For the second time in as many years, a Scotts Valley entrepreneur has launched a diet supplement in the form of a beverage concocted specifically for a certain sport or activity.
Calling it “the convenient approach to a healthy lifestyle,” CrossFit Maxim owner David Shanahan’s creation — dubbed FitAid — hit shelves May 1, and is designed to supply consumers with vitamins and other supplements he said are needed for the rigorous CrossFit training regimen.
“We’re trying to provide a drink that provides what people need,” he said. “Help thrive rather than survive.”
The drink, Shanahan said, combines daily vitamins with fish oil, glutamine, glucosamine, amino acids and CoQ-10 to maximize the attributes CrossFit seeks to develop — power, strength, agility, coordination, accuracy, balance, speed and cardiovascular endurance.
“We’re calling it a ‘synergy drink,’” he said. “We took all those attributes of fitness and matched supplements with them — it’s not an energy drink, it’s not a sports drink.”
The drink is sweetened by blue agave nectar, and each 12-ounce can contains 45 calories.
“We aren’t doing anything that anyone else is doing,” Shanahan said, adding that there was nothing in FitAid’s ingredients that wouldn’t conform to a “paleo” diet, a trendy eating pattern in which people consume nothing but what would have been available to early humans.
The 21-year-old Shanahan said fitness has been part of his life since he was a child.
“I started out really, really young,” he said.
He has grown up alongside CrossFit as it expanded in popularity, until he took over the Scotts Valley gym last year.
Inspiration to create the drink, Shanahan said, came from some CrossFit Maxim clients. Specifically, Orion Melehan, who last year partnered with local chiropractor Aaron Hinde to launch GolferAid, a supplemental drink designed with golfers in mind.
“I had always wanted to make one for CrossFit,” Shanahan said. “I didn’t know why no one had.”
He said that Melehan and Hinde helped him connect with a Los Angeles-based company that would take the supplements he wanted to be included in the drink, and create a recipe that would be effective and flavorful.
“I wanted to aim my focus on what went in it,” Shanahan said. “We used what I knew about CrossFit and what they knew about making drinks.”
After settling on a recipe, Shanahan contracted with a Portland-based bottling company to produce his drink.
The drinks are for sale for $2.99 each at the CrossFit locations in Santa Cruz County, as well as New Leaf stores and Deluxe Foods in Aptos, but Shanahan hopes to expand.
“We’re doing better than we could’ve hoped,” he said.
For information: www.drinkfitaid.com or crossfitmaxim.com
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