Beyond Basics: Taking Your Supplement Program to a New Level - Part Three

By Steve Born

Steve Born

Steve's decade-plus of involvement in the sports nutrition industry, as well as nearly 15 years of independent research in nutritional fueling and supplementation, has given him unmatched familiarity with the myriad product choices available to athletes.

The first two parts of this series listed and discussed the Hammer Nutrition supplements in the categories VERY IMPORTANT and IMPORTANT, the two tiers to consider after you incorporate the first-level DAILY ESSENTIALS into your supplement program. Now we come to the fourth tier, those products we group under the heading SPECIFIC, which means that these products work best under specific conditions. In fact, under certain circumstances they can become another class of essentials, a sort of “Specific Essential.” Let’s look at these four products – Anti-Fatigue Caps, Race Day Boost, and Energy Surge.

Fourth Tier Supplements: SPECIFIC

» Anti-Fatigue Caps

A major enemy of endurance athletes is the accumulation of excess ammonia, which compromises athletic performance big time. Your body produces ammonia during exercise as a natural by-product of protein metabolism. It doesn't matter what type of exercise you do, aerobic or anaerobic, you will still produce ammonia; it's unavoidable. Problems arise during longer distance efforts (approximately 3-5 hours and beyond) when ammonia accumulates in the blood, and then ends up in muscle tissue. One supplement expert has stated, "Ammonia is toxic to all cells, reduces the formation of glycogen, and inhibits the energy cycle." One study examined the changes in blood ammonia levels in humans during exercise and determined that the higher the blood ammonia, the poorer performance will be.

One way to help prevent excess ammonia accumulation is to use Perpetuem or Sustained Energy as your primary fuels during workouts and races that exceed two or three hours. These supply an adequate of amount of protein to prevent the "cannibalization" of your lean muscle tissue, that is, when your body literally feeds upon itself, metabolizing the protein from lean muscle tissue to satisfy energy requirements. This complicated “amino acids-to-glucose” process produces huge amounts of ammonia as a by-product, which again, is a primary culprit in fatigue. So the first step to preventing fatigue is to prevent muscle cannibalization by using a fuel with the right amount of the right (non-ammonia producing) protein. Use Perpetuem or Sustained Energy and you've got that covered.

During your longer workouts and races, it's an excellent strategy to go beyond that first line of defense and provide your system with additional ammonia-removal support. That's where Anti-Fatigue Caps comes in. It's a one-of-a-kind product combining a potent arsenal of three known ammonia-scavenging nutrients—aspartate, l-citrulline, and OKG.

Now, if all Anti-Fatigue Caps did was aid in the removal of excess ammonia it'd be completely worth it. However, these nutrients do more than that and provide these additional benefits:

• More consistent energy from the conversion and increased production of a key substrate, oxaloacetate.
• Support in the prevention of muscle tissue catabolism from effective, non-ammonia producing glutamine replenishment.
• Additional support for the prevention of cramping, from the aspartate component being chelated to magnesium and potassium.

You wouldn’t need to take Anti-Fatigue Caps daily, but it can be an invaluable ally during major endurance circumstances, such as an extra-long workout, an Iron-distance tri, or to make a great day out of that epic ride. Make sure you have a bottle at hand, even if you only use it infrequently. Stored right, it’s stable for several years.

» Race Day Boost

If you found a supplement that enhanced the functions and performance of your body's three energy production pathways, and also effectively buffered lactic acid, you'd take it, wouldn't you? Race Day Boost is that product—and yes, it's safe and legal! To explain how Race Day Boost can help produce personal best performances, a few basics of molecular-level energy production need to be reviewed.

Our muscles rely on three different energy systems, or metabolic pathways, to produce ATP, the molecule directly responsible for muscle function. We have the ATP-CP system, the lactic acid system, and the oxygen, or aerobic, system. Every muscle fiber has all three of these systems available, utilizing each depending on the length and intensity of exercise.

The first energy system is the ATP-CP (adenosine triphosphate and creatine phosphate) system. ATP is the immediate source of energy for muscle contraction, breaking down to ADP (adenosine diphosphate) as it releases the energy to fire a muscle fiber contraction. This system releases energy very rapidly, but also depletes very rapidly, in just a few seconds of continued effort. It is the energy source used in brief, intense activities such as weightlifting or sprinting. Creatine phosphate, another high-energy compound naturally occurring in all muscle cells, also breaks down, releasing energy as it loses its phosphate group, but unlike ATP, it does not cause muscle contraction. Instead, the phosphate goes to an ADP, converting it back into ATP, thus replenishing the system. The sodium tribasic phosphate (STP) in Race Day Boost supplies phosphate groups used in the re-synthesis of CP and ATP, thus improving the performance of this short-term energy system.

