Top Vitamins & Minerals to Boost Your Yoga Swing Workout

In an ideal situation, eating healthy foods, getting lots of sunshine and doing yoga swing workouts should be enough to meet our health and nutritional needs.

Unfortunately, most of the foods we eat today are highly processed, meaning they are deficient in certain minerals, vitamins and nutrients.

With that said, we’ve created a list of the top vitamins and minerals, which can significantly enhance your health and energy, helping to take your antigravity yoga swing practice to the next level.

 

Supplements

While taking multivitamin supplements may provide a fast and easy means of filling a nutritional gap in your daily diet, it may not always be the best approach.

Furthermore, supplements don’t come cheap. Therefore, you will need to find a viable means to filling this gap.

Also, yoga swing workouts require plenty of hard work, regardless of whether you started aerial yoga last month or you’ve been practicing for several years – no vitamin or mineral will magically transform you… This is a longer term approach.

Let’s take a look at some great ways to add more vitamins and minerals to your diet.

 

Iron

Iron is one of the most essential minerals for people who lead an active lifestyle. It will help you to power through your yoga swing workouts.

Whenever you are doing yoga swing poses, your muscles will draw oxygen from the bloodstream. And iron will play a vital role in facilitating that process.

So, if your iron levels are low, you will end up feeling extremely tired and lethargic at the end of your session.

It’s also important to mention that taking too much iron than your body needs can lead to various issues like fatigue, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and joint pain.

Therefore, it will be highly advisable to stick to the recommended dietary allowance of approximately 18mg per day. However, a typical diet normally provides approximately 6mg of iron per 1000 calories you consume.

So, you will need to add iron-rich foods to your diet every day, to ensure you can get the recommended 18mg.

Foods like fortified cereal, beef, dried fruit, poultry and shellfish can help to increase your daily iron intake.

And if you strictly follow a vegan diet, then you should increase your intake of dark leafy greens and iron-packed legumes like kidney peas, lentils, and soybeans.

Vegetarians should also up their consumption of bell peppers, broccoli, and foods rich in vitamin C, which will help to absorb iron better.

 

Magnesium

Magnesium is needed in almost all types of workouts. And antigravity yoga swing workouts are no exception.

Some yoga swing poses require using head-to-toe muscles, pivoting and lots of stretching. And magnesium plays an important role in enhancing flexibility.

So, it will boost your body’s flexibility, loosen tight muscles and help to prevent muscle injuries. Also, if your body is low on magnesium, the muscles will not relax properly after your aerial yoga workout – you may end up with cramps.

Furthermore, the majority of the body’s energy is generated by ATP, which is a molecule that absorbs chemical energy from food, and then utilizes it to power other processes in the body.

And considering that the product of ATP heavily relies on magnesium, if you don’t have adequate magnesium in the body, then you may not have enough energy to power through your aerial swing workout sessions.

The good news is, magnesium is readily available in several foods. Some of the most prominent ones include pumpkin seeds, green vegetables, almonds, pumpkin seeds, and flax seeds.

Other magnesium-rich foods include brown rice, walnuts, beans, avocados, raw cacao, pecans, seaweed and cashew nuts, just to name a few.

 

Calcium

Calcium is a fundamental mineral, especially for people who work out frequently. It’s one of the most important bone-building minerals.

Therefore, consuming enough calcium will help to build bone strength. And as you probably know, strong bones will come in handy, especially when you are doing intense aerial workouts.

Apart from helping to build strong bones, calcium is also important for muscle growth and contraction. So, if you have low calcium levels in your body, you may experience severe muscle cramps.

Furthermore, calcium plays an important role when it comes to transporting other nutrients in the body. Hence, if you are low on calcium, your body may not absorb the other minerals and vitamins properly.

The recommended dietary allowance for calcium is approximately 1000mg to 1300mg per day, for people who work out at least 5 times per week. And while you can take calcium supplements to increase your calcium intake, some may leave you feeling bloated.

