Supplements for Elites

CatSpin

Racers who train hard, race fast and need to recover quckly...what do you take?


No comments about doping please, but if you fit the description above, I am trying to open a string that lists and debates the benefits of some of the supplements heralded beneficial by some cycling books and other manufacturers in the market. My latest research leads me to the following:


Multivitamins Strong in B's - General vits and minerals
Calcium and Magnesium - to prevent cramping
HMB and Tonalin - Lean muscle mass strength and support
Endurox R4 and Glutamine Peptides - Recovery
Whey Protein Shakes - recovery


but there are some other products such as,

Optigen - Oxygen intake booster
Ribose - sugar for training?
CMTs

....any good word on these?


Any fellow racers willing to discuss their "magic potions", lets here the good and bad experiences you have or had with supplements.



Tired of claims and looking for some good feedback,


CatSpin


PS - You either believe in taking supplement or you don't. If you don't please reserve your "no comments" to allow for room for an open discussion for athletes who feel that their performance will benefit with supplements.

PPS - Colnago posted a similar thread a couple of months ago but got no responses...hoping for better luck here.

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velomanct

i drink endurox R4 after hard rides. i also drink a whey protein drink every day(about 2 servings a day, total 44grams of potein)
i started the protein drink thing because i was always sore. right now, i only do 2 "hard" days a week, the rest are easy, but i am still sore quite often. bottem line for me is, i really really suck at muscle recovery. i try to get in a good amount of meat too. well, this coming week is a rest week for me, that should help.
i am a cat 3 racer. as you can imagine i do horrible at stage races.
i hear of riders training hard 5 days a week, i have no clue how they do it, i wish i could.
also, i have tired athlete octane but found that the benifit was too small to be worth it. actuallyi am not sure if it helped me at all.

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patch70

I take a multivitamin and, after a hard ride, I will have a whey protein drink.
I think most of the benefit is in believing that they help...

jookey

I used to take smartfuel's recovery drink after hard rides with decent results. we used to get a good deal since they were a club sponsor. this year the squad is going to endurox. i also take a multivitamin each day along with a calcium, magnesium and zinc supplement. I'm rarely sore. Sometimes the legs are tired, but sore isn't really an issue.

CatSpin

Thanks for your input members.

I was working with a sports nutritionist who has also chimed in with his menu:

1 multi a day strong in B's - 2 during harder months – for training and racing

HMB - long term muscle benefits – for training and racing

CMZ - calcium, magnesium and zinc – for training and racing

Tonalin/CLA - lean muscle mass support – training and weight loss need only.

R4 with additional *Glutamine Peptides - *he was quick to point out that R4 has nowhere near enough glutamine to help the muscles recover. I had to get some additional glutamine power peptides then add them, serving size per serving size, into the R4 container. – for hard training and racing recovery

Whey protein to boost protein intake to .9 grams per pound of body weight. The nutritionist was also quick to state that Whey is not a "supplement" per se, but a food, and should be counted as a meal. PS - I mix the Strawberry Designer Whey (got to have ion exchanged whey) with water to keep the calorie count down. – every day, twice a day.

These with lots for rest, stretching a well-balanced athlete's diet is what he suggested to ensure my nutrition is up to snuff. As for the training and winning, he said, "That's up to you."

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bengibbs

I use creatine with a protein drink. Helps build muscle and helps recovery aswell.

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taras0000

I've tried arginine supplementation as well, and it has worked wonders for my recovery. Seems that if you go with a decent brand, results are almost guaranteed. I go with NO2. I noticed quicker recovery after heavy weightlifitng workouts, and dramatically reduced hangovers while on the supplement.

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Lasalles

Great thread,i was thinking the same as ive been doing some good kms for afew weeks now and my leg muscles are always sore,and leave me doing training rides at a slow average speed.
Ive read on bodybuilding forums that HMB=Horse Manure Bullc*@p.
I havent used Whey Protein Isolate in afew weeks but will start again after a long ride(mixed with water not milk) in the hope it helps my legs recover faster.
Also in the latest cycling mag in Oz there is an article on Ribose,claiming it to be good but expensive.