The second energy system is the lactic acid system. A key feature of this system is its relationship with blood pH. Normal blood maintains a slightly alkaline pH of 7.3 to 7.4, optimal for the enzymes that produce energy via the lactic acid energy system. This system uses carbohydrates as fuel, primarily in the form of glycogen stored in the muscles. Our bodies break down muscle glycogen (a process known as glycogenolysis) into glucose, which then undergoes further breakdown via glycolysis. Glycolysis converts sugar to pyruvic acid, releasing energy and creating ATP. Glycolysis occurs with or without the presence of oxygen. At rest, glycolysis occurs at a slower rate sustained by the oxygen you inhale (aerobic glycolysis). As you begin to exercise, the rate of aerobic glycolysis increases. As intensity of exercise increases, aerobic glycolysis becomes inadequate to support energy production and the system switches to anaerobic glycolysis. Through a series of chemical reactions in muscle cells, the formation of lactic acid allows anaerobic glycolysis to continue. However, excess lactic acid accumulates during high intensity efforts, increasing the hydrogen ion concentration within the muscle cells and disrupting the ideal alkaline blood pH. This results in that all-too-familiar "burn" we all hate. Race Day Boost's phosphate salt buffers blood acidity and helps maintain this acid-alkaline balance by neutralizing excess hydrogen ions within the muscle cell. Effectively buffering excess lactic acid allows the lactic acid system to provide energy for a longer time.

Phosphates also aid in improving the third energy system in the body, the oxygen (aerobic) energy system. This system uses primarily carbohydrates and fats to produce ATP, but after 90-120 minutes of sustained exercise, this system starts to chew on protein, with about 5 - 15% of the energy coming from amino acids. The oxygen system can't produce ATP as rapidly as the other two systems, but it does produce greater quantities of ATP. It serves as the primary energy system of aerobic, or "conversational level," athletics. In other words, if you're breathing easily enough that you can talk while you're running or cycling, you're still in the aerobic mode. Even though it seems that you're always going anaerobic in a race, or at least going back and forth between all the energy systems, once you settle into a rhythm during the race, your body relies mostly on the oxygen energy system. Phosphates form part of a compound found in red blood cells known as 2,3 diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG). This molecule helps release oxygen from hemoglobin into the muscle cells. An increase in 2,3-DPG will improve the availability of oxygen to working muscles for the process of creating ATP. The dose of sodium tribasic phosphate used in Race Day Boost exactly matches the dose used in all studies done with this nutrient, including one that showed an 8% improvement in performance in a 40k time-trial. Sodium tribasic phosphate improves all of the body's three energy systems, making it a superb ergogenic aid.

In addition, each serving of Race Day Boost contains 500 mg of glutamine. A full dose of four servings per day (2000 mg glutamine) enhances muscle and liver glycogen storage, a definite bonus while you’re tapering for your upcoming race. Having maximal amounts of glycogen available come race day provides a huge advantage simply because you’ll be starting your race with a greater volume (more minutes) of readily available fuel, the first your body will use when the race begins. The bottom line is that maximizing glycogen stores is an important component of enhanced athletic performance and glutamine plays a vital role in glycogen synthesis.

NOTE: Also refer to the article “Superior Recovery” in The Endurance Athlete’s Guide to Success for more information about glycogen synthesis and the important role it plays in enhancing athletic performance.

» Energy Surge

We should rename this product “Zoom in a tablet.” It’s a guaranteed boost when you need it most: prior to a big climb, cranking one more interval, the last couple miles of a race, or when it’s time drop the competition for good. Place a tablet under your tongue and let it dissolve, and ZOOM! You’re gone, and everyone else is wondering how you did it.

No magic or illegal drugs here, we’re simply using what we know about cellular energy production. ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is the “currency,” if you will, of intracellular energy production. In a long process that starts with the digestion of the food (primarily carbohydrates) you eat, the mitochondria (structures in every cell of your body, but found more densely in muscle tissue) eventually spit out ATP, the molecule that stores food energy in a chemical form directly usable for muscle contraction. The process is complicated, involving a number of substrates, but the bottom line as far athletes are concerned is the production of ATP.

Hammer Nutrition has been harnessing the power of ATP for over 10 years. Even though we obtain most of our ATP through the indirect dietary chain very briefly outlined above, the human body can absorb and utilize some amount directly. A sublingual (under the tongue) dose of Hammer Nutritions proprietary formula is the fastest and most efficient pathway for the intake of concentrated ATP. Absorption through the oral mucosa bypasses the GI system gets ATP quickly into the bloodstream for delivery. Voluminous anecdotal data for Energy Surge's effectiveness is somewhat substantiated by the work of Dr. Irshad Chaudry, who demonstrated that ATP can cross cell membranes.

Energy Surge might be our simplest and easiest product to use, also. You don’t need to try various doses, and there’s nothing to mix or pre-load. Just put it under your tongue and take off! Thousands of satisfied athletes know that Energy Surge doesn’t just rock; it rockets! Keep a bottle on hand, and try it out on your next workout.

Suggested Doses

Anti-Fatigue Caps - Two to four capsules one hour prior to lengthy workouts or races. One or two capsules per hour thereafter, beginning at the second hour.

Race Day Boost – One teaspoon mixed in 4-6 ounces of a carbohydrate beverage four times a day for four days prior to the event. For example, if your race starts on Saturday you would load Tuesday through Friday. As with Liquid Endurance, the protocol for Race Day Boost MUST be tested during training.

Energy Surge – One or two tablets dissolved under tongue as needed during exercise. For faster absorption, chew tablets into a paste then dissolve under the tongue.