Top tips for choosing the right sports performance blood test

 

Whether you’re training for your first 10K, building muscle in the gym, or actively competing, you want to know your body is performing at its best. A blood test can give you valuable insights from nutrition to recovery – but how do you know which one is right for you?

In this guide, we’ll walk you through our range of Sports Performance Blood Tests.

You can choose the option of a finger-prick test or have your blood sample collected by a nurse at your home or one of our partner clinics. Find out more in our how our service works section.

We’ll cover:

• Why consider a Sports Performance Blood Test?
• What can a blood test tell you about your sports performance?
• Hormones
• Thyroid function
• Inflammation
• Iron status
• Vitamins and minerals
• How to choose the right sports performance blood test
• Which sports performance blood test is right for your goals?

 

Why consider a sports performance blood test?
 

Blood testing for sports performance is ideal if you want data-driven insights into your training and recovery.

When you’re refining your fitness programme or starting a new training plan, you’ll likely use baseline measurements to track your progress. These could be anything from personal bests to physical appearance. While these are good indicators of your general health, sports blood testing takes this one step further.

Blood tests and health checks use biomarkers (biological indicators that can reveal information about your health) to help with necessary adaptations to training, recovery, and nutrition. By including these in your routine, you can identify biological factors that affect your performance and track trends over time, making it simple to see the results of any changes you make to your training routine.

Blood testing could also help you:

• Identify your health baseline, check where you are now, so you can see how you’ve grown in the future
• Track changes as you alter your routine
• Figure out if you’re overtraining or need to adapt your recovery routine
• Investigate symptoms such as fatigue
• Determine whether your supplement stack is helping or hindering your training (or if it’s even necessary)
• Optimise your performance when used correctly with support from coaches or doctors

What can a blood test tell you about your sports performance?
 

Measuring your biomarkers can help you establish your health baseline, monitor your performance, and track your recovery. But what should you monitor for sports performance?

The five key areas to monitor in sports performance are:

1. Hormones – affect muscle growth and mood
2. Thyroid function – linked to energy and weight changes
3. Inflammation – indicate improper recovery
4. Iron status and red blood cells – linked to oxygen capacity and fatigue
5. Vitamins and minerals – including vitamin D, vitamin B12, and magnesium

Let’s take a closer look at why each is important.

1. Best hormones to check for sports performance

Having a greater understanding of which hormone levels can impact your performance can be beneficial when training. Hormones are important for lots of things, including building muscle and maintaining bone strength [2,3].

Key hormones to check include:

• Testosterone
• Cortisol
• Oestrogen

2. How does thyroid function impact performance?

Your thyroid plays an important role in regulating metabolism, energy levels and many of the processes involved in exercise and recovery. Both an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) and an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) can affect how you feel and perform, causing symptoms such as fatigue, changes in heart rate, muscle weakness and reduced exercise tolerance.

Thyroid results can also provide useful context when you’re training hard. Intense or prolonged exercise places physiological stress on the body and can temporarily influence thyroid hormones, including thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). An unexpected change in your results does not necessarily mean you have a thyroid condition, but alongside symptoms, training load and other markers, it may be a sign that your body is under increased stress and could benefit from more recovery.

Regular testing can therefore help identify an underlying thyroid problem, while also helping you understand how your body is responding to periods of particularly demanding training.

3. What can a blood test reveal about inflammation levels?

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker of inflammation in the body. Levels can rise for many reasons, including infection and illness, but strenuous exercise can also cause a temporary increase in CRP as your body responds to the stress and muscle damage caused by training [4].

This rise is a normal part of exercise and recovery. However, if you’re training particularly hard or not allowing enough time to recover between sessions, inflammatory markers may remain elevated. In the context of your symptoms, recent training and other blood results, a raised CRP may therefore be a useful indication that your body is under increased physiological stress.

Rest and appropriate recovery should allow exercise-related inflammation to settle. If CRP remains unexpectedly high despite adequate recovery, it’s important to consider other potential causes rather than assuming that exercise is responsible.

4. Should athletes measure their iron levels?

Iron plays a crucial role in exercise because it is needed to make haemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around your body. This makes both your iron stores and your red blood cells particularly important for endurance, energy and athletic performance.

Athletes can be at increased risk of iron deficiency, particularly those with high training volumes, restricted diets or low energy availability, and women who lose iron through menstruation [5]. Importantly, your iron stores can become depleted before you develop anaemia [6], so a normal haemoglobin result does not always rule out iron deficiency.

Testing ferritin and other markers of iron status alongside a full blood count gives a more complete picture. Ferritin helps assess your body's iron stores, while haemoglobin, haematocrit and red blood cell measurements can show whether iron deficiency has progressed to anaemia and is affecting your blood's ability to transport oxygen.

Low iron or iron-deficiency anaemia can contribute to fatigue, breathlessness, reduced exercise capacity and poorer recovery. At the other end of the spectrum, unexpectedly high ferritin or iron levels may also warrant further investigation. However, a high ferritin result does not necessarily mean you have too much iron, as ferritin can also increase with inflammation, infection, liver problems and following strenuous exercise.

