This Sports Doctor Reveals the One Secret Weapon Olympians Swear By

When the opportunity arises to speak to an exercise psychologist who specializes in sports science and has 20 years of experience working with professional hockey players including members of the New York Rangers as well as Olympic athletes, the obvious question to ask is: How can I improve my own athletic performance?

Malachy McHugh, Ph.D., who works at the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma reframed the question as:

"How can you recover faster and prevent injury to perform at your highest level, free from pain and stress?" Okay, that. He explained that the key to better fitness starts with how we feel, and for a daily exerciser that depends on how well we recover. He provided a simple yet surprising answer: "The best way to maximize performance is to drink tart cherry juice."

You'd think there would be a more high-tech answer– something related to stim or massage, cycling fitness loads or punching through thresholds, measuring VO2 Max. But McHugh has spent the last 10 years dedicating his time researching the benefits of tart cherry juice and explained why this area of work fascinates him. “The aspect of nutrition that is not well understood is how nutrition can affect how you feel on the days after exercise––the soreness, the stiffness, the burnout.” This lack of general research led him to explore the health benefits of tart cherry juice, and what he found in the scientific studies stunned him: "There's a list of 35 different phytonutrients in cherry juice that have anti-inflammatory properties due to their high antioxidant levels." He started using it on his athletes to profound effects.

McHugh mentioned numerous studies but singled out a 2006 study, conducted at the University of Vermont, which was the first study to demonstrate that cherry juice worked to aid in recovery among athletes. In the study,14 males, were asked to drink a bottle of cherry juice twice a day for three days before intense exercise and for four days after. The control group drank a placebo. The athletes then performed intense exercises that intentionally tore down muscle fibers, and were asked to rate their soreness on a scale of one to ten in the days after. They repeated this process for two weeks.

Results showed a significant difference between the cherry juice and placebo. The average pain score for those who drank the placebo was 3.2 out of 10, whereas the soreness rating among those who drank the cherry juice was 2.4 out of ten, a difference of 22 percent, significant when an athlete is trying to train every day and push through to the next level.

McHugh participated in a more recent study of how cherry juice impacted joint soreness at the University of Pennsylvania that appeared in the National Library of Medicine. The study included patients with mild to moderate knee arthritis. Results showed that when patients drank the cherry juice, their symptoms were reduced and their inflammation was reduced. The reduced inflammation correlated with a reduction in symptoms.

He then came across a study that compared tart cherry juice consumption to Gatorade, relating to endurance performance and recovery, in the Clinical Trials of the US National Library of Medicine. Participants included moderately active cyclists. "If cherry juice is consumed in the days leading up to muscle-damaging endurance workout, the cyclists had less muscle damage, faster recovery time and felt less fatigue after their workouts than when Gatorade (or equivalent electrolyte drink) was consumed.

McHugh also suggests that proper sleep and a healthy diet are crucial to better physical health and athletic performance. He explained that the simple rules are most important: Don't have caffeine within about three hours of going to sleep, since both caffeine and alcohol can disrupt your ability to get to sleep and stay asleep. Turn off your screens or devices within a short time of getting to bed, and don't watch TV right up until the hour before bed, he advises, since it can make it harder to get adequate sleep. Turn your devices off one hour before you go to sleep if you want to crush that workout the next day.

Dr. McHugh explains more about why he advises his pro athlete clients to drink tart cherry juice for better recovery and performance, and also find out how cherry juice can help people with arthritis.

Malachy McHugh Ph.D.:  The key is to find a food with medicinal effects. In the case of cherry juice, it has antioxidants with anti-inflammatory effects. When I first saw the results of cherry juice on athletic performance at Cornell University, I could not believe it.

They did a double-blind study, and I asked for all the data because I thought that there had to be something wrong––there's no way these guys could not have lost any strength over the four days [of working out that intensely].

The food scientist in the trial sent me a list of all the phytonutrients in cherries that have been identified, and there were 35 different phytonutrients. I never heard of any of them––other than maybe one or two. She said the specific antioxidant could be any of those, but it's most likely all of those.

The fact that you have multiple different phytonutrients, means you have different pathways. If it was just one phytonutrient, you might saturate that pathway, but by having multiple different fighting nutrients, you don't saturate any given pathway. Since there are multiple different phytonutrients, some of them have antioxidant effects, some of them have anti-inflammatory effects, and some of them have both. The reason tart cherry worked better than pomegranate or the açai berry is probably that it has such a diversified sort of profile of phytonutrients.

