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The Importance of Supplementation for Athletes


Joshua Naterman
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abstract:

Amino Acid Supplements and Recovery from High-Intensity Resistance Training.

J Strength Cond Res. 2010 Mar 17. [Epub ahead of print]

Sharp CP, Pearson DR.

1Department of Health and Human Performance, College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina; and 2Strength Research Laboratory, Ball State University, Muncie, IN.

Sharp, CPM and Pearson, DR. Amino acid supplements and recovery from high-intensity training. J Strength Cond Res 24(4): 1125-1130, 2010-The purpose of this study was to investigate whether short-term amino acid supplementation could maintain a short-term net anabolic hormonal profile and decrease muscle cell damage during a period of high-intensity resistance training (overreaching), thereby enhancing recovery and decreasing the risk of injury and illness. Eight previously resistance trained males were randomly assigned to either a high branched chain amino acids (BCAA) or placebo group. Subjects consumed the supplement for 3 weeks before commencing a fourth week of supplementation with concomitant high-intensity total-body resistance training (overreaching) (3 x 6-8 repetitions maximum, 8 exercises). Blood was drawn prior to and after supplementation, then again after 2 and 4 days of training. Serum was analyzed for testosterone, cortisol, and creatine kinase. Serum testosterone levels were significantly higher (p < 0.001), and cortisol and creatine kinase levels were significantly lower (p < 0.001, and p = 0.004, respectively) in the BCAA group during and following resistance training. These findings suggest that short-term amino acid supplementation, which is high in BCAA, may produce a net anabolic hormonal profile while attenuating training-induced increases in muscle tissue damage. Athletes' nutrient intake, which periodically increases amino acid intake to reflect the increased need for recovery during periods of overreaching, may increase subsequent competitive performance while decreasing the risk of injury or illness.

All others supplements and food was the same, just added BCAA. After a realy hard training, I wasn't to tired, no DOMS,...this was not only one time. And I asked my teammates how do they feel and told me the same (I didn't told them how I felt).

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Joshua Naterman

I agree triangle, sometimes you just have to wait and see to have a definitive answer.

In the meantime, it never hurts to test on yourself! I'd think that at really high protein intakes, like 2g/lb BW, that there might be diminishing returns or no effect at all, but 1g/bodyweight isn't all that much. Even at my size, that's only 3 8oz chicken breasts plus two single scoop protein shakes. That's not even accounting for vegetable protein or milk(if you drink milk)! I always laugh when I think about it that way. I feel a lot better when I'm doing that, at the very least. Even then the BCAA seems to help since, like research appears to indicate, BCAAs are not kept around very long when they aren't needed. So if you took like 3 scoops of whey or something before AND after your workout, you'd probably get less or no extra effect from the BCAA, but without that level of protein intake during the time of need, daily protein intake has no influence on bcaa levels! This assumes that the literature is correct, which I think is fairly safe in this case. We're talking about some established phenomena, as far as the usage of BCAA in the body.

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Can you recommend a particular brand? I'm required to train 8+ hours a day (though 4 hours of that is meditation, taijiquan, and qigong) 5 days a week, plus a half day on saturday. Recovery is a major issue for me and I'm interested in trying anything that helps!

Zach

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Can you recommend a particular brand? I'm required to train 8+ hours a day (though 4 hours of that is meditation, taijiquan, and qigong) 5 days a week, plus a half day on saturday. Recovery is a major issue for me and I'm interested in trying anything that helps!

Zach

Shaolin monk spotted?

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Haha, a little more westernized than that. I lived a normal middle class upbringing in the US, went to college, got a job, became disillusioned with the corporate consumer lifestyle, and almost a year ago, at age 22, became a student in a 10 year traditional Chinese martial arts training program, located on a mountain in the middle of no where in Humboldt County, CA.

http://ymaa-retreatcenter.org

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Eat more food? Is that possible? I imagine your sleep time is regulated so you can't really change it much unless you can sneak in a nap.

Very interesting as I've heard of that place before once in passing.

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Really? Where did you hear of it? We are so isolated from the world, it always feels like no one knows we exist. It's nice when people have heard of us. I try to eat as much as I can, and definitely need more sleep than I get. In addition to Taiji, Meditation, Qigong, and external martial arts, we also are required to study mandarin, work on producing educational dvds, practice music, write articles for martial arts magazines, etc. I also have a job in san francisco for which I work remotely, so I'm pretty ridiculously busy. The required training takes about 50 hours a week, and the other stuff consumes pretty much every other waking hour. I'm lucky if i can get to sleep at 930, and we have to wake up at 530. 8 hours doesn't feel like enough rest for this level of exertion

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I've heard of Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming before. My interests are pretty varied and not only gymnastics. :wink:

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Ah, cool. Well, visitors here are always welcome. We have guests very frequently, people who come for a few days or more to enjoy the scenic, remote, quiet peace and train qigong or taijiquan. You should come, you're not so far away =). We train some tumbling and I use BtGB for strength conditioning, and we'd greatly appreciate your knowledge and coaching!

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Hmm, I will have to think on this perhaps in the off-season. I'd love to try some of the soft internal styles. A long time ago I bought some books on Hsing-I and Pa'kua & Chi Kung besides other kung fu styles since I trained in other Chinese arts and liked to play with them.