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ric_stern/RST

1 to 1.5 g carbohydrate per kg body mass after a ride with a small amount of protein (maybe 10 grams)



most of the stuff doesn't work



there's some evidence to support the idea of extra antioxidants after training (vits C, E, etc)

you shouldn't really need to take any extra vitamins and minerals, they should be consumed as part of the food you eat (there's a greater requirement for very hard training people to take more vits and mins, but this should be covered with the extra food they eat). however, i sometimes suggest a 100% multi vit and a multi min tablet as 'insurance' (but you'd have to eat a really crap diet to not get everything you need from food).

HMB has no good evidence. no idea what tonalin is. R4 has poor evidence to support it, and it's only the same as most mixed foods

there's no evidence that taking in extra whey/protein/amino is beneficial above the normal recommended amount (usually 1.2 to 1.6 g per kg body mass per day). you'd need a very bizarre diet to not meet this (e.g. you just ate sugar or oil or something else ridiculous)



not sure what CMTs are? there's no evidence yet for Optygen, but there is for one of it's ingredients (sodium phosphate) see http://cyclecoach.com/articles/?art...phates&ext=.htm (but from memory the quantity of phosphate in Optygen is nowhere the same as in the study referenced)



probably best to just eat a good diet ensuring you consume the correct quantities of the various macronutrients for your energy levels. maybe some sodium phosphate for special events (or bicarbonate if you compete in short events < 10-mins), some caffeine and ensuring you are adequately fed and hydrated during training and racing.

ric

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Daniel.lloyd

What rubbish!!! I hate it when I hear or read someone say that you get everything you need from a well rounded diet, it's completely and utterly wrong. Firstly, it is extremely hard to meet the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of some vitamins through a modern 'well rounded' diet. Secondly, RDA's are made for sedentary people and not athlete's, who use significantly more fuel of every kind, and that extends from carbohydrates and proteins right down to essential vitamins and minerals. Thirdly, the RDA standard is extremely flawed, and even the people who made the RDA tables have admitted that they don't equate to an idel diet. It is the same in the USA and Britain, although I'm not sure on other countries.

The reason it is so hard to get all the nutrients and vitamins you need from a diet full of fruit and vegetables is that the soil that crops are grown in now are so over-farmed and cultivated that only a fraction of nutrients are found in modern foods when compared to foods from 50 years or so ago. Organic foods are better but still not enough for a serious athlete.

I'll give one example - the RDA for potassium in America is 3.5g per day for males, but the average intake is only 2.5g. And remember, that is for sedentary people - atheletes use a massive amount more of not just potassium, but every trace element.

The reason most studies (I know how much you like your studies Ric) don't show any benifit from taking vitamins is because they aren't run over a long enough period, which would take too much money and resources. Anything shorter than 3 months would be useless - your blood blood supply is replaced completely in this amount of time, and most of the cells in your muscles are replaced every 6 months. Good blood is one of THE MOST CRITICAL aspects to performance in sports, so if you want to excel you should take every step possible to ensure your body has the materials it needs to make it.

So the long and short of it is (in my opinion), that everyone, especially atheletes, should take vitamin and mineral supplements if they don't want to be at a disadvantage. BUT, don't expect to start taking a pill and find an improved performance this time next week - vitamins need to be taken day in, day out for months so that your body can use them to create stronger muscles and healthier blood. And don't forget that vitamins and minerals work in synergy with each other. So supplementing with excessive amounts of single vitamins won't do you any good.

I also wouldn't adovate the use of sodium phosphate - it definitely gives a short term performance enhancing effect, to new users, but the effect fades significantly with multiple uses due to the fact that your body learns to neutralise the non-physiological effects.

I would also contest that getting 1.6g/kg body weight of protein is quite hard - thats the equivalent of 8 tins of tuna for a 70kg male!!!! You also need to realise that different protein sources vary a lot in terms of their respective biological value (i.e. how useful they are to the human body). So supplementing with a good whey protein (the highest biological value protein you can get) would be very benificial, and there are studies to prove this (R Sadler, 1992, amonst others).

ric_stern/RST

perhaps you need to reread what i wrote? It is not extremely hard to meet the RDA with a normal diet, maybe it is if you eat crap all the time, but not with a good 'athletic' diet.

