INDIANAPOLIS, June 8, 2016 — USA Gymnastics has named Thorne Research as its exclusive nutritional supplement partner, providing its national team members with effective and safe nutritional supplements to support athlete health. Major advances in the development, medical research, and monitoring of nutritional supplements has enabled Thorne Research to provide elite athletes with nutritional supplements that can assist in accelerating recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage that can result from the day-to-day rigors of training and competition. In addition, athletes will have access to reliable health information that is easily accessed on the Thorne Research website. This content will help athletes evaluate nutritional supplement usage and better understand nutritional supplement labels, manufacturing, and regulation, all provided by an objective resource.
“Athlete performance is a function of many variables, and proper nutrition is a key fundamental element,” said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. “The human body is designed to perform at its optimal level when the right balance of nutrients has been provided to keep the athlete healthy and strong. Often times, the competition environment makes it difficult for an athlete to have access to food products that meet their individual nutritional needs, especially when traveling abroad.”
As athletes reach the highest levels of competition and become more efficient in their sport, they stress specific groups of muscles day in and day out. This daily process of stress and repair requires that their bodies receive very specific ranges of vitamins, minerals, and botanicals in order to perform optimally. For example, competing in a high-stress environment – that is also away from home – requires nutritional supplement products such as amino acid supplementation, which has been shown to decrease fat synthesis and promote energy production, lean muscle mass and muscle strength.
“It is vital that young gymnasts consume enough calories and nutrients to support growth, healing and recovery from training and competition,” said Jay Binder, chairman of the USA Gymnastics Medical Commission. “This is especially important for our elite and world-class athletes. Thorne Research has a commitment to quality, purity and science that is impressive, and our relationship with them will provide our athletes with the safest products for nutritional support available on the market. They have NSF Certified for Sport products that provide amino acids, vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, anti-oxidants and more to give athletes everything they need.”
Thorne Research will provide national team members with nutritional supplement products that have the highest level of certification, baseline nutritional level testing through WellnessFX, educational materials, and risk protection with product liability insurance. Thorne Research is also partnering with several other national governing bodies.
“Our partnership addresses a great need on the part of competitive and elite athletes,” said Paul Jacobson, CEO of Thorne Research. “No longer must these athletes fend for themselves trying to figure out which nutritional supplements to take, and where to obtain a safe, clean, and reliable source of nutritional supplements. This partnership will help athletes address that problem. We are honored to have USA Gymnastics and several other national governing bodies working with us because of our approach to providing nutritional supplements that are scientifically formulated, rigorously studied, clinically researched, and NSF Certified for Sport®.”
Thorne Research is a personalized health solutions company dedicated to improving individual outcomes through science and technology. For 30 years, Thorne Research has led the nutritional supplement industry in providing researched-based, high quality natural products including foundational vitamins and minerals, therapeutic-focused nutritional supplements, and soon to include botanical drugs. By leveraging cutting-edge research and personalized data through affiliate WellnessFX, Thorne Research offers customized preventive health solutions for practitioners, their patients, and athletes. Thorne Research is a majority shareholder in WellnessFX, a San Francisco-based personalized wellness company providing home kit testing and actionable recommendations from the analysis of blood chemistry, genetics, and microbiome. Thorne Research is headquartered in New York City with a manufacturing facility in Sandpoint, Idaho. Further information on Thorne Research is available at Thorne.com.