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Can creatine help you build muscle?

Usually, when it comes to ergogenic supplements, most health professionals will dissuade athletes from taking them citing lack of research, questionable safety, unwanted side effects. For this reason, it surprised me to read about creatine. Turns out that creatine is one of the best researched ergogenic aids on the market, was called by one well-known sport dietitian as "the most important natural fuel-enhancing supplement yet to be discovered for strength trainers" and can produce significant improvement in sports requiring high levels of power and strength.

What is creatine?

Creatine is a compound naturally found in meat and fish. We also synthesize it in our liver and kidney from amino acids. 95% of creatine is stored in our muscles where it becomes creatine phosphate, the primary fuel for short, high-intensity bursts of activity lasting 1-10 seconds like weight lifting, sprinting, ice hockey etc.
Just like endurance athletes carb-load to increase muscle glycogen stores, creatine-loading can increase muscle creatine stores. Creatine won't build muscle directly but will allow you to increase the duration and intensity of your workout, resulting in muscle gain.

How much?

We get about 1-2 g creatine from food daily (vegetarians get less) but supposedly that's not enough to improve strength training performance. Creatine supplements usually come in the form of powder under the name creatine monohydrate. Studies show that taking four to five 5 gram (1 tsp) doses a day for 5 days- or 0.3g/kg body weight per day- will result in rapid loading. From there, 2 grams (1/2 tsp) a day will keep muscles saturated. A more gentle loading regimen is 2 grams a day for 28 days. Taking more than 40grams daily may cause possible liver and kidney damage. .

Creatine stays in the muscles for 4-5 weeks after a loading phase without extra supplementation. Coordinate creatine supplementation with your training schedule, starting just before you begin a high intensity training session.

20-30% of people don't respond to creatine-loading. Interestingly, creatine works best in combination with a liquid carbohydrate supplement and this may help non-responders to get creatine into their muscles. Ingesting 75-100 grams carbohydrates can boost the amount of creatine loaded in muscles by up to 60%.
75 grams carbohydrate = 3 cups orange juice or 5 cups gatorade.

Side Effects

Creatine is non-toxic and so far there is no evidence to suggest that it's unsafe when taken by healthy adults in the recommended doses for a short term period of ~8 weeks (safety of prolonged use has not been determined yet). Nonetheless, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends that all athletes check with their doctor before taking creatine.

Creatine supplementation is not advised for people with pre-existing kidney disease. There's also no research done on the effect of creatine supplementation on growing kids under the age of 18.

Weight gain of 2-5 lbs is commonly seen in creatine users and is partly due to water weight but evidence now shows that much of the weight gain is a result of increased muscle mass. Anecdotal reports suggest that creatine may cause cramping, nausea, GI problems and higher rates of muscle tearing. The cramping may be the result of dehydration therefore it's recommended that athletes supplementing with creatine drink more water than usual.

As with any supplement, quality of the product is poorly controlled- what you buy is not necessarily what you get.

Creatine and Endurance

Creatine supplementation has been shown to have no effect on VO2max or to improve endurance. However, some researchers believe that creatine supplementation can indirectly improve endurance performance by lifting the lactate threshhold, allowing a more intensive interval-type training. Moreover, increasing muscle mass can potentially help certain endurance athletes like swimmer and rowers... but may hinder others that don't want extra muscle mass, like marathoners and long-distance cyclists.

Is it Legal?

Yes. Creatine actually became public when it was reported that Linford Christie, 100m gold-medal winner, used creatine during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Sally Gunnell, 400m hurdle gold-medalist and many British rowers used creatine in preparation for the Barcelona games as well. However, there is concern for cross-contamination since athletes taking creatine have tested positive for banned prohormone products.
The NCAA does not condone the use of creatine.

Sources

Kleiner SM, Greenwood-Robinson M. Power Eating: Build muscle, boost energy, cut fat, 2nd ed. Human Kinetics. 2001.

Ryan, M. Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes, 2nd ed. VeloPress 2007.

Girard-Eberle S. Endurance Sports Nutrition. Human Kinetics 2000.

Clark N. Sports Nutrition Guidebook, 3rd ed. Human Kinetics 2003.

Creatine supplements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine_supplements

The ironman

I just watched the Olympic distance triathlon- so exciting! Amazing finish for Simon Whitfield!

