Supplements for Elites

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.

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...

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.

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."

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

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.

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.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CatSpin
[B]Racers who train hard, race fast and need to recover quckly...what do you take?
[/quote]

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

Quoted post said:

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:

Quoted post said:

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

Quoted post said:

but there are some other products such as,

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

....any good word on these?

Quoted post said:

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

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
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 [censored] 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/?article=Phosphates&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

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).

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Daniel.lloyd
[B]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.
[/quote]

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 [censored] 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).

Quoted post said:

The reason most studies (I know how much you like your studies Ric)

Quoted post said:

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.

Quoted post said:

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.

Quoted post said:

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.

Quoted post said:

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.

Quoted post said:

I would also contest

Quoted post said:

that getting 1.6g/kg body weight of protein is quite hard - thats the equivalent of 8 tins of tuna for a 70kg male!!!!

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.

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 [FONT=times new roman]'one-a-day'[/FONT] 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.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
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 [censored] 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).

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.

Quoted post said:

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

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

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
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.

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.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
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.

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)?

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
do you work for a 'vitamin' company?

No, I'm a full time athelete.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
do you contest everything?

No more so than your good self my dear man.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by 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

I snipped *lots of stuff* that Daniel wrote

Anyway, perhaps a good read of this article might help as you obviously aren't interested in anything i say: http://ipsapp002.lwwonline.com/content/getfile/2320/1324/1/fulltext.pdf (hope that link works!)

anyway, this is the ACSM current recommendation by the leading scientists in this area of sport and nutrition.

for those that don't want to wade through the 16 pages of text, this quote is quite useful "Athletes will not need vitamin and mineral supplements if adequate energy to maintain body
weight is consumed from a variety of foods. "

Ric

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ricstern
I snipped *lots of stuff* that Daniel wrote

Anyway, perhaps a good read of this article might help as you obviously aren't interested in anything i say: http://ipsapp002.lwwonline.com/content/getfile/2320/1324/1/fulltext.pdf (hope that link works!)

anyway, this is the ACSM current recommendation by the leading scientists in this area of sport and nutrition.


for those that don't want to wade through the 16 pages of text, this quote is quite useful "Athletes will not need vitamin and mineral supplements if adequate energy to maintain body
weight is consumed from a variety of foods. "

Ric

The link doesn't work, you need to be a member to view it - any chance you could copy and paste it and send it to me in an email? I'd be interested tin reading it. - [email hidden]

Thanks, Daniel.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Daniel.lloyd
The link doesn't work, you need to be a member to view it - any chance you could copy and paste it and send it to me in an email? I'd be interested tin reading it. - [email hidden]

Thanks, Daniel.

you don't need to be a member to read it (as far as i'm aware, as i'm not). unless it's just enter your email address type member thing. anyway, failing that, just go the med sci web site http://www.ms-se.com/ and click "position stands" and you should be able to get to it from there.

ric

Wow...look what I started.

Just kidding members. In an effort to refocus, below is a reprint of the original postscript I left on Post #1.

-------------------

"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."

----------------------

While not to discourage the debate, "to take supplements or not", this post was designed to solicit feedback from athletes who are convinced that they do help. That being said, a summary of supplements entertained in this thread is:

Originally posted/questioned by CatSpin

Multivitamins
Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc
HMB
Endurox R4 or similar product
Gluatmine
Whey Protein Shakes

Members added the following:

Creatine / Creatine Serum
Sodium Phosphate
Arginine

Seems like this is a good list for me and other members (perhaps) to start researching. While, in theory, obtaining all such nutrients from food would be optimal, practice makes it very difficult. Fair to say that such supplements are short-cuts for perfect nutrition but when a nice leafy green veggie is not available nor the leanest cut of chicken is on your plate, I would argue that supplements do have there place in both the part-time and full-time athlete's diet.

The reason for this post was to continue to research this "list" of frequently discussed supplements for cyclists. This list should have not been viewed as NEW from anyone racing or training hard. Carmichael, Burke and Friel have written about these supplements at one time or another in their literature...if so, then why. My guess is that they do have an effect on the body of a cycling athlete.

If you would like to add one that this post may have missed, please continue to reply.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by CatSpin
Wow...look what I started.

Just kidding members. In an effort to refocus, below is a reprint of the original postscript I left on Post #1.