What I do can be similar at times. Hmm. Thankyou. :P

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Charles Weill
Lyle McDonald is doing an article series now on supplements.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle ... art-1.html

Lyle McDonald is doing an article series now on supplements.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle ... art-1.html

Damn it, I just spent all this money on magnezium/zinc supplements and they all contain magnesium oxide (which is not absorbed as well as magnesium citrate). Each pill has 120mg of magnesium and 9mg of zinc. The box says to only take 1 per day and not more (it's french). Can I take 2/day since I workout about 6 hours/week, despite the label saying to only take 1?

(I'm not seeking medical advise here from you so I hereby release you from all liability :wink: )

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Guest Ido Portal

Damn it, I just spent all this money on magnezium/zinc supplements and they all contain magnesium oxide (which is not absorbed as well as magnesium citrate). Each pill has 120mg of magnesium and 9mg of zinc. The box says to only take 1 per day and not more (it's french). Can I take 2/day since I workout about 6 hours/week, despite the label saying to only take 1?

Actually, Magnesium Citrate is not good either. Get another Chelated Mangesium product, like Glycinate, or better yet, a multipile type magnesium product. (Each amino has better afinity to different tissues in the body)

I am not a fan of Lyle McDonald's supplementation recommendations. Neither like his dietary advice.

Ido.

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Charles Weill
1.Some things are basic and should be used by most if not all people:

Chelated Mag (up to 2000mg a day for male athlete adult), Chelated Zinc (30mg), Quality Fish Oil(1 gr per each percent body fat you have), PWO Whey/Casein + glutamine + Glycine, Vit-C (1-3 gr a day), quality multi vit, etc..

Hey Ido,

You seem to have a lot of good knowledge about supplement and their quality. I would greatly appreciate it (and I am sure others will too) if you could list the brands of the supplements you currently use, or recommend. I know that you recommend Poliquin's Chelated Magnesium and fish oil. What about Whey proteins and Caseins for PWO shakes? Zinc sources?

Thanks to all the forum members who listed their own product recommendations too. I just got my first shipment of Poliquin Fish oil today. I'm happy.

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Guest Ido Portal

I havent got around to posting my general supplementation recommendation, but I will do that soon.

For protein powder, I advice you to get only new zealandic whey/casein protein. Their grass fad cows means you get a superior product. Many brands use this type of protein, and you can choose your own. (You can also type 'new zealand whey' into ebay and buy in bulk)

As for the type of whey or if casein is better, I do not know if any of you are aware, but recent findings are starting to show no supporiority to whey, on the contrary, as compared to Casein. Right now, any one of those is a good bet, as for the best options, science has not said the last word about this.

Ido.

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Charles Weill

Thanks a bunch Ido. I will look into the New Zealand whey. Do you think Hobbits raise the cows?

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Joshua Naterman
Thanks a bunch Ido. I will look into the New Zealand whey. Do you think Hobbits raise the cows?

LOL! Apparently the last hobbits died generations ago, if you listen to Indonesian folk lore. Anthropologists thought they were crazy until they found a small island with lots of hobbit-sized fossils, around 20,000 years old. So, it's not completely out of the question! :P

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I do not live in New Zealand, yet. However, when I take over that country I will personally raise cows and live on that piece of land and longhouse they built for Edoras of Rohan.

On another anthropological note is they have remnants of another branch of homo in Siberia, I think. I will laugh if they turn out to be similar to elves.

Back to our regular scheduled discussion, now.

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Alvaro Antolinez

Actually if you see a pic of the tribes that live in that area right now you can see that they arent taller than 1,60 m on average so maybe they didnt extint, they mixed with the other tribes some how ( is more fun mixing than dissapearing isnt it? :wink: )

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Joshua Naterman

It's possible, the SE Asians are small in general. It would be pretty funny if it was determined that they loved hobbits. Literally.

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irongymnast

Well this is something I don't understand.

I thought that most people interested in gymnastics and real strength conditioning would be purists and not jump on the 'supplements' bandwagon.

It's quite a surprise to me that some people are following a strict Paleo diet, yet they also take supplements.

I don't know anything about supplements, the only thing I know is that I don't want to try/take any of those and that it scares me as hell. Also, in my opinion, sports training should be without supplements of any kind.

Well I know that if your target is to compete in international competitions you would be forced to take what the others are taking, because you can't really compete against other athletes when everybody is doing it. That's what athletes have become now. They're getting crushed in the gears of the sports companies/competitions/sport business.

I think everyone should just stop doing it and limit themselves to just what they can eat. If you can't get more performance from natural food then maybe you're not meant to do it. I believe that there's some reason that your organism prevents you from taking more than a specific amount of food or protein or whatever. Getting sick functions as an alert.

But the whole discussion on supplements reminds me of the BB world and actually saddens me. I would prefer everyone just competing with their natural strengths. Personally I would prefer to delay my progress by as much as required than take any supplements.

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I used to think that.

But now I abide by the eat real food + supplement stuff that you normally cannot get much of in your diet.

If you're high lattitudes vitamin D during the winter (or stay indoors a lot like me). If you can't get grass fed meat, you should do fish oil. Still stay away from processed foods, but grain fed meat has bad omega 3 ratios.

Maybe some other stuff.. but I fully believe in milk PWO over most other stuff.

I mean, supplements aren't EVIL. They're supposed to be a SUPPLEMENT to training and nutrition -- not replace them.

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