The importance of skin health for athletes
While most athletes focus primarily on achieving peak performance, it’s essential not to overlook the importance of skin health.
What to know
Maintaining healthy skin can be a challenge for anyone, but it is especially difficult for athletes; rigorous workouts promote fitness but can compromise skin health
Daily sun protection and infection prevention practices are vital
Healthy-looking skin can also play an important role in helping athletes excel in their chosen discipline
Perhaps most importantly, poor skin health can compromise overall health and wellness
Skin health starts at the cellular level and can be supported with topical bioactives like Mitopure®
As an athlete, your body is your most valuable asset. You push yourself to the limit, day in and day out, to perform at your best. Unfortunately, a rigorous training regimen can be especially punishing on your skin. Beyond building strength and improving cardiovascular endurance, it’s also important to prioritize your skin’s fitness. Skin is your largest, most-exposed organ, and scientists are now learning that your skin’s health is connected to your overall health.
Prioritizing your skin health means protecting it from sun damage, nonmelanoma skin cancers, and skin infections and taking steps to prevent skin aging and associated cellular decline. It’s all part of looking and feeling your best, preserving your overall health, and attaining peak performance.
Protect your skin from the sun
Long hours outdoors in the sun can lead to skin damage, including premature aging (photoaging), precancers (actinic keratoses/AKs), and the most common nonmelanoma skin cancers (basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma).[1]
Therefore, athletes who train and compete outside need to take extra precautions to protect their skin from harmful UV rays by wearing sunscreen and protective clothing and, whenever possible, limiting their sun exposure between 10 AM and 4 PM when the sun’s rays are the most intense.
They should also take steps to prevent sun damage by using products that help the skin resist photoaging.
The skin barrier gets thiner with age.
Prevent skin infections
Athletes’ skin takes a beating with a constant barrage of stressors, including trauma and environmental factors. Over-stressed compromised skin is more susceptible to infection, such as athlete’s foot, jock itch, and ringworm.[2] Athletes in their 40s, 50s, and beyond, and postmenopausal athletes, are even more susceptible to skin infections and related health complications because skin thins with age, making it more delicate and prone to injury.[3]
Conscientious hygiene practices can help prevent skin infections—for example, immediate post-workout showers with clean towels and avoiding shared use of personal equipment.
Helping skin resist both intrinsic and extrinsic aging factors to prevent thinning and maintain a strong skin barrier is also essential.
Put your best face forward
For many athletes, their physical appearance is essential to their sport. Whether you’re a professional athlete, a college or high-school athlete being scouted by recruiters, or an age-group race participant, putting your best face and fittest body forward can foster others’ confidence in your abilities and open doors to new opportunities.
Healthy, youthful-looking skin can also boost confidence and self-esteem, ultimately improving overall performance on and off the field.
Support overall health
More than vanity, taking care of your skin is an essential part of taking care of your overall health. As the body’s largest organ, the skin is critical in protecting us from external threats, regulating body temperature, and eliminating toxins. But if that’s not enough of an argument to prioritize your skin health, new research suggests photodamaged and aging skin can drive whole-body aging and compromise your overall health.[4]
For this reason, preventing skin aging can be crucial in maintaining strength, endurance, and athletic potential throughout one’s lifetime. Check out our blog How aging skin can impact your overall health to learn more.
Promote skin health at the cellular level
Helping skin resist intrinsic and extrinsic aging and maintaining a youthful-looking appearance can be as crucial to an athlete’s success as building strength, improving endurance, and eating well. Peak health includes your body, your mind, and your skin.
Healthy skin requires a lot of energy to maintain. This energy comes from the mighty powerhouses deep inside our cells, the mitochondria, which act like batteries to power cell function and are constantly renewing themselves. Unfortunately, as we age, the mitochondria are unable to renew themselves as efficiently as they once did. Over time, they become dysfunctional, leading to skin cellular decline. On the outside, this looks like wrinkles, thinning, sagging, and dryness. But on the inside these changes also indicate the skin is not working as well as it once did to protect us and keep us healthy.
3D representation of the Urolithin A molecule.
Mitopure® is the first and only ingredient clinically proven to promote the renewal of our mitochondria and thus re-energize cells, allowing them to better resist both intrinsic and extrinsic aging factors. This means keeping our skin and bodies healthy and fighting visible signs of aging as well.
Taking care of your skin is much more than a cosmetic pursuit—it’s essential for your overall health, fitness, and longevity. As with your sport of choice, it requires your dedication, daily attention, and proper, proactive skincare practices. By protecting your skin from sun damage and premature aging, preventing infections, and enhancing your skin health at a cellular level, you can stay in the game and focus on achieving your personal best.
Perhaps you’ve already experienced the ways that Timeline Nutrition can enhance muscle strength and endurance. Now it’s time to discover how Timeline Skin Health supports your skin health and helps you reach your peak performance goals.
References
- ↑
Ananthaswamy HN. Sunlight and Skin Cancer. J Biomed Biotechnol. 2001;1(2):49. doi:10.1155/S1110724301000122
- ↑
Zinder SM, Basler RS, Foley J, Scarlata C, Vasily DB. National athletic trainers' association position statement: skin diseases. J Athl Train. 2010;45(4):411-428. doi:10.4085/1062-6050-45.4.411
- ↑
The skinny on thinning skin: The causes and treatments for skin volume loss. West Dermatology website September 29, 2022. Accessed May 15, 2023. Available at: https://www.westdermatology.com/the-skinny-on-thinning-skin-the-causes-and-treatments-for-skin-volume-loss/
- ↑
Lawton, G. The radical new theory that wrinkles actually cause ageing. March 28, 2023. NewScientist website. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2366093-the-radical-new-theory-that-wrinkles-actually-cause-ageing/ Accessed May 15, 2023.
Knowledge is power
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