BY MICHAEL JOHNSEN
Obtaining the physique of a professional athlete, from the rippling abs to the bulging biceps, is something that most of us can only dream about as we flex our muscles in front of a foggy mirror after a morning shower. Professional athletes achieve those physiques through rigorous adherence to a controlled diet and several hours per day in training.
For the rest of us, there’s the sports nutrition aisle in our local drug store (and an hour or more per day at the local gym). “To optimize the performance of an athlete, there’s a fine line between undertraining and overtraining; and nutrition, and particularly meal timing, really augments the effects of optimized training performance,” said Richard Kreider, the head and Tom and Joan Read endowed chair for the department of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University and editor in chief of the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.
And that’s where sports nutrition plays a role—supplementing the diet of an athlete (aka a “weekend warrior”) to optimize performance before, during and after an event or workout, Kreider told attendees of last month’s Drug Store News Vitamin, Mineral and Supplement summit—part of the magazine’s ongoing Pharmacy Development Series. “This is what most of the products in the supplement industry are focused on— how do we get people to train better. Additionally, how do they recover better so that they can optimize [their workouts]?” he said.
“If you can get your retailers to focus on [the following] general guidelines for nutrition, you’ll be able to help most of your consumers,” Kreider said. The guidelines include eating smaller meals more often; taking in between 50 percent and 65 percent of a person’s daily calorie allowance through carbohydrates, which equates to between 5 grams and 8 grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight per day, or between 400 grams and 650 grams of carbohydrates per day for a person weighing in at 180 pounds; and taking in between 15 percent and 20 percent of a person’s
dailies in the form of protein, or between 80 grams and 125 grams of protein per day for a person tipping the scales at 180 pounds.
“Generally, if you’re just involved with light training—[working out] two to three times per week—you really don’t need much more protein in your diet,” he said.
Two of the most convenient sources for those carbs and protein are sports nutrition drinks and meal
what they’re allowed to do,” he advised. At the collegiate level, Kreider said, the National Collegiate Athletic Association allows college athletic programs to provide sports nutrition drinks and meal replacement bars, for example, but only to educate athletes on appropriate supplementation. The athletes have to supplement on their own. “In the sports nutrition arena, there are basically the following types of supple-
amounts of essential amino acids and different digestion rates, they can be used at different times to optimize anabolic response or prevent catabolism,” he explained.
Whey protein is considered the best protein because it’s quickly metabolized by the body. But other proteins, particularly casein protein (found in milk), are particularly good to take before bed because they help build muscle overnight.
replacement bars, Kreider added.
Sports drinks are important for another reason, he said, in that they help maintain hydration. “If you lose 2 percent of your body fluids [during a workout], your performance is going to go down 50 percent to 60 percent,” Kreider explained. “So the biggest thing you can do to enhance performance is to maintain hydration. That’s why you should be selling lots of sports drinks and fluids to athletes as they get done working out.”
To get a better idea of the amount of fluids you should be drinking during a workout, Kreider suggested weighing in before and after each workout. For each pound lost during a heavy workout, a person should add at least 3 cups of water or a sports drink to his or her regimen.
There are also several supplements available on the market conducive to reaching one of three goals for athletes: weight gain, weight loss and legal performance enhancement (i.e., products that have not been banned by any collegiate or Olympic programs). “At these [levels], even high school athletes, there are restrictions. So you have to be aware of what the local community [standards are] and
Various sports nutrition supplements can be used for weight gain, weight loss and performance enhancement.
ments out there: convenience nutrition, which makes up the bulk of this category, [including] meal replacements, ready-to-drink supplements, bars and sports drinks; ... weight-gaining-type supplements that are carbohydrate/protein powders; [and] ... a whole host of weight-loss supplements [and] performance-enhance-ment supplements.”
For people interested in gaining weight and muscle mass, for example, appropriate supplements include protein, essential amino acids, creatine and HMB ( beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate).
With regard to protein, Kreider said, there are some points of differentiation between different types of protein. “Because they have different
Essential amino acids are also important—taking between 3 grams and 6 grams of them after a workout helps drive protein synthesis, Kreider said. Supplementing with between 1. 5 grams and 3 grams of HMB inhibits protein degradation, he added. And creatine helps enhance glycogen synthesis, which leads to an increased work capacity and greater training tolerance. “Creatine is still the best supplement out there to increase muscle strength and performance in strength-type athletes,” Kreider noted.
Athletes who are interested in legally enhancing their performance through nutritional supplements ought to consider consuming more carbohydrates, creatine and caffeine.
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