No peak performance with impaired immunity – Biestmilch strengthens immunity

When most of the triathletes have arrived on Big Island for competing the Ironman race next Saturday, 2 or 3 days after their arrival many of them, especially the European guys, start to complain about symptoms that are related to an impaired immunity. Undefined sickness is so common among the athletes and endangers their participation in the race. Just today, when we have been at Captain Cook’s with Hannes’ group, we heard people complaining about common colds, sore throats, stomach problems etc.

Here an excerpt from an article I wrote for tri2b.com

Since I have been speaking to many athletes through Biestmilch about their health problems, it was alarming to find out how common it is that athletes suffer from various symptoms that point towards incompetence of and strain on the immune system. Many of the symptoms increase during the strain of intensive training or competitions, with the result that even athletes between the ages of 15 and 20 suffer from unclarified symptoms of pain or after having hardly moved out of the area of basic endurance, they develop some infection or another.
In many cases, they have consulted doctors of various specialist doctors without success. Here is a short list of the problems that indicate that one is just about to fall off the narrow ridge of balance and alarm signals are cropping up, which should prompt oneself to be careful not to fall into the valley, out of which it is difficult to get out: severe respiratory infections and infections of the sinuses, herpes infections, gastrointestinal disorders or irritable bowel disorders, sudden injuries, pains typically in the groin, knee, back or Achilles tendon that bear no relation to what the x-ray shows, for example, stress-induced asthma, spreading of an existing allergy to other organs (hay fever suddenly accompanies asthma), springing up of neurodermatitis….. the list could go on and on.Most illnesses or the performance of impairing problems athletes suffer from are either related to stress situations or are the result of long lasting chronic strain. The sequelae are reversible and disappear fast after corresponding regeneration. It is different in the case of complications that result from chronic stress situations, which have existed over years, like when being injury-prone, whereby the healing process is slow, over-training, chronic viral infections, burn-out syndrome, chronic fatigue or increased worsening or reactivation of existing illnesses. Many an athlete has told me that in times of not training, which were necessary for professional or family reasons, all of a sudden there were no symptoms of allergies, asthma or neurodermatitis. On starting up training again, the problems returned; sometimes they were even worse than at the beginning of their athletic career.
The basis for all of these illnesses is a imbalance within the immune system or interplay of the systems that boost the answer to stress. Sportive stress can arise from an activation of all three components, from being especially prone to stress in one of the three regulatory systems or from an abnormal cooperation of all three. There are abnormalities, which are genetic, others have to do with our lifestyle, and yet others that we ignore as being warning signals of the organism.

For this reason, the following passable rules apply:

Stick to phases of regeneration, not only for the muscles but also for the head. Take warning signals the body sends out seriously and put together a good and balanced diet if possible. An ascetic lifestyle and doing without everything that tastes good and is good fun, is not really the right kind of advice to be successful. The immune system should be taken into consideration when planning training. Maybe the one or other of you will consider including mental training in your training plan, for the sake of your immune system. And last but not least, biestmilch should be part of our daily diet, it may spare you a lot of problems that occur due to immune incompetence.

If you want to read more, check the part on our website about stress, immunity and performance.