Also, studies show that increasing your calcium intake via supplements may not help with bone density. So, the best way of increasing calcium in your body is through a proper diet.

Dairy products such as yogurt and cheese are rich in calcium. Also, fortified dairy substitutes, sardines, soybeans, legumes, dried fruit and tofu contain high levels of calcium.

Dark leafy greens like collard greens, kale, spinach and turnips also contain high levels of calcium, and are the best sources.

 

Vitamin D

Vitamin D works together with calcium to increase bone density, boost bone strength, and protect your joints.

So, if you frequently engage in physical activities such as antigravity yoga, a vitamin D deficiency may lead to stress fractures, delayed muscle recovery as well as joint pain.

The recommended amount of vitamin D that you should take per day is approximately 10 to 20 micrograms.

Salmon, cod liver oil, herring and sardines, canned tuna, mushrooms and egg yolks are among the best sources of Vitamin D.

Your body will also produce Vitamin D naturally if you are exposed to sunlight in the morning and evening.

 

Potassium

Potassium plays a crucial role in your body when it comes to muscle relaxation and contraction.

So, if you are planning to do intense antigravity yoga swing workouts, it will be highly advisable to up your potassium intake.

Without adequate potassium in your body, the muscles will not relax and contract properly, and you may end up with muscle cramps, lasting for several days.

Another key benefit of potassium is that it will boost your body’s metabolism. And as a result, it will help your body to convert the food you eat into energy, which you will need during your workouts.

Potassium also plays a vital role in water retention as well as pH balance. Also, it will boost muscle integrity and help to preserve calcium, which is vital in strengthening bones.

The recommended dietary allowance for potassium is approximately 3,400mg for males and around 2,600mg for females.

Bananas, apricots, oranges, cantaloupe, honeydew, grapefruit, apricots, lentils, broccoli, lettuce and raisins are among the best sources of potassium.

Also, poultry, meats, milk, fish, yogurt, brown rice, potatoes, soybeans and legumes are excellent sources of this mineral.

 

Vitamin B Complex

Vitamin B complex contains 8 different vitamins. When combined these vitamins play various important roles in your body.

For instance, they can help to minimize the risk of developing osteoarthritis. Also, they can help the body to break down food into energy, which will be needed during your aerial yoga practice.

And while all the vitamins in the vitamin B complex are essential, vitamin B12 stands out as the most important.

It plays a key role in the formation and production of red blood cells. And as you may probably know, red blood cells are responsible for the transportation of oxygen from your lungs to the rest of the body.

So, if you have a vitamin B12 deficiency, your body will not have adequate red blood cells to move oxygen around the body. And this may lead to weakness, lightheadedness and fatigue during your yoga swing practice.

Studies also show that vitamin B12 may increase bone density and support bone health, thus helping to minimize the risk of bone-related injuries during your yoga swing workouts.

 

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is renowned for its powerful antioxidant properties. And you may be probably asking yourself how this ties into your aero yoga workouts.

Well, whenever you do an intensive yoga swing workout, your body may end up with increased oxidative stress.

This occurs due to the production of free radicals, which occur whenever your body converts the food you eat into energy.

And while the benefits of a workout session outweigh the production of the free radicals by far, you will need proper nutrition in place, which will support your workout routine. And this is where Vitamin C comes in.

Apart from its strong antioxidant properties, Vitamin C also helps in the formation of collagen, which is the main protein that builds your muscles, tendons, and skin.

Citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, lime, pomelo, mandarin orange, tangerines and grapefruits are among the best sources of Vitamin C.

 

Boost Your Yoga Swing Workout

Regardless of how many days or hours you spend doing yoga swing poses, you will only see the results of your workouts, if you get the nutrition aspect right.

Therefore, if you want to take your yoga swing practice to the next level, you will need to be consuming the right minerals and vitamins, in adequate amounts.

Deficiency in the above minerals and vitamins will not only hinder your progress but you also face the risk of various ailments and injuries.