep also helps to keep cortisol levels lower and balance estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and thyroid.

So if we want a lean, toned or muscled body, then we need deep sleep every night for full recovery, muscle building, natural fat loss and hormonal balance.

Yet a third of Americans get poor sleep, and those with the worst sleep generally have poor health.

So what causes this and what can we do to not only get better, deeper, more refreshing sleep, but also to reverse the effects of poor sleep?

Let’s dive in and see.

When working out, training, or just going about our daily lives, optimal blood flow is very important.

It's necessary for the fullest recovery after exercise, high energy levels, performance, muscle building, and fat loss. Not to mention, overall health.

Poor blood flow even affects our mood.

It's how the nutrients, water, and oxygen needed for energy creation and cellular repair flow to our cells.

And how the toxins flow out.

If our blood flow is lower, our cells do not get these nutrients or oxygen fast enough and our energy levels go down during high intensity workouts, or in daily life.

This lowers endurance, slows recovery, muscle building, and fat loss significantly, and can leave us feeling exhausted, low energy, and even depressed.

Achieving healthy blood flow then is important for maximum results and maximum overall health.

Did you know low levels of thyroid can bring on not only low energy and weight gain, but also contribute to depression and brain fog?

This can make thinking, problem-solving, and just coping with the everyday stresses of life much harder.

With the rise in hormone-blocking toxins in our environment, processed foods and processed sugars, and the low amount of protein most of us consume, low thyroid is affecting more and more people, especially among women and the elderly.

But there’s one more thing affecting this — low magnesium. Magnesium is necessary for thyroid to be produced inside the body. Yet it’s being processed out of our foods more and more every year, until more than half the people in the US are now magnesium deficient.

In this article we dive into what thyroid is, how low thyroid occurs, how it affects our mood, energy levels, mental alertness, and our ability to think and cope with the problems of everyday life and what we can do to raise it.

In this article we want to give you a window into the life of an elite athlete and find out how they train on a daily basis, and how they ready themself for an international tournament.

Because, whether you’re training to elite level yourself, or just trying to stay fit and healthy, what they know and do could work wonders for you.

We want to know how they prepare, both physically and mentally, and even strategically.

What is their training cadence, diet, workout regimen, and mind set?

What is their recovery protocol and sleep routine, and what other tricks do they have?

In short — we want to know what it takes to become the best?

And to find out, we asked one of the best.

Meet Mitchell Saron, a Filipino American, right-handed saber fencer who is, quite literally, one of the best on the planet.

Let’s dive in.

We know about amino acids, hormones, and how different foods affect our ability to build lean muscle, burn fat and stay healthy. 

But if we want to achieve maximum levels of energy, recovery, health and performance, and build the most lean muscle, then we need to go down to the cellular level. 

After all, our bodies are just one big mass of some 100 trillion cells all bonded together. 

How well we're doing is an exact reflection of how well our cells are doing.

Many people think of bodybuilding as just trying to build the biggest muscles we can. And that’s not quite true.

Bodybuilding is about building one’s ideal physique. And, while that includes achieving bigger muscles, it also means achieving balance, symmetry and aesthetics.

But there are those who do try for building the biggest muscles they can, which there is nothing wrong with.

Unfortunately, many of them employ substances which, while helping to achieve their goals faster, and in some cases achieve more than they could naturally, also result in serious health conditions such as Type 2 Diabetes, something which is becoming more and more prevalent amongst bodybuilders today.

In this article we’re going to cover the use of steroids and insulin injections, why they're used, how they work, and how these significantly increase the risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes down the road.

In this article we're going to cover something that is key to increasing the overall endurance, performance, and recovery ability of an athlete.

But while it's very important for an athlete, or anyone into fitness of any sort — it’s also important for anyone who is just wishing to raise their overall health and energy levels.

This is because, no matter where we're starting from, very high or very low, if we address it, we can significantly raise not just our energy production and performance abilities, but our overall health, across the spectrum, possibly even removing health troubles we thought were: "just they way it is."

It's called VO2 Max. V is for Volume, O2 is for Oxygen, and Max is for Maximum.

VO2 Max literally means the maximum amount, or volume, of oxygen that your cells are currently able to utilize during intense exercise, before you burn out.

Note the word currently.

Because when we raise the maximum amount of oxygen each cell can take in and use, so that they're able to and do use more, we end up raising energy production, performance, endurance, our ability to recover, and possibly even reverse conditions we thought would never go away.

And it's not hard to do.

So let’s dive in.

Most people think of electrolytes as something to take when they’re dehydrated. And this is true.

But there’s much more to it than that.

They allow your nervous system to function, your cells to function, and energy to be created.

When they’re low we can get brain fog, have headaches or back aches or feel exhausted.

They’re even necessary for protein synthesis for recovery and muscle building, and this slows down when we don’t have our electrolytes.

And they’re absolutely vital for hormonal creation and balance.

So let’s take a good look at what electrolytes are and what they actually do in the body. Because they’re very important.

Water retention is swelling in some part of the body, usually the feet and ankles, caused by large accumulations of fluid in the spaces between the body’s cells or in the blood vessels.

But it’s a symptom of something, not a condition in its own right.

And, while it can be caused by specific physical conditions of the kidneys, heart or circulatory system, most cases are actually due to lifestyles or diet, and they’re pretty easy to fix.

But there are many things that can cause this, so let’s jump in and see how this all works so you know what to do to help you.