-------------------

While not to discourage the debate, "to take supplements or not", this post was designed to solicit feedback from athletes who are convinced that they do help.

often, it's very difficult to know if they *actually* helped. with a substance that causes a huge gain in performance (e.g. rhEpo) the actual magnitude of increase in performance is only ~ 10%. generally, with some of the other ergogenic aids the gains are much smaller. thus, without carefully controlled randomised, placebo, double blind crossover studies you just aren't going to know... most of the research on the above list shows no ergogenic benefit to these substances.

off your list you missed
caffiene, sodium bicarbonate, carbohydrates

off the top of my head, the three above, plus phosphate, electrolyte-carb drinks, creatine for sprint events only (and even then the data is pretty equivocal) are ergogenic. i've probably missed something, but, hey it's late!

Ric

Greetings,

I love this topic alot. Not only do we get some interesting information from people, but we also get alot of opinion making as well. I have been racing for seven years, and as that might not be alot for many, I like most have tried alot of things to ingest. None I can say have ever been illegal performance enhancers, because I believe that if you need something like that your in for alot of bad reputation for the rest of your life. Besides being a "doper" makes you rely on that paticular drug, and I do follow UCI's doping regulations even though I am not a pro licensed rider. Anywho, I have tried Optygen, Endurox, Creatine, Protein supplements, multivitamin double dosings (I was in the counter culture of taking certain minerals and vitamins more than the RDA), you name it I have invested in it. But through it all I have found one thing that I didn't invest in; the sole confidence of how my body truely performs. I do believe in the etiquette of working your ass off on your bike. Believe it or not, most of you can attest to this, pain is something we feel at certain times on the bike. Devouring one's pain threshhold demands hours on the bike. For some it is easy because there pain tolerance is quite high compared to most, and others are psychologically stronger than others (another key factor in racing as I have found).

Proper diet can be achieved, it isn't far fetched of a concept. I agree with Ric on this factor. foods like vegetables, whole grains (yes whole wheat you white bread consumers), fish, flax seed and legumes have everything the body needs. We do get more benefits from foods that are not biproducts, that is a fact of life. In fact I don't eat bread at all, I add whole wheat milled bran to just about every meal I have, yes just the ground bran. I have been tackling this problem and have been a very hardcore advocate with this topic because I feel people don't stick to their "good ways" when it comes to eating. My biggest advice to anyone is to cook for yourself, never eat out or let someone cook for you. That may sound harsh when you have to go to your inlaws for dinner, but then you will actually know what is in your food. I cook all the time because I want the things that I eat to be as "Natural and Nutrional" for my body and I don't want additives that my body doesn't need.

Probablly the biggest way to find out what we lack through our eating is to get your dieting analyzed. I have the benefit of having diet analysis programs available because I am a college student. Most of you would have to go to a dietician or better yet contact a college to see if you could be analyzed as part of a student's study. From the program I am able to find out what minerals and vitamins I consume and what needs to be upped. To find out truely what you lack in, you must do this. You will only be wasting your money in supplements you don't need. And what about if I want to eat something different than what I analyzed? Get used to eating what works and then you won't have to worry about eating other things, afterall, we are sticklers to have a workout plan, why not having an eating plan?

Now vitamins, do they really get used by the body? We all know that what when we ingest something it gets absorbed but how much? Only what the body needs or lacks, meaning you have to get a analysis of your diet 🙂 . Anything the body doesn't need it flushes out, and anything the body can't digest will get extracted. To check and see if any pill you consume is digested by the body, do this: Place vinegar in a glass and drop your test pill into it. If it starts to disolve and can be disolved completely, that means that the pill can be broken down by the body's enzymes. Not many people know of this and if you do I apologize for the inofrmation. But if you really believe a multivitamin or any pill works, makes sure you know it can be digested and used instead of being "flushed out", and only speculating that it helps.

That is probably the last thing to say, everything supplement that you believe in or use probably doesn't even work. I can guarantee that only a fraction of what you consume in the form of these so called "wonder pills and powders", are used and consumed by the body. And you know why? Because your body works on its own and when it doesn't need it you expell it through bodily fluids and through fecal matter. So get your diet analyzed and then decide what you need. Then you will be fifty percent on your way to seeing results, the other fifty comes from working your ass off :p

Sincerely,
Matt Miller

P.S. If I offended anyone in anyway shape or form, I sincerely apologize. But if you analyze your diet I can assure you it will offend you more than my words will ever do.