Malachy McHugh Ph.D.:Yes. It’s very important that athletes are watching their sleep and what they eat. A big problem is that a lot of athletes would go to practice and then afterward they don’t rest and recover properly. Michael Jordan would play golf after games. In the playoff series, they would have a game go to overtime, and they would have to play the next day or maybe get one day's rest. Then MJ would go golfing on his off day, which is clearly not ideal. So we would try to educate them about this–explain that maybe you shouldn't go golfing. Maybe you should rest instead. In terms of nutrition, we know what to tell people to eat before an event, during, and after the event–in terms of clean carbohydrates and proteins.

The aspect of nutrition that is not well understood is how the nutrition can affect how you feel on the days after exercise––the soreness, the stiffness, the burnout. Those are aspects of recovery where some nutritional interventions can be beneficial. The research we did on cherry juice was very important because that was addressing an aspect of recovery that's not typically addressed in what we know about nutrition.

Malachy McHugh Ph.D.: Reducing inflammation and eating foods that reduce inflammation are the key to that recovery. We want to recommend foods that have been scientifically proven to work for recovery. So they improve the strength recovery of your muscles after exercise, as well as show reduced inflammation, reduced oxidative stress, and reduced soreness.

What I am most interested in is if you have accelerated recovery of strength. I could take a blood measurement and show them, ‘look, your inflammation is this much lower.’ But if I can show them, ‘look, your strength 24 hours after that game is exactly what it was the day before the game--so you have not lost any strength, you are ready to go.’ That is a more real-world solution, and it's also more well understood by the athlete. It's key because it shows that your muscles are working and that's what we're trying to recover.

Malachy McHugh Ph.D.: There are two main aspects that we consider: the first is injury prevention and injury management, and the second is exercise recovery. They are interrelated, but they are really two different things. What you would do to prevent injuries is a little different from what you would do to accelerate recovery. In terms of exercise recovery, we try to figure out what the main stresses are on the athlete, when those stresses are going to be excessive, as well as what you can do to help accelerate their recovery so that they can better manage the stresses.

For example, if you are training to run a marathon, there are very few recovery interventions that you need because you are in charge of what you do. The phrase I like to use is “you're the master of your own domain.” You decide when you train, you decide when you rest, and you decide when you compete. But in many sports, the league decides when you compete, the coaches decide when you train, and you get very little input and it's harder to make decisions.

Athletes who play in long tournaments with lots of travel like NBA or NHL players, their sleep is disrupted. Along with practices and a busy season, they have very little control over trying to recover adequately, so that’s where I try to implement interventions for faster recovery.

Malachy McHugh Ph.D.: Rest. Standing on your feet is the worst thing for you. My friend who's an Olympic runner takes four days a week to rest after three days of working out. And lying down is something that should not be underestimated. If you look at some of the elite long-distance runners, that's what they do, they train, and then they just literally lay around, watching TV or whatever. Then there's sort of the sleep rules of making sure you get proper sleep.

The number one tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, went plant-based more than twelve years ago to enhance his athletic performance and win more matches. In recent interviews, he has credited going vegan with helping him rise from third place in the world to first in the world because it helped clear his allergies. Before changing his diet, Djokovic had searched for cures to the breathing issues that cost him matches and focus which caused him to struggled during his most intense matches. The allergies used to make him feel like he couldn’t breathe and would be forced to retire from competitive matches as he did in Australia. "Eating meat was hard on my digestion and that took a lot of essential energy that I need for my focus, for recovery, for the next training session, and for the next match," he said. Djokovic emphasized he does not eat foods that require a lot of digestion, especially in the morning, when he needs all of his energy for training. Instead, he starts the day with hot water and lemon, then celery juice, and some superfood supplements.

Tia Blanco won gold at the International Surfing Association Open in 2015 and credits her success to her vegan diet. Blanco reports that a vegan diet helps her stay strong and she enjoys eating different forms of vegan protein like nuts, seeds, beans, and legumes. The professional surfer was influenced by her mother, who is a vegetarian and grew up in a veggie-forward household, Blanco has never eaten meat in her life, which made the plant-based switch much easier. And speaking of making things easier, Blanco has an Instagram cooking page called @tiasvegankitchen where she shares her favorite simple vegan recipes so all of her fans can eat like their favorite professional vegan athlete. In addition to her home-cooked meals, Blanco recently became an ambassador for vegan company Beyond Meat and now she posts Instagram stories and highlights of her favorite meatless meat recipes.