Monitoring these markers can therefore help identify deficiencies that may be holding back your performance, while also highlighting abnormal results that may need further investigation.

5. Which vitamins and minerals are good for performance?

Good nutrition is a cornerstone of athletic performance, supporting everything from energy production and muscle function to recovery and bone health. Even with a balanced diet, demanding training schedules, dietary restrictions and increased nutritional requirements can put some athletes at greater risk of deficiencies.

Some important micronutrients to consider include:

• Magnesium plays a role in normal muscle and nerve function, energy production and electrolyte balance. Low levels can contribute to symptoms such as weakness, fatigue and muscle cramps.
   
• Vitamin B12 is essential for normal red blood cell production and nervous system function. Deficiency can lead to anaemia, fatigue and neurological symptoms, all of which have the potential to affect training and performance.
   
• Vitamin D is important for bone health and normal muscle and immune function. Low levels are relatively common, particularly during the UK winter, and athletes who train predominantly indoors may have less opportunity for sunlight exposure.

Blood testing can help identify deficiencies that may otherwise be difficult to spot from symptoms alone, allowing you to address them appropriately rather than taking supplements unnecessarily.

How to choose the right sports performance blood test
 

The best sports performance blood test depends on your goals. If you’re, for example, a marathon runner, you won't necessarily need to test the same biomarkers as a bodybuilder, while someone experiencing persistent fatigue may benefit from a broader health assessment rather than focusing on performance markers alone.

Before choosing a test, ask yourself:

• Am I looking to improve my performance?
• Do I have symptoms, such as fatigue or slow recovery?
• Am I monitoring the effects of training or supplements?
• Do I simply want a health baseline before starting a new programme?

Your answers can help you decide which biomarkers are most relevant.

Which sports performance blood test is right for your goals?

I'm new to training and just want the basics

If you're starting a new fitness programme or training for your first event, a general health screen can help establish your baseline before increasing your training load.

A comprehensive blood test can assess important areas including:

• Iron status
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin B12
• Testosterone
• Liver health
• Cholesterol

Having this information before beginning a training programme makes it easier to monitor changes over time and identify any factors that could affect your progress.

I want to understand how my hormones are affecting my performance

Your hormones play an important role in almost every aspect of athletic performance, from energy production and recovery to sleep, mood, and motivation. Even small hormonal imbalances can influence how you train and recover.

If you're noticing changes in performance a dedicated hormone blood test could provide valuable insights.

I’m serious about building muscle

If gains are your goal, then it’s worth looking beyond standard markers and considering an advanced hormone profile. This can help you understand the balance between anabolic and catabolic processes in the body. We don’t advise using anabolic steroids, but if you are, it’s important to monitor your blood levels.

In particular, if you are interested in an insight into more hormones such as LH, FSH, and free testosterone – calc, as well as inflammation markers and your SHBG proteins, then it may be worth considering an advanced blood test.

You can read more about the importance of blood testing for body builders in our blog.

I want to make sure I’m at my optimal performance

Our Ultimate Performance Blood Test is our most comprehensive blood test for men and women. It has been designed for athletes to help optimise themselves for peak performance.

Why this test?

• Tests 56 biomarkers including all general health biomarkers such as liver and kidney health, inflammation, and cholesterol status.
• Ensures micronutrients and macronutrient needs are met through testing of important vitamins and minerals such as iron and vitamin D.
• Measures your baseline levels so that you can keep an eye on any health risks and see how any changes you make in your training and lifestyle have impacted your inner health.

Looking for something else?

Our Sports Performance Blood Tests range from at-home finger-prick tests to ultimate and advanced blood tests. But if you’re looking for a test that isn’t here, why not see our guide on the top six blood tests to buy or try our test finder.

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References

1. Haller N, Behringer M, Reichel T, Wahl P, Simon P, Krüger K, et al. Blood-Based Biomarkers for Managing Workload in Athletes: Considerations and Recommendations for Evidence-Based Use of Established Biomarkers. Sports Med. 2023;53: 1315–1333. doi:10.1007/s40279-023-01836-x
2. Lee EC, Fragala MS, Kavouras SA, Queen RM, Pryor JL, Casa DJ. Biomarkers in Sports and Exercise: Tracking Health, Performance, and Recovery in Athletes. J Strength Cond Res. 2017;31: 2920–2937. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000002122
3. Goolsby MA, Boniquit N. Bone Health in Athletes. Sports Health. 2016;9: 108–117. doi:10.1177/1941738116677732
4. Soler-López A, Moreno-Villanueva A, Gómez-Carmona CD, Pino-Ortega J. The Role of Biomarkers in Monitoring Chronic Fatigue Among Male Professional Team Athletes: A Systematic Review. Sensors. 2024;24: 6862. doi:10.3390/s24216862
5. Iron considerations for the athlete: a narrative review | European Journal of Applied Physiology | Springer Nature Link. [cited 11 Sep 2026]. Available: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-019-04157-y
6. Suedekum NA, Dimeff RJ. Iron and the athlete. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2005;4: 199–202. doi:10.1007/s11932-005-0035-3