In Part 1 of this article, I focused on the primary “time points” related to sports nutrition – those being what to eat Before, During, and After exercise. In Part 2, I’d like to look at another useful way to categorize sports nutrition products – by their primary effect or mode of action. Using this method, sports nutrition products fall primarily into 3 categories (but there is some overlap between categories):

• Muscle strength and Mass

• Endurance and Energy

• Post-exercise Recovery

As the “off-season” approaches for most triathletes and other endurance athletes, it is often helpful to employ specific nutrition regimens to help you build strength, base endurance, and injury protection for next season.

Muscle Strength and Mass

Although bodybuilders may be tempted to experiment with prohormones, steroid precursors, and related enhancers of muscle mass, endurance athletes will be most interested in developing muscular strength without a lot of added bulk. A strategic use of creatine, protein, and specific amino acids can help to enhance your body’s adaptation to off-season strength training.

Creatine is stored primarily in skeletal muscle as creatine phosphate (CP), where its main role is to restore adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which can then be used as an energy source to support muscle contractions and possibly to help reduce lactic acid accumulation. Creatine can also cause muscle cells to “swell” due to an influx of fluid. This “swelling” effect of creatine leads to a muscle cell with an increased cell volume and cross-sectional area, as well as higher glycogen content – each of which may stimulate protein synthesis and lead to increased muscle size and strength.

Much speculation has associated creatine use with several adverse side effects such as muscle cramping and strained muscles – effects which are now thought to be less due to creatine itself than to athletes exceeding their capabilities and trying to do more work than their muscles are ready to do (”too much too soon”). A real concern may be the possibility of dehydration (due to retained fluid inside the muscle cell) – but an increased intake of fluids easily remedies this situation.

Protein powders are available from virtually every supplement manufacturer – with claims for everything from increasing muscle mass and strength and to losing or gaining weight. The most common sources of protein come from milk (casein and whey), egg, and soy.

Aside from their use in weight loss and muscle building applications, protein supplements are also being used in some of the newer “recovery” formulations. Because the body’s protein needs increase dramatically (and disproportionately to caloric needs) during physical trauma and injury, supplemental amounts of protein added to the diet can not only enhance recovery from exercise, but may also boost immunity and help prevent injuries from repeated training (and overtraining).

Protein sources are often classed based on their “biological value” (BV) – a term that refers to the amount of protein deposited in tissues per gram of protein absorbed. In general, the higher the BV, the more effective the protein will be its utilization in the body. Whey protein is often considered to be the protein source with the highest BV (100), but using a more precise calculation of protein “quality” (the PDCAAS), other concentrated sources of protein such as egg, casein (milk) and soy now rival whey proteins. Depending on how soy protein is processed, it may also retain various antioxidant compounds, known as isoflavones (genistein and daidzein).

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein – so most protein supplements provide a full complement of amino acids. In some cases, however, the use of higher levels of specific amino acids may provide an additional benefit. For example, the three “branched-chain amino acids” (BCAA = leucine, isoleucine and valine) are “essential” amino acids, meaning the body is not able to synthesize them and they need to be supplied in the diet. The BCAAs are believed to be important in delaying “central” fatigue during exercise, which originates in the central nervous system (as opposed to “peripheral” fatigue that results from biochemical events within the muscles). BCAA supplementation can help delay the production of serotonin in the brain and result in a longer duration of exercise before fatigue sets in. BCAA supplementation may also decrease protein breakdown and maintain immune function during strenuous exercise.

Endurance and Energy

I see a lot of “energy” drink these days, which are little more than different combinations of sugar and caffeine (often listed as Kola nut, Guarana, Yerba Mate, or other “natural” source of caffeine). Undoubtedly, these drinks will give you a short-term “charge” but they’ll fail to give you, as an endurance athlete, the particular kind of sustained energy that you’re looking for. Some people can use caffeine-based energy drinks with no side effects, while others experience elevated heart rate and blood pressure, as well as insomnia, anxiety, irritability, and heart palpitations.

I have written about some effective herbal options for improving stamina and endurance (cordyceps, rhodiola, eurycoma, eleuthero, ashwagandha) in previous editions of TriHive and at SupplementWatch (www.supplementwatch.com). Many other supplement ingredients promoted as “energy” products overlap with popular weight loss or “thermogenic” products, including B-complex vitamins, Bee pollen, Blue-green algae, and numerous others – BUT, it is important to choose your energy product based on available research evidence rather than on its marketing hype or athlete endorsements.

Post-Exercise Recovery

In previous articles for TriHive and at SupplementWatch (www.supplementwatch.com), I have written about effective strategies for enhancing post-exercise recovery – including the timing of carbohydrate and protein intake, the inclusion of BCAAs and glutamine for tissue repair and immune system maintenance, the tissue-repairing benefits of proteolytic enzymes, and the protective effects of antioxidants. One additional area of significant interest to endurance athletes, particularly triathletes, is joint protection and the rebuilding to joint cartilage.

Glucosamine and Chondroitin supplements are used with outstanding benefit by arthritis sufferers – and biochemical evidence suggests that endurance athletes may also derive joint protecting effects from these supplements. Glucosamine, whether used alone, or in combination with chondroitin, appears to be quite effective in alleviating the pain and inflammation associated with arthritis – while also leading to enhanced rebuilding of damaged cartilage in large joints such as the knee. As such, many sports supplements are beginning to include these ingredients in recovery formulas designed to help repair and prevent damage to muscles, joints and other connective tissue structures.

Summary

Endurance athletes, and triathletes in particular, can strategically use sports nutrition supplements to promote improvements in muscle mass & strength, energy & endurance, and recovery after exercise. Using these products the right way, in the right amounts, and in the right situations can help improve exercise performance, bolster adaptations to training and promote optimal recovery from exercise training.

About the author: Shawn Talbott, PhD is a Nutritional Biochemist, author of 7 books about nutrition and health, and a 10-time Ironman finisher. He is Research Director at SupplementWatch (www.supplementwatch.com) and Chief Scientific Officer of Wicked Fast Sports Nutrition (www.wickedfastsportsnutrition.com). Dr. Talbott is continually tweaking his own nutrition regimen in Draper, Utah where he lives with his wife and 2 kids.

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