The ironman, aka full distance triathlon :

3.8km (2.4 mile) swim, 180km (112 mile) bike and 42km (26.2 mile) run!

The ironman training:

Miles swum every week by top ironman pros: 18 (29km)
Miles biked per week: 350 (560km)
Miles run per week: 60 (96km)
Calories burned weekly: 30 000
Extra meals per week an ironman eats: 42
Pounds an ironman would lose per month without these extra meals: 34

Sources:

What it takes: A documentary about four world-class triathletes' quest for greatness. WIT Group LLC, 2006. http://www.witmovie.com/

http://www.vanemden.com/triathlon/2006.html

http://recovoxnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/images-from-2007-ironman-hawaii.html

Official food testers (for poison) for the Beijing Olympics

What a job!
Who would want such a job? How much are they paid?

Would you believe that white mice have been hired to test the food for the athletes... and they’re doing it for free! Actually, I guess they’re doing it for food and board...

According to Zhao Xinsheng of the Beijing municipal health inspection bureau, milk, alcohol, salad, rice, oil and seasonings are being fed to white mice 24 hours before being served to the athletes. This method is quicker than other methods to test the food- the mice would react to poison within 17 hours.

A thankless job for the brave little mice...

Sources:

“White mice to test food for Beijing Olympics”. http://www.china.org.cn/english/olympic/189208.htm

“Olympic mice will test if food is squeaky clean”. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article639325.ece

What does Michael Phelps eat?

A lot!

Like I previously posted (Aug 9), Phelps, aged 23 and the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, was told he has to eat between 8000- 10 000 calories a day... something he says is "impossible"!
He does try, however, and eats "pretty much whatever I want and as much as I want".

Here's an example of a breakfast for Phelps:

"...Three sandwiches of fried eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions and mayonnaise, add one omelet, a bowl of grits, and three slices of french toast with powdered sugar, then wash down with three chocolate chip pancakes."

He also said: "I'm eating a lot of pasta and pizza. I'm eating a lot of carbs... "



"Michael Phelps eats entire menu for breakfast". http://simononsports.blogspot.com/2008/08/michael-phelps-eats-entire-menu-for.html

http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0704/a_brphelps_0430.jpg

Part 2: What do Olympians eat?

I didn’t really answer my own question yesterday- how do these Olympians get the bodies they have... and what do they eat?

Pretty simply, these elite athletes train hard to look the way they do.

That picture of 41 year old swimmer Dara Torres that appeared in the NY Time had some critics speculating that she’s taking performance-enhancing drugs- something she vehemently denies, of course. She’s gone so far as to request that her blood and urine be tested regularly for illegal substances. But how do you explain the fact that she not only is leaner than when she was younger (at 6’0” she weighs 149 lbs, 12 lbs lighter than she was in Sydney in 2000) but more chiseled and faster too, despite the fact that she’s in the pool only 5 times a week totalling 25 000m compared to 10-12 times- totalling 65 000m- when she was in her 20s? Check out how her times have improved with age:

So what is she doing? And what is she eating?

Firstly, she has a head coach, a sprint coach, a strength coach (who happens to also be the Florida Panthers coach and has Sidney Crosby as a client), 2 stretchers, 2 masseuses, a chiropractor and a nanny- a cost of 100 000$ a year.

Torres works with her strength coach 4 days a week, 60-90 minutes each time. Her strength coach has veered Torres away from static heavy weight training and more towards dynamic exercises. According to her coach, weight training- low-rep/high-weight- is not good for sprinters since a lot of energy is wasted trying to move a body of big muscles that have been trained to work in isolation. Instead, she does core work, uses swiss balls, medicine balls, resistance cables and bands. Despite the fact that she doesn’t use dumbbells, she gets a great workout- her legs quiver and her arms are aching at the end.

In the year and a half that she started this new weight training regimen, her muscles have become longer and leaner and she’s become faster in the water.

She then swims- 5 times a week for about 2 hours each time.

However, Torres calls her resistance stretching her secret weapon. She has 2 stretchers come to her house about 5 days a week to basically pull and stretch her body vigorously for 2 hours in order to flush out the toxins and lactic acid and help in recovery and flexibility. According to a journalist, the stetching sequence looks like a cross between a yoga class, a massage and a Cirque du Soleil performance!

