Faster recovery and less soreness

Studies show that drinking Montmorency cherry juice significantly speeds recovery and reduces muscle soreness after hard exercise.

Montmorency cherries contain high levels of anthocyanins – natural compounds with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. These compounds help reduce inflammation and deactivate harmful free radicals produced in abundance during exercise. The result, as demonstrated by a number of research studies, is quicker muscle recovery and less soreness.

Faster recovery and less soreness can enable more frequent training sessions leading to improvements in performance.

CherryActive is the leading brand of Montmorency cherry juice. It is highly concentrated, contains no added preservatives or other such additives and is made avoiding excessive heat to help protect its beneficial nutrients. It has been a little-known secret of top rugby, football, tennis, cycling and other elite sports players for over a decade.

Improved endurance performance

Studies show drinking beetroot juice can significantly boost your endurance performance.  This can mean competing and training at higher intensities for longer.

Beetroots are a rich source of dietary nitrates that covert into nitric oxide when consumed. Increased nitric oxide levels can lead to increased blood flow to the working muscles.  Nitric oxide also makes it easier for the “power generators” in the muscle cells (mitochondria) to produce energy.

This process can lower the oxygen cost of exercise, enabling your body to sustain higher intensities for longer and ultimately provide a natural boost to endurance.

BeetActive is a highly concentrated pure beetroot juice.  It contains no added preservatives or other such additives and is made avoiding excessive heat to help protect its beneficial nutrients. It is taken by a host of leading sports teams, including international football teams, triathletes, cyclists, swimmers and runners.

Fuel for intense or prolonged activity
All Active Edge concentrated juices contain fast-acting carbohydrate, at levels shown to boost athletic performance when taken during intense or long-lasting exercise.

A 30ml serving of CherryActive, BeetActive, or PomegranateActive each contains over 25g of naturally-occurring carbohydrate (a mixture of fructose and glucose), which can keep  exercising muscles loaded with energy-giving glycogen.

EFSA (European Food Safety Agency) has recently adopted the health claim:

Carbohydrate solutions can contribute to the improvement of physical performance during high intensity and long-lasting exercise in healthy trained adults (interestingly they define high intensity exercise as that greater than 65% VO2 max and long lasting as at least an hour).

Recommended usage is up to three servings per hour (one serving = 30ml Active Edge concentrate) or one serving every 20 minutes during high intensity or long-lasting exercise.

Choose from cherry, beetroot or pomegranate concentrates.  Note that cherry and beetroot have additional sports performance benefits above.

Improved sleep quality

Good quality sleep can contribute to better post exercise recovery, as this is when the body’s complex repair processes are most active. However, many active people, whether regular gym goers or professional athletes, may suffer from exercise-induced insomnia in the form of prolonged sleep onset latency.

Several studies show that drinking Montmorency cherry juice can improve the quantity and quality of sleep.

Montmorency cherries are one of the few known food sources of melatonin, a natural compound produced in the brain’s pineal gland, to control the body’s natural sleep cycles and circadian rhythms. Many athletes have low levels of circulating melatonin, which may be a cause, or contributor, to their sleep problems. Inflammation may also play a part in insomnia. Montmorency cherry’s anti-inflammatory properties may also therefore play a part in aiding a good night’s sleep.

Recommended usage:  30ml CherryActive (with a little water) in the evening or two CherryActive Sleep Formula capsules half and hour before bed (these also contain magnesium, lavender and chamomile, as well as Montmorency cherry (all ingredients researched to improve sleep quality).

Protection from infections and downtime
Active people, whether keen gym-goers or professional athletes, can be more prone to respiratory infections and other illness, due to their heavy training.

Intense training sessions can cause oxidative stress, which is implicated in muscular fatigue, a low immune response, respiratory and other infections and reduced sports performance.

Oxidative stress is caused by an overload of free radicals, a natural by-product of metabolism (like exhaust fumes from a combustion engine) and are produced in increased quantities during intense or prolonged exercise.  These highly reactive compounds can cause damage to body cells, including muscle and immune cells.

Antioxidants are compounds that deactivate these damaging free radicals and are found in abundance in fruit and vegetables.  When an athlete’s training loads lead to an overload of the antioxidant system, a state of oxidative stress can occur.

Maintaining a high antioxidant diet therefore helps prevent oxidative stress, stimulate and protect the immune system and therefore help optimise an athlete’s training programme.

Antioxidants are found in abundance in fruit and vegetables.  However, particular fruits and vegetables, the “superfoods”, have significantly higher ORAC values than regular ones.

ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) is a laboratory test that measures the antioxidant levels in food.   The higher the ORAC score, the better a food may be in defending our cells from free radical damage.

For example, the table below shows a typical “5-a-Day” fruit and vegetable intake, with an ORAC score of 1,790 units. This is compared to the ORAC score of a 30ml serving of CherryActive concentrate with a measured ORAC value of 8260 units.

To maintain a high antioxidant diet, therefore, it is important to consider the quality as well as the quantity of fruit and vegetables consumed

*Source: ORAC of Selected Foods – 2007.  ** Source: ORAC CherryActive Concentrate, Brunswick Laboratories.  ***80g is the standard portion measure for the 5-a-Day programme.

Active Edge produces a range of concentrated juice products, all rich in antioxidants, which may help boost antioxidant defence against free radicals and downtime during intense athletic training programmes. CherryActive, BlueberryActive, BeetActive, PomegranateActive.

Recommended intake to increase antioxidant status- 30ml-60ml Active Edge concentrated juices during training programme, including rest days. Dilute with water, add to smoothies, natural yoghurt or other food and drink recipes.

Tunde Okunniwa, CrossFit athlete. 

I use the BeetActive and CherryActive product ranges mainly. BeetActive provides me with a rich source of dietary nitrates, these are key to enabling me to work at higher intensities for longer during training and competition. I use CherryActive after my sessions as it helps me to recover faster with less muscle soreness.

Influence of tart cherry juice on indices of recovery following marathon running.

Efficacy of a tart cherry juice blend in preventing the symptoms of muscle damage.

Effects of powdered Montmorency tart cherry supplementation on an acute bout of intense lower body strength exercise in resistance trained males.

Effects of chronic beetroot juice supplementation on maximum oxygen uptake, velocity associated with maximum oxygen uptake, and peak velocity in recreational runners: a double-blinded, randomized and crossover study.

Dietary Nitrate Supplementation Improves Exercise Tolerance by Reducing Muscle Fatigue and Perceptual Responses.

Effect of tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus) on melatonin levels and enhanced sleep quality