Steph Davis has been vegan for 18 years now and says, "there’s nothing in my life that hasn’t become better as a result, from climbing and athletics to mental and spiritual well being." Davis has competed on some of the most challenging verticle routes on the planet –like Concepcion (5.13), which is known to be one of the hardest pure climbs anywhere. Davis holds the third overall ascent and is the first female to ever make the ascent of the route. Davis described it as her "most technically demanding climb ever." Davis explained why she went vegan eight years ago when she partnered with PETA. "What can we do to start making changes in a positive way? And if it just so happens that changing our lifestyle leads to environmental benefits, health benefits, economic benefits, and positive social change, then all the better. One thing I’ve learned is you don’t have to do or be anything you don’t want to be, and you can change anything in your life just by starting to do it. It’s you who chooses who and what you are, by the things you think and the things you do." She goes on to add, "no one says you have to become a “perfect” vegan overnight. But why not start making small changes and see how it feels? I believe it’s the small choices people make that have the biggest power to change, and nothing is more simple yet also more far-reaching than changing how and what you choose to eat. We’re all here for a short time, in the end, and living a well-intentioned and compassionate life seems like what ultimately matters the most, the only real goal that I aspire to."

Tennis champion Venus Williams swears that making the switch to veganism was one of the factors that helped to improve her performance and get over an auto-immune disease. The tennis star went vegan back in 2011 when she was diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome, a debilitating autoimmune disease with a range of symptoms from joint pain to swelling, numbness, burning eyes, digestive problems, and fatigue. She chose to eat plant-based to recover to her formerly healthy self, and it worked so she stuck to it. The seven-time Grand Slam singles champion recovers faster on a plant-based diet now, compared to how she felt back when she ate animal protein. When you have an auto-immune disease you often feel extreme fatigue and random body aches and for Venus, a plant-based diet provides energy and helps her reduce inflammation. The Beet reported on Willaim's diet and what she normally eats in a day to stay healthy, fit, and win more matches. Talking about her favorite dinner meal, Williams adds, “sometimes a girl just needs a donut!"

Mike Tyson recently said he is "in the best shape ever" thanks to his vegan diet. The boxing legend then announced he's getting back into the rings after 15 years, to fight against Roy Jones, Jr. in California later this fall. Tyson went vegan ten years ago after dealing with health complications and in the wake of having cleaned up his life: “I was so congested from all the drugs and bad cocaine, I could hardly breathe." Tyson said, “I had high blood pressure, was almost dying, and had arthritis." Now, the 53-year-old powerhouse is sober, healthy, and fit. "Turning vegan helped me eliminate all those problems in my life,” and "I'm in the best shape ever." His new trainer agrees: Watching Iron Mike's speed during recent training sessions, observed: "He has the same power as a guy who is 21, 22-years old."

Oklahoma City's point guard Chris Paul decided to ditch meat and dairy and was asked join on as a co-executive producer for the popular documentary, The Game Changers. For breakfast, Paul enjoys oatmeal with plant-based milk and nut butter. For lunch, he fuels up with pasta or brown rice with Beyond Meat sausage, grilled vegetables, and a curry sauce. His chef told USA Today, "The main thing is, we try to keep it as light and clean as possible for his normal routine, with organic ingredients. Anything that can minimize body inflammation. Chris is always worrying about what he can and can't eat." So far it appears he's getting it right. In an exclusive interview with The Beet's Awesome Vegans columnist Elysabeth Alfano, Paul said eating a plant-based diet helps him keep up with players half his age.

In 2016, Kaepernick made the switch to veganism with his longtime girlfriend to recover from a series of injuries that had him down for the count. The Beet recently reported on how this dietary switch has allowed Kaepernick to stay strong and healthy. Now, he's in the gym building muscle and looks fitter than ever. But will he be picked up? The professional football player claims that a vegan diet makes him feel "always ready" to perform his best on the field.

Cam Newton just replaced Tom Brady, who also follows a mostly plant-based diet, as the New England Patriot's QB, after having made the plant-based switch back in March 2019. The NFL Star first decided to ditch meat and dairy to recover quicker from injuries when he learned that a plant-based diet is proven to help reduce inflammation. "I've seen such a remarkable change in the way my body responds to the food that I eat," Newton told PETA for his recent partnership for a new campaign called, "Built Like a Vegan," proving that you don't need to eat meat to be strong. Newton enjoys a meat-free burger on a pretzel bun, heavy on pickles and sauce. He adds: "People often ask, 'How do you get your protein?' I just say, 'I get it in the same way you do, but it's fresher and cleaner.' " Newton shares how to do it: "My advice to a person who wants to become vegan is to eat on schedule. If you can eat on a schedule, you won't miss [a meal or crave meat] or think anything different, and you'll be alright."

