Competition season doesn't wait for you to feel ready. Cards get booked, stadiums fill, and you're suddenly in contact with more people in a week than most folks meet in a month — training partners, opponents, officials, crowds.
That's the part nobody puts on the poster. Every hand you touch is a chance to pick something up, and the timing is never convenient. It rarely lands the day after a fight. It lands two weeks out, when camp is peaking and there's no room in the calendar to be sick.
Getting Back in the Ring Means a Higher Chance of Getting Sick
You will need to protect yourself. Maybe you're looking at immune boosters, perhaps you're wondering if it's too much. You've got to do something, right?
Ask anyone working their way up what a lost month costs them. Momentum is the whole game at that level — fights get booked on recent activity, and a prospect who can't answer the phone for six weeks watches someone else take the slot. The stress that comes with it, bills and gym fees and a family at home, does its own damage on top of whatever bug knocked them down.
You know what the threat of getting sick can do to your career and training schedule. Can you imagine what it's like if you actually get sick? Getting back in the ring or training hall might not happen for months.
A Strong Immune System Works Better Than A Short Term Booster
Let's talk about exactly what's going on inside your body. After that, you might change your mind about the immune boosters, especially when you learn they might work against you in a fight.
Your immune system fights off things every day. It's a constant battle with the outside world against bacteria, viruses, and other things that weaken you.
Then, when you get into a fight, or even just train well, you end up with fatigue, bruising, exertion, and having to detox your muscles. So, especially after big fights in competitions, your chances of getting sick go way up.
It happens at the top too. Khamzat Chimaev was the breakout fighter of 2020, then lost more than a year to the lingering effects of a single illness — two scheduled bouts withdrawn, repeated hospital visits, and at one point a public announcement that he was done with the sport. He came back. Plenty don't.
Supporting your body to have a healthy immune system is the way to prevent this – it's not foolproof, but it's better than nothing. You don't have to boost your immune system, you just have to keep it running efficiently. And that means the right vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
That's the difference between support and boosting. When you support, you keep things running efficiently. When you boost, you force it to run extra hard.
Just like training, you need rest periods. Just before a competition, train extra hard. Just before you get sick, taking a few immune boosters. But, you have to back off and let your body recover and heal afterward.
If you take immune boosters like echinacea or ginseng all the time, you're going to burn yourself out.
When's The Right Time To Use An Immune Booster Versus An Every Day Strengthener
Two separate times qualify for an immune booster:
If you take a booster 24 hours before a competition for an event, you ramp up that little bit extra to fight off new things you might encounter. And that's it, you don't take it on the day of the competition or afterward.
If you do start to feel sick, take the booster for a day. It can help provide that extra boost to get you fighting off what's going on, so you're not laid up sick.
Most Supplements Burn You Out – Leading To Auto-Immune Problems
Most supplements contain reishi, echinacea, and other immune boosters. They're put together by companies that want to sell the latest buzzword.
Most focus on running your immune system ragged, overtraining it. And if you have an autoimmune disease, like Victor Valimaki (neuromyelitis optica), Jordan Williams (type 1 diabetes), and Boxer Mike Lee (ankylosing spondylitis), these types of immune boosters will take you out of the ring permanently.
Some of them contain good stuff like zinc, vitamin C, vitamin E, and other nutrients, but it's not enough to overcome fatigue and run ragged.
It's kind of like forcing yourself to keep training using energy shots, coffee, and steroids. But, there's another problem (two of them, actually).
The companies that throw together mixes based on the latest buzz words and fads combine immune boosters with immune modulators that cancel each other out. The modulators pull back the immune system the boosters push it forward.
The whole thing ends up being a huge waste of money. And then there's a second problem - autoimmunity potential.
If you keep your immune system running too hot for too long, it's going to find something to attack. If it's not viruses and bacteria from the outside, your immune system is going to turn on itself. It will start attacking your thyroid making you exhausted, your joints giving you pain, or even your muscles making you weak.
You may win competitions and be awesome right now, but you'll spend the rest of your life paying for it. What gives your life so much meaning right now you won't even be able to do later on.
What Should You Really Look For?
If you're going to help your immune system, you want to give it the nourishment to run effectively when it needs to. That means lots of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. You want a supply of raw materials in nutrients for when your immune system has to run hard.
When you look at a product, you want to see many nutritious herbs and nutrients. You want to see things like Vitamin C, moringa, ginger, garlic, and astragalus. These are some of the most critical immune-supporting herbs out there. Look for an immune supplement that is a nutritious supplement that gently supports your system, not run it ragged.
Also, keep it organic. Why take a supplement that might have residual chemicals that cause cancer or slow you down? Plus, organic herb farming supports local communities, like the ones that have smaller gyms in areas where some of the best fighters come out of.
Finally, keep aware of the anti-doping commission and their changing rules. Some immune-boosting supplements contain banned stimulants, especially when marketed to fighters and martial artists. You could knock yourself out of a fight trying to keep healthy.
The key is to nourish your system, not run it ragged. Your body is already being fine-tuned to top form, don't pull it down from within. Here's an option to consider:
Khroma Warrior Organic Immune Support
