A runner who feels flat for weeks, a footballer heading into pre-season, a cyclist building towards a big event: each might wonder whether a blood test would add anything to what the training log already says. An athlete blood test cannot replace coaching or a proper clinical assessment, but it can show how several body systems look at a given moment, and how they change over a season.
The BPR catalogue includes three panels designed with active people in mind, all processed by London Medical Laboratory (LML): Gold Athlete Performance, Ultimate Athlete Performance (with or without PSA) and the Sports Fitness Profile. This guide sets them side by side.
Why athletes look at blood markers at all
Training is a deliberate stress. The body responds by adapting, as long as there is enough fuel, sleep and recovery. When that balance slips, the first signs are often vague: tiredness, poor sessions, frequent colds. A review of biomarkers in sport describes how blood markers can help track health, performance and recovery in athletes, and stresses that they are most useful when followed over time against a person's own baseline rather than read once in isolation (Lee et al., 2017).
The 2023 International Olympic Committee consensus on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) also describes how a mismatch between energy intake and training load can affect many systems, including hormones, bone and metabolism, and lists blood tests among the tools a clinical team may use in an assessment (Mountjoy et al., 2023). In other words, a blood panel is one piece of a wider picture, not the picture itself.
The three athlete blood test panels at a glance
Sports Fitness Profile
The LML describes this as an essential profile for anyone wanting to check their fitness, either before starting a programme or to follow progress during one. It includes:
- a full blood count;
- liver and kidney function;
- iron status and ferritin;
- a cholesterol profile;
- creatine kinase, a muscle enzyme;
- high sensitivity CRP, a marker of inflammation;
- vitamin D, vitamin B12 and testosterone.
Because of the number of markers and the full blood count, the LML asks for a venous sample for this profile, taken at an LML collection point or by a phlebotomist at home.
Gold Athlete Performance
Gold builds on the same foundations and adds a broader hormone and thyroid view. Its LML marker list has 51 entries, including the full blood count, iron studies, liver and kidney function, cholesterol, HbA1c, vitamin D, vitamin B12, folate and magnesium, together with TSH and free T4, testosterone, free testosterone, SHBG, oestradiol, LH and FSH, as well as creatine kinase and high sensitivity CRP.
Ultimate Athlete Performance
Ultimate is the most detailed of the three. The LML describes it as covering over 60 biomarkers, grouped into:
- hormonal balance: testosterone, free testosterone, SHBG, cortisol, progesterone, oestradiol, LH, FSH and DHEA-S;
- thyroid function: TSH, free T3, free T4 and thyroid antibodies;
- vitamins and minerals: vitamin D, B12, folate, magnesium and iron studies;
- liver and kidney health, cholesterol and HbA1c;
- muscle and recovery markers: creatine kinase, uric acid and electrolytes;
- a full blood count with the white cell breakdown and platelets.
The Ultimate Athlete Performance (with PSA) version adds prostate specific antigen. The LML lists athletes and bodybuilders, people on testosterone-based therapies and people using weight-loss injectables among the groups it is designed for.
How to choose between them
A simple way to think about it is to start from the question you want answered.
- "Is my general base in good shape for training?" The Sports Fitness Profile covers blood count, iron, organs, cholesterol, inflammation, a muscle enzyme and key vitamins.
- "I also want to see thyroid and sex hormones." Gold Athlete Performance adds that layer.
- "I want the widest view, including cortisol, DHEA-S and thyroid antibodies." Ultimate Athlete Performance is the fullest option, and the PSA version adds a prostate marker.
More markers are not automatically better. A larger panel produces more numbers, and each number needs context. The consensus statement on overtraining from the European College of Sport Science and the American College of Sports Medicine notes that no single blood marker reliably identifies overtraining, and that results are best read alongside performance, training load and how the athlete feels (Meeusen et al., 2013). Talking to a health professional before choosing helps match the panel to the question.
How often does it make sense?
As general guidance, many athletes repeat a panel two to four times a year, for example at the start of pre-season, during a heavy block and after the competitive period. The value comes from comparing results with your own earlier ones, ideally taken under similar conditions: similar time of day, similar distance from your last hard session and a similar hydration state. Talk to a health professional about the rhythm that fits your sport and your history.