Elijah Hall says about his vegan diet: "Going vegan was the best decision" he has ever made. Hall holds records in the indoor 200 meters and was training for the Tokyo this summer when it got postponed by a year due to the pandemic. Hall said "the effects that it’s having on my body are amazing. Becoming a plant-based athlete has opened many doors to my health and my training." We predict he'll only get faster in the next 11 months and break records, come home with golf and be the world champion in 12 months.

Five-years ago, Morgan Mitchell went vegan and it made her faster, leaner and happier. Last year she was featured in the plant-based athletes documentary The Game Changers and said, “Being vegan has helped me immensely. I don’t feel sluggish like I did when I was eating meat, and my recovery from training really took off. It felt like an overall cleanse for my body, and I started seeing greater results on the track.” Now Michelle is committed for the planet as well. “Ultimately helping the environment and not contributing to animal cruelty was a big thing for me, too. That was my initial reason for going vegan, and the rest of the benefits were just added bonuses.” Mitchell describes what she eats in a day for enhanced performance and more energy to win sprints. “I like to make sure I have three different types of protein in there. I use tofu, beans, and mushrooms, along with spinach, vegan cheese, and hash browns,” she says. “I also love to add Beyond Meat for more flavor, which is a great source of plant protein as well. That usually keeps me full for the better part of the day," she told Well + Good.

"We were taught that eating animal products was good for us but we've been lied to for hundreds of years," said Lewis Hamilton. The Beet reported on Hamiltion's vegan diet quoting The New York Times that he credits his new plant-based diet with making the difference in his career. Hamilton gave up processed food and animal products for vegetables, fruit, nuts, grains, because of his strong compassion for animals, for the benefit of the environment, and his own health. Hamilton isn't the only vegan in his family. His dog Rocco is fully vegan and Hamilton says he's "super happy" on Rocco's very own IG post. Earlier this year, Hamilton gave up his private jet because he said it's a big pollutant and aims to live a sustainable lifestyle. Back in February, he started a line of sustainable clothing with Tommy Hilfiger at London Fashion Week.

Featured in The Game Changers for his elite strength and his superhuman ability to lift a car, Patrik Baboumiam is one of the strongest men in the world and also happens to be vegan. Baboumian lifted 358 pounds in the 2009 German log lift nationals. Back in 2014, Baboumiam partnered with PETA in his campaign "Want to be Stronger" describing powering yourself with plants and how you can build muscle without eating meat. One of his 2019 PETA campaigns showed him posing with crossed arms and leaves in his mouths with the text: "The world's strongest animals are plant-eaters: Gorillas, buffaloes, elephants and me." Bahoumiam's diet consists of a dairy-free shake for breakfast with 8 grams of protein and 0 carbohydrates. For lunch, he enjoys vegan sausage, falafel, low-fat oven fires, peppers, and more grilled veggies. He normally eats 250 grams of carbs and 90 grams of protein just for lunch. Dinner includes vegetables cooked potatoes, and tofu. If you want to eat like Boubanian, he reports his food diary on his blog BarBend.

Here's a guy who has worn many hats: Bodybuilder, Terminator, California Governor, and now vegan and advocate for the plant-based lifestyle. Arnold Schwarzenegger ditched meat and dairy and has proven that you don't need to eat animal products to be strong, healthy and reverse symptoms of heart disease. Now 73, he had a pulmonary valve replacement 1997 due to a congenital defect and underwent emergency open-heart surgery in 2018 to replace the valve again. He then changed his eating and fitness habits and now extolls the virtues of plant-based eating for the environment as well as health reasons. He is a producer of The Game Changers (a movie with many masters) and an advocate for going vegan for health, the environment and the sake of animals (he posts on IG with his pet donkey and miniature pony, both household dwelling animals). Schwarzenegger said last year: "Right now, seven million people are dying every year. That is alarming and everyone in the government has the responsibility to protect the people.... 28 percent of the greenhouse gasses come from eating meat and from raising cattle, so we can do a much better job."

Jurek is an extreme ultra-marathon runner who has won the Hardrock Hundred, the Badwater Ultramarathon, the Spartathlon, and the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run (you get the idea). Jurek has been vegan for almost two decades, after easing into it by cutting out meat in college, he slowly stopping seafood and finally giving up all animal products once he realized that eating this way made him feel healthier and happier. To run such an extreme amount of miles, you need to fuel your body with plant-based foods that will give you enough energy and carbohydrates to go the distance. The goal is to eat 5,000-6,000 calories of plant-based foods daily. Jurek outlined his plant-based diet in an interview with Bon Appetite. Instead of waking up to a hot cup of coffee to boost energy, he prefers to drink tea and a green smoothie with spirulina or chlorella and a host of other ingredients. He adds bananas, frozen pineapple slices, or mangoes, brown rice and pea protein, (for protein) to rebuild what's lost in training. This is not just any smoothie.

