Cordyceps Sinensis and Athletic Endurance

With all of the talk lately about exercise mimetics such as AICAR and gW5156, it only makes sense to explore natural alternatives to these drugs. Not because of safety reasons per se, because those two compounds have been undergoing a lot of studying. Mostly it just makes sense to see if something in the garden would be as effective or at least somewhat effective for the job at hand. Enter Cordyceps Sinensis.

Cordyceps Sinensis (CS) is a fungus that grows on certain moths and has been used in Chinese medicine for several reasons. It is, in the eyes of traditional chinese medicine, a perfect balance between yin and yang. I’m not as up on that discipline but I do know a quick pubmed search will show several benefits from CS supplementation. It has particularly powerful effects on lung health, liver detoxification, immune system modulation, ATP formation, smooth muscle relaxation and spermatogenesis (making of new sperm within the testes).

There’s been a few studies showing that CS was ineffective at increasing endurance in trained cyclists. I can believe that. I can also believe that trained cyclists have most likely hit their peak in VO2 MAX (the most oxygen consumed) and literally all other metabolic parameters are probably up their at the top of human potential. After all CS is an adaptogen. I’m not going way into a discussion about adaptogens (others include rhodiola, ginseng) but I will say that adaptogens do one thing well. They balance stuff. They won’t let certain things go too high, nor will they let it drop too low. So if you’re a well trained endurance athlete you may still find benefit in taking CS, but not for the endurance reasons.

For those of us who don’t always train in a high intensity fashion however, this can be a good thing. I for one have recently started teaching a bootcamp class. Not only am I kicking my student’s asses, but mine as well. I was literally spent after just 45 minutes of jumping, lunging, squatting, pushing, pulling. So I started looking for something to help me get my endurance going quicker than it would take normally. I bought some CS and while it’s still too early to say with certainty, a few days of supplementation made my next class go much smoother. My muscles also feel more relaxed throughout the day, which is a good thing for me since I tend to build up a lot of lactic acid in those types of training situations, and tight muscles only seem to hold on to that lactic acid.

Here’s a study that shows some promising results with regard to CS’s effect on several key metabolic regulators of energy, fat loss and performance. In particular the AMPk and the Glut4 (shoves glucose into muscle without needing insulin).  Also of note, is their comment that CS may actually be an effective exercise mimetic, much like AICAR and gw5156.