Sports Nutrition

Now that you have an understanding of basic human nutrition, we can take a look at sports nutrition more specifically. There are so many cutting edge products coming out on the market today, it is unbelievable. I think I am a little more educated than the average consumer as well as privy to more information, and even I have a hard time keeping up with all the new products. First, there was powdered creatine, which we all know works very well. Then we heard liquid creatine was better, then we heard it wasn't. Then came the testsoteorne boosters. First it was DHEA, then androstenedione. Now there is androstenediol, 4-AD, 5-AD, 19-nor and the list goes on. Lately, there has even been a push with a new sublingual homeopathic growth hormone. How are you, the consumer supposed to make sense of all this, and determine which products work and which ones don't? Unless you want to try every single product on the market and spend a lot of money doing it, you probably will never know for sure. You can read the latest literature and scientific university studies done on these products, but I think they only tell half the story. Over the years we at Max Muscle have seen literally hundreds of products introduced with hyped up claims backed up by university studies. Most of these products fall by the wayside. If the product really works the customer will buy more. No matter how much marketing and hype it's only as good as the customer says it is. We like to refer to this as the acid test. Creatine monohydrate is a great example of a product that lived up to it's expectations. Customers love creatine, because it really can dramatically increase muscle size and endurance. HMB is an example of a product that never quite passed the "Acid Test" The marketing and hype was there, but the product never lived up to the expectations the marketing created. We are now reviewing a new study that combines HMB with several other ingredients and looks awesome on paper. Our next step will be to give it try and let you know if it really works. The point here is that there is a place for supplementation in your program, but you have to be smart about it. I have talked to many people that spend their last dime on supplements. We're talking $700-$800 a month. I guess that's ok if you can afford it, but half these guys can't even pay their rent! What you have to determine when implementing your program is what you actually need, and what you can do without. It all boils down to the fact that people are searching for that one magical supplement. Sure there have been major advancements in the past five years in sports nutrition supplements, but the bottom line is if you want results, you must incorporate proper training and recuperation with a sound nutritional program.



Protein

We know that a gram of protein yields 4 calories of energy, but why is it so important in regards to build- building muscle. Amino acids are known as the building blocks of life. Each protein molecule may contain any of the 22 different amino acids, but in order for it to be a complete protein, it must contain the essential I amino acids. There are nine amino acids that are considered essential because our bodies cannot produce them, they have to be derived from dietary sources. When we consume a complete protein, it is broken down into amino acids. These amino acids have a variety of functions, one of the primary roles being that of repairing muscle-tissue. It is important to consume enough protein in our diets, especially if we our engaging in resistance training. Resistance exercise increases protein synthesis (the body's ability to break down protein to usable amino acids) and can cause negative nitrogen balance, which suggests a need for increased protein in the diet. Whenever you are In negative nitrogen balance, your body is in a catabolic state. That means it is breaking down your own muscle tissue to get the amino acids it needs for other functions. You remember that at the beginning of this guide I told you about people in the gym wasting their time if they weren't getting enough protein? Well this is why, and it's worth repeating. If you are not getting enough protein from your diet, your body will literally rob your own muscles of amino acids. This results in negative nitrogen balance and loss of lean muscle tissue. For anyone trying to put on muscle , this turns out to be a big problem! You're defeating the whole purpose of working out, because your body doesn't have the tools to repair the muscle tissue you must spent an hour in the gym breaking down. This will rapidly lead to being in an over-trained state, and some people wonder why they never make any gains in the gym. The studies that Chesley ET. Al., 1992 conducted, reported that a protein intake of about 2 grams of protein per kg of body weight was required to maintain positive nitrogen balance in strength- training athletes. That's almost I gram of protein per pound of body weight, which far exceeds the recommended daily allowance.



Protein Testing

We know from this study and many others, as well as practical application by millions of strength-training athletes, that we need to consume extra protein in our diets. But of all the protein powders on the market, and the different types of actual protein we can get from food, how do we know which is best? For starters, there are different ways to measure the quality of a protein. The simplest way to evaluate the protein quality of a food source is by Chemical Scoring. This is where the amino acid composition of the protein itself is rated, by comparing it to a reference protein. It is possible to determine the amino acid composition of any protein inexpensively, but unfortunately, chemical scoring does not always reflect accurately the way the body will use a protein.

The Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) is the best-known procedure for evaluating protein quality and is used in the U.S. as the basis for regulations regarding food labeling. The PER has become outdated, primarily due to the fact that the ratio is based on the grams of weight gained by rats divided by the grams of protein they were fed. The biggest problem with the PER studies is that the need for amino acids in rats is not the same as that for human beings. Knowing that a protein has a high PER is still a good indicator that it is a high quality protein. Net Protein Utilization is a little more complex testing procedure, but has the same basic problem as PER, in that it uses animals as the test subjects. The only way to determine the actual value of a protein as it is used by the human body, is to measure not only urinary, but also fecal losses of nitrogen when the protein is actually fed to human beings under test conditions. This determines the Biological Value of the protein. The primary reason this method is so important in determining the bioavailability of protein is because it is done on actual humans. This gives us a more accurate protein value, while determining exactly what the nitrogen retention is. This is very important because it lets us know how much of the protein we can assimilate (actually use) after we consume it.



Carbohydrates

The primary role of carbohydrates or sugars is to provide the body with energy. Their second role is to spare protein from being used as energy, so that it will always be available to build and repair muscle. This is why many times you will hear carbohydrates being referred to as protein sparing. There are two kinds of carbohydrates, simple and complex. A simple carbohydrate is made up of only one sugar. When you eat a simple sugar your body uses it for energy immediately. This results in a quick rise in blood sugar levels, prompting the hormone insulin to be released. Insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body and serves as a regulator. Its purpose is to level off blood sugar levels by sending the sugars where they need to go. If your body doesn't use all of the simple sugar you have just eaten, it will store the excess in fat cells. This is different from complex carbohydrates, which are composed of more than one sugar. When you eat complex carbohydrates, they are broken down into glucose and insulin is again secreted to regu- late where the sugar goes. However this time, if your body does not use all of the complex carbohydrates, the excess will be stored as glycogen in either the muscle cell or liver cell for later use. When you eat com- plex carbohydrates you can maintain even amounts of energy levels over a longer period of time. When most people think of complex carbohydrates they think of pasta, rice, or potatoes. These are the complex carbohydrates that have a caloric value. However, fibrous carbohydrates like vegetables are also consid- ered complex carbohydrates, yet they do not have the same caloric value. When we get into setting up your diets, starchy carbohydrates are what you are going to want to eat earlier in the day, while fibrous carbo- hydrates will be what you want to eat later in the day.



Fat

Fats are the ideal fuel for long-term energy. This is the reason you need to incorporate some sort of aerobic exercise into your program. If you don't, you, you can never effectively utilize fat stores. Fat is classified into three different groups, and the one we really need to be concerned about is simple fats, also known as triglycerides. This is the only group of fats we can derive energy from. There are saturated fats and unsaturated fats, and when we talk about fats in our diet, we want them to come from unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats come from plants and vegetables, whereas saturated fats come from animals.