Soccer star, Alex Morgan is one of the beloved members of the USA National Team that won the World Cup and has shown that the female players deserve to get equal pay as their male counterparts by the US Soccer Federation. She is also an animal rights advocate and longtime vegan, having given up meat when she decided that "it didn't feel fair to have a dog, and yet eat meat all the time,” referring to her adorable pup Blue. Morgan aims to eat 90 grams of plant-based protein daily to stay fit and lean, especially for her workouts and on the field. Morgan admitted that breakfast was difficult because "a lot of the things I love like pancakes and French toast had dairy and eggs." But now she enjoys oatmeal with nut butter and berries, smoothies, rice, quinoa, veggies, black beans, protein shakes, Mediterranean food, Impossible burgers, Mexican beans, and sauteed veggie burritos, she told USA Today.

Paul Rabil who played for the Boston Cannons and the New York Lizards of Major League Lacrosse, ditched meat and dairy after his 2019 season ended and revealed he's now "officially" vegan on YouTube. "At first [switching to a plant-based diet] was to help solve some pain and trauma that I was going through. Over the last two years, I've had two herniated discs.... and that has led to a ton of shooting pain down my legs, its called sciatica," Rabil explains the purpose of his diet switch. He adds: "I've tried to a lot of things; I've had a number of cortisone shots; I've done physical therapy for two years. And I reached a place where I was thinking 'okay maybe I can solve this with nutrition because a lot of our pain stems from inflammation. Within a few weeks, I started noticing a lot of alleviation so I started focusing and doubling down more on veganism"

Hannah Teter won Olympic gold and silver in the halfpipe and is also a seven-time XGames medalist. She changed her diet after watching the documentary, Earthlings when she discovered how "horrible" factory farming is. After a strict vegetarian diet, Teter liked the way she performed and believes that her diet helped her win gold at the 2006 games. She now considers herself "plant-based" and in an interview with the Huffington Post, Teter said, "I feel stronger than I’ve ever been, mentally, physically, and emotionally. My plant-based diet has opened up more doors to being an athlete. It’s a whole other level that I’m elevating to. I stopped eating animals about a year ago, and it’s a new life. I feel like a new person, a new athlete."

Djokovic is not the only tour player to go plant-based. Nick Kyrgios shared that he does not eat meat anymore because of his strong compassion for animals. During the time of the Australian wildfires, the Aussie native explained: "I've been passionate about animal welfare for some time now. I don't eat meat or dairy anymore. That’s not for my health, I just don’t believe in eating animals." "I tried a vegan diet a couple of years ago but with all the travel I do, it was hard to stick to it. Since then I've managed to make it work, and I've been vegetarian for quite a while. "Seeing the footage of these animals suffering from the fires only reinforces why I've chosen this diet. When I see these terrible photos, I can’t comprehend eating meat."

Matt Frazier has run 27 ultra-marathons in his career so far and continues to write about the endurance strength of being a vegan athlete in his personal blog, which he started 11 years ago: No Meat Athlete. The Beet recently interviewed Frazier about his vegan journey and how to be a successful athlete on a plant-based diet. When asked about the first time he ditched meat Frazier replied, "I had already cut 90 minutes off my first marathon time. I was still 10 minutes away from the Boston Marathon qualifying time. I had plateaued, and I was not sure how I was going to find 10 minutes. [Plant-based eating] was what I was missing. That’s what it took. The other big noticeable difference to me [after going vegan] was I stopped getting injured. Injuries had always been a big part of my running journey. When I became vegan, it was around the time I ran three 50-milers and a 100-miler. I didn’t have any injuries. If it’s done right, [plant-based diets] can really help you recover faster."

Rowing is grueling. It's known as the toughest endurance sport in the world. The world record-breaking female rower, Michaela Copenhaver went vegan in 2012 for ethical reasons, she told Great Vegan Athletes. “Initially, I just wanted to eat more vegetables. Those things are super good for you, and they're delicious. Being vegetarian and vegan made me more conscious of how many servings I was getting a day (or not).” When she switched from vegetarian to vegan it was almost accidental: “I was traveling for a regatta in the fall of 2012. I had been vegetarian for 1.5 years already but relied pretty heavily on dairy and eggs. While I was traveling, I was bouncing from couch to couch and had no way to safely store dairy or eggs—so I decided to try a week without them. I felt great, and it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought. I’ve been vegan ever since.” Now it's a value system: “Once I stopped eating and using animals, I felt I could finally address a question that had been bothering me for a long time—what right do we have to exploit other creatures? Now, I understand that we have no right, and my motivations are primarily ethical.”