Supplements

A brief overview into supplements.

It can be hard to tell what supplement is really required in this day and age of ‘optimisation’.
Let me break it to you now – 99% of supplements aren’t required to make progress and are pushed by sponsorships and marketing companies. If you haven’t already – optimising your micronutrient intake through fruits and vegetables, moderating your intake of the main macronutrients and optimising sleep and hydration will produce much better results than any supplements could.

In this short piece, I’ll outline what supplements are scientifically proven to make a difference – and what supplements are absolute Fugazi.

Recommended supplements:

Creatinine

• One of, if not, the most researched supplement in the world.
  How it works is quite simple. It’s largely concentrated in muscle fibres as phosphocreatine (creatinine + a phosphate molecule). When ATP – the main energy currency used by our bodies – is utilised by our mitochondria, it is broken down into ADP. The phosphocreatine helps to quickly convert the ADP back into ATP.
  What this essentially means is that you have greater ATP (re)generation which translates across to more reps being performed in the gym.
  We know that muscle grows in response to ‘mechanical tension’, and this can come in the form of weight used x number of reps. So, the more reps we manage with our target weight, the greater the growth.

• One of the downsides of creatine is that it is quite dehydrating. As it is taken in by our muscles, it effectively creates an osmotic gradient and drags water into the muscle too (hence why your muscles can look more ‘plump’ when taking daily creatine). As a result, it is important to stay hydrated and drink plenty throughout the day.

• There are some questions over its use in people with kidney disease (for the above reason and the kidneys needing a good blood supply to function).
  Also, a marker of kidney function is Creatinine clearance (CrCl) and if you have more creatinine floating around in your blood (from greater creatine intake), then this can also skew results. However, there hasn’t been enough large-scale research done to confidently say any harm to the kidneys occur as a result of creatine intake at this point in time.

• We used to think that creatine required a ‘loading period’ but we are now finding that this isn’t the case. Consuming 3-5g/day has pretty much the effects, albeit it might take a bit longer to reach maximal storage levels.

Protein powders

• Fairly self-explanatory and requirements will vary from person to person but the only time I’d recommend taking protein shakes is if you can’t hit your daily protein target for any reason.

• Everyone should try and reach their protein targets through whole foods in my opinion. Yes – protein powder is essentially from whey – a side-product of milk – so isn’t intrinsically bad - but the more whole foods we have, the better. I said what I said!

Vitamins – D, C

• Everyone should be taking vitamin D – especially in the winter. So much research showing the importance of vitamin D for bodily functions – bone health, mental health/depression risk, immune health etc.

• Likewise for vitamin C – immune health, anti-oxidant roles etc

Magnesium (+/- zinc, iron)

• Magnesium is a vitamin that not many people supplement with – but probably should. A recent study showed up to 50% of Americans being deficient in magnesium.
  Supports bone/muscle synthesis, anti-inflammatory properties, energy production, aids with sleep and female hormones, good for the cardiovascular system and high blood pressure etc.

Omega 3/fish oil

• It’s recommended to have at least 1x oily fish portion a week but if this isn’t possible – omega 3 might be your friend. The highest concentrations of omega 3 are found in the eyes and the brain. Studies have found improvements in brain and heart health with regular supplementation.

Electrolytes and energy gels

• A key part of any endurance training. Salt has been largely demonised by the food industry and, yes, too high a consumption increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. But if you are training for long, intense periods on a regular basis - you need salt replacement. NO water in our bodies is found as pure water - it’s always found with other electrolytes and solutes within it.
  If you are sweating and losing electrolytes, and you replace this will just pure water, you will worsen things by diluting the little salts you have left.

• Pre workout electrolytes act as a plasma volume expander and give you larger reserves for performance - aka you have a larger buffer to sweat and lose water/salts before performance takes a hit. Intra and post-workout electrolytes will help to replace losses and keep your body performing at a high level.

• The same goes with energy gels - if you are training for 1+ hours (common in things like marathon training where long runs can take upwards of 2-3hours), you need to be supplementing the glycogen/glucose stores you are burning up to stop you from hitting the wall. The last thing we want is your energy stores being depleted before your cardiovascular system is adequately trained.

• So this section is probably the only requirement in terms of supplements - only if you engage in endurance sports.

Not required:

-       BCAAs

-       Pre-workouts

-       Pumps – vasodilators with nitric oxide  

BCAAs, or branched chain amino acids, are largely metabolised in muscle. The three BCAAs leucine, valine and isoleucine – consist of 3 out of 9 essential amino acids (as our bodies can’t make them but must get them from food). However, the evidence that they play a crucial part in muscle synthesis is very sparse. If you have a healthy intake of protein, investing money in BCAAs is a waste and completely unnecessary as whole sources of protein will contain all BCAAs required for muscle synthesis.

Pre-workouts – along with giving you a weird tingly sensation (thanks to B-alanine) are an absolute farce. The only ingredients you need for more energy and a good workout are 1. A good night’s sleep and 2. Caffeine (which is the main active ingredient in pre-workout). Everything else is chemical junk that is unnecessary.

Finally, a lot of influencers advertise an ‘endo-pump’ type product which essentially contains vasodilators to give you a better pump post workout. Although superficially this can look and feel nice, it’s completely unneeded. Having some salt pre-workout does a similar thing by increasing water retention. Artificially increasing vasodilation of your veins just doesn’t sit right with me personally – your body will do this as and when required to increase surface blood flow and cool the core body temperature down.

 Conclusion

So there we have it!
Most things are not needed. The few things that are needed, as listed in the introduction, are the absolute basics.
Nothing replaces a hard training session, nothing replaces good sleep, nothing replaces general intuition.
If anyone pushes a product as ‘absolutely necessary’, you know that’s a red flag right there.
So stay educated and informed - your body is special and what you put into it should be carefully considered.

If you have any questions, my emails and instagram DMs are always open.
With confidence,

Sunny

“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” –  Hippocrates

“The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” – Ann Wigmore