Could Probiotics Help You Run Faster and Lift Heavier?
How those little microbes could help you unlock your fitness and athletic goals.
The gut has a far reaching impact on human health, beyond just digestion. The gut-brain, gut-skin, and gut-joint connections are all very powerful. Probiotics are one of the best tools we have to influence gut function (If you’re unfamiliar with probiotics, I invite you to check this article for a little refresher). But no one really thinks of probiotics as an ergogenic aid (intended to improve athletic performance). They typically think of caffeine, creatine, carbohydrate powders, and whey protein.
Athletic performance means many things to many people. If you’re an endurance athlete, that could mean running faster, or running the same pace with less effort. If you’re a strength athlete (Olympic Lifter, Bodybuilder, CrossFitter, Powerlifter), that could mean getting stronger, increasing muscle mass, or improving your MURPH time. Can probiotics really help improve all those metrics? Are they the missing link to help you optimize your athletic performance?
Improving Your Defenses
Can you remember a time in your life where you really pushed yourself physically? Maybe you had a big event or competition coming up, so you really got after it. At the same time, you had a bad night of sleep, didn’t eat the best, or had to travel; how’d you feel having all those stressors combined? Probably not great. All that ‘stress’ overwhelmed your immune and nervous systems, and you got sick. Maybe someone gave you something over the counter, or told you to take some vitamin C and zinc, or said, “go sleep it off”. All are very beneficial strategies to support your immune system, but so is probiotic usage.
In one study of over 460 healthy and active people, taking the probiotic strain Bifidobacterium Lactis BI-04 resulted in a 27% reduction in the risk of getting an Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URTI) (1). The International Society of Sports Nutrition had this to say about probiotics usage for URTIs: “The majority of placebo-controlled clinical trials assessing the efficacy of probiotics for reducing incidence, duration, and severity of URTI in athletes reports beneficial outcomes” (2). This has huge implications. Having to worry less about getting sick means more time performing at optimal levels, rather than with a stuffy nose.
But wait, I thought probiotics affect the gut. How can it help my respiratory system? As it turns out, roughly 70% of your immune system lives within your gut. Therefore, by influencing the gut, you can have ‘whole-body’ immune benefits, including fighting off respiratory infections. In this case, probiotics didn’t directly make you faster or stronger, rather they made you more ‘immune’ to getting sick, allowing you a greater chance to compete and train symptom-free.
Direct Performance Benefits?
Of all the studies that have assessed probiotic consumption with some metric of athletic performance, 70% of them have reported a null finding (researchers hypothesis was proved wrong once they performed the study), and the other 30% reported significant results with probiotic consumption (2). What does this mean? The relationship between probiotics and direct athletic enhancement seems questionable-to-nonexistent. However, there are some specific strains that have shown benefit.
Bacillus Coagulans GBI-30, 6086 has shown benefit for symptoms of delayed onset muscle soreness, Lactobacillus Plantarum TWK10 can improve time to fatigue and lactate metabolism, and Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus can potentially help increase VO2 max (2). The latter two bacteria were used as a part of a yogurt drink rather than a supplemental capsule. Some speculation is that the improvements in VO2 max came from reductions in URTIs, as we touched on earlier. The improvements from the Bacillus species were theorized to come from changes in the gut microbiome and improvements in protein digestion.
There doesn’t seem to be much conclusive evidence for probiotics and athletic performance. Most of the probiotic research is done in people with digestive conditions such as IBS and IBD. Hopefully in the future more time and money will go into studying the effects of probiotics on direct measures of fitness and athletic achievements.
Strain, Dosage, and Timing
You may have heard me mention the word ‘strain’ multiple times when referring to specific probiotics. The strain of a probiotic in indicated by the series of letters and numbers after the Family and Species name (per example, Bifidobacterium Lactis BI-04: Bifidobacterium [family], Lactis [species], and BI-04 [strain]). If the label just said Bifidobacterium Lactis, without the strain designation, and you found that same name on another label, they are not the same thing. Saying these two species are exactly the same is the equivalent of saying humans and apes are the same. Yes, we are the same species (primates), but we function vastly different from apes. Essentially, each strain has a different function.
Probiotics are typically dosed in CFU’s, or colony forming units. Multiple reviews on dosages in athletes range from between 1–40 billion CFU/day (2). Personally, I believe 1 billion CFU/day to be too low of a dose, and 40 billion CFU/day a good therapeutic dose for those with digestive issues. Every individual is different though, so experiences will vary across the board.
How long do they need to be taken? If taking them before a particular event or competition, 14 days seems to be efficacious (2). Outside of that, I’ve seen as little as 7 days be effective all the way to several months. This is why it’s important for you to. find a clinician with experience using probiotics in their practice. Consistency with probiotics is key, as only taking them sporadically may not allow the maximum amount of benefits to take place.
The field of probiotics is an ever emerging one, but because of the regulatory lack, navigating to find the right one for you can be very time consuming and challenging. If you’re looking for ways to improve your athletic performance or digestive function with probiotics, I’d recommend finding a Functional Medicine Practitioner who specializes in improving gut health. It wouldn’t hurt if they also have some athletic experience, that way they can relate to the challenges of fitness/athletic pursuits.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns on anything we discussed, feel free to email me at nicholas.belden16@gmail.com. You can also reach out to me on Twitter, or Instagram, or you could always pose a question in the comment section of this article.
As always, Trust in Your Gut.
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are for educational purposes only, and are not intended to diagnose or treat any condition. Do not apply any of the information in this article without first speaking with your doctor.
In-Text References.
- West NP, Horn PL, Pyne DB, et al. Probiotic supplementation for respiratory and gastrointestinal illness symptoms in healthy physically active individuals. Clin Nutr. 2014;33(4):581–587. doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2013.10.002
- Jäger, R., Mohr, A.E., Carpenter, K.C. et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: Probiotics. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2019; 16(62). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-019-0329-0