Torres also gets massages 3 times a week.

Clearly time and money are also important factors that help you get a 6-pack like Torres!

But what does she eat? That was a bit harder to find out. Because of her past experience with bulimia, she says she doesn’t count calories and she indulges in her cravings... whatever that means. She takes a German-made amino-acid supplement for muscle recovery and strength. That’s pretty much all I could find. Oh, and her favourite power breakfast is a berry-flavored Living Fuel shake with some milk and real fruit.

Just as actors are coached by their publicists to downplay the time it takes to make them look flawless for an event, I found that most athletes seem to downplay their nutrition and workout regimen- maybe to keep their training secrets to themselves?

For example, Erik Vendt, also an American swimmer, the first American to break 15 minutes in the mile and 2-time Olympic silver medalist, credits his return from retirement, at age 27, to an organic diet. So now, if I eat all organic, will I too be a top 5 ranked swimmer in the world? I don’t think so.

Marion Jones, Track and Field phenom at the 2000 Sydney games, credited her amazing performance to nutritional supplements that included flaxseed oil and iron. I guess we learned they contained a bit more than that...

I also found that many athletes don’t eat that much (I discussed this yesterday)... but maybe some are just unaware or downplaying what they eat?

English heptathlete Kelly Sotherton eats 2 toasts with butter and marmite and a cup of tea for breakfast... and nothing else until lunch 4.5 hours later! Kevin Tan, American gymnast, eats eggs and toast for breakfast, a light lunch and a healthy dinner- usually chicken. That’s it- despite the fact that he trains 2-4 hours a day 6 days a week! American weight lifter Tara Nott Cunningham- the first American woman to win an Olympic gold in her sport (in 2000) and US record holder in snatch, clean and jerk and total weight lifted- will have 2 hard-boiled eggs, grapefruit, cottage cheese and decaf coffee. A typical supper for mountain biker Susan Haywood would be grilled salmon with roasted peppers and organic low fat yogourt for dessert. Doesn’t seem much to me...

I did find examples of athletes who seem to place a large importance on nutrition and seem to eat to compete:

Apolo Anton Ohno, reigning American short track speedskating champ since 2001claims to constantly be working to improve his nutrition knowledge and attributes his newfound ab definition to his food intake. He doesn’t count calories but states to be in tune with his nutrition and can feel when he needs to add more grams of fat, protein or carbs.

Canadian triathlete and 2008 Olympic hopeful Lauren Groves claims to be very aware of the foods she eats... and she does eat... very healthily it seems. She usually has three breakfasts- because she finds breakfast food easier to digest. She starts her morning, pre-swim- with a couple of pieces of sprouted-grain bread with some almond butter and a cup of coffee. Post-swim she’ll have some scrambled eggs and fruit- and maybe some more toast. After her second workout, midafternoon, she’ll have a bowl of goat’s milk yogurt with some fruit added, or a turkey sandwich. For supper she’ll have a really big salad and some kind of grilled chicken or fish.

You’d think that given the large amount of calories they spend, these athletes would indulge a bit. However, these are elite athletes and their bodies are their livelihoods. US rower Jennifer Devine has said that just because she needs 3500 to 4000 calories a day doesn’t mean she can eat whatever she likes. She stays away from processed, pre-packaged foods because they are high in salt and fat. Wrestler Patricia Miranda, first American woman in Olympic history to receive a medal in woman's wrestling (in Athens), stated that although she doesn’t count calories, she doesn’t want to waste them on "foods that don’t provide positive fuel".

However, there are always exceptions:

Michael Phelps, American swimmer, 7-time Olympic gold medalist (most recent win just a few hours ago!) and current world record holder in a few events, reportedly eats 8,000 to 10,000 calories per day when training and says "I just eat pretty much whatever I want and as much as I want, because I burn so much."

He says he swims 6-7 days a week, 2-5 hours a day, about 50 miles a week, and- this is the downplaying part- he once said, "I've never lifted a single weight in my life". However, he does admit that since the Athens games he’s added a strength training regimen, three times a week, to put on 14 pounds of muscle.

1500 and 5000m runner Bernard Lagat loves steak and has steak before race day. He is aware that most people avoid steak before a competition for fear of it digesting slowly and slowing them down. However, before his win at the 2