I did say that athletes have a greater than 100% RDA need. and that athletes should ensure that they take in the correct amount of macronutrients to meet their energy demands.

so, if, we are all short of the RDA as you are proposing because a normal diet isn't sufficient, why are doctors not inundated with people severely deficient in various micronutrients? i can't think of anyone i know, vaguely know, heard of, or anything remotely similar who is or was deficient in micronutrients. (correction, i know a couple of people who were anorexic and they were, but as they weren't eating i'm not really counting them).



is there something wrong with studies, research and science, or do you just like to invent data?




good blood is one of the most critical aspects to performance? what does that mean? i'd heard that at one point lots of sports people had really bad blood full of Epo, but they had really good performance.



back to my firstish point, if were all deficient (or those who don't take a supplement are deficient) then why aren't we all ill? i don't recall having scurvy or ricketts etc recently.



do you work for a 'vitamin' company?




that's stated in my article -- around four times per year maximum, although no one has any idea whether the effects disappear, it's more a concern with health matters.



do you contest everything?



i don't know what diet you eat, but it'd have to be bizarre to not reach these limits. it's well known, that the majority of people (athletic and sedentary) meet and exceed the requirements for protein in abundance. even (myself) as a vegetarian i meet and exceed this requirement. i can imagine that vegan athletes would have to have a good think about their diet to ensure they met it, and i suspect that Fruitarian's would have a problem, but i've never heard of a fruitarian athlete.

ric

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tomUK

I am with Ric on this one.

There is not one instance I can recall of someone suffering a vitamin deficiency. Personally, I think the Vitamin industry was created out of fear. You can make any product sound like it is doing you some good. Surely 5 pints of beer every night has some benefit - it helps induce sleep!

Come now - If the vitamin industry went out of business tomorrow I don't think we would be a far less healthy nation for it! (maybe far richer).

Besides, any sedentary adult that is 'needing' to supplement their diet is surely eating burgers, fries and apple fritters too often.

Cipher

I am an advocate of a good multi-vitamin, (taken in the morning)and also take an antioxidant formula. (Vits. A, E, C and Minerals - zinc, copper, etc. in the evening with dinner). I have an issue with your average store bought supplements. From what I have read, the cheap 'one-a-day' type vitamins are next to impossible for your body to assimilate, their by rendering them useless as your body gets little or no benefit from taking them.

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Daniel.lloyd

Just because people aren't falling over themselves turning into cripples with diseases left, right, and centre, does not mean to say that we (especially we as athletes) are consuming the optimum level of vitamins and minerals. Your body accomodates for what it is fed, and it may still seem to be running OK, even if it could potentially be running a lot better. Even doctor's don't have any means to accurately measure macronutrient sufficiancy in the body. There are very few reliable tests of adequate nutritional status, and none at all of optimum nutritional status, except for extremely complicated and expensive biopsy procedures. Tests using blood or urine as indicators are inaccurate as nutrients function primarily intracellularly, and therefore concentrations in cells and organs are multiple times more than in the blood. So really, the only way to test whether or not your body is working as efficiently as it could be, you need to perform long-term measurement of health and performance with and without supplementation (as I mentioned before, this should be for at least 3 months and preferably over 6).

Also, studies in Britain in 1999 showed that even with a well rounded diet, the average person wasn't getting the RDI of Magnesium or potassium (amongst other nutrients I forget), showing that it is harder than you think to achieve even the low standards of the RDI.



I think you need to reread what I wrote? I don't see where I said there was anything wrong with studies?




The reason blood doping is so abundant in modern sports is because scientists have found it to have the greatest effect of performance. This is because it is your blood which carries around the oxygen that your working muscles need. Now, I am completely against doping of any sorts, but if you don't realise how important 'good' blood is to athletes, then you are either ignorant or misinformed. By good blood, I mean that by supplementing with the correct amount of nutrients and vitamins you personally need, you can increase the amount of hematopoietic nutrients in the blood. This has been proven (in studies) to lead to an increase in VO2 max and therefore boost performance in endurance athletes.



As I just said, being slightly deficient in various macronutrients may not show pronounced effects in the short term, but who is to say that the bad modern diet isn't what is causing the increased amounts of cancers in our society (to give one example)?



No, I'm a full time athelete.



No more so than your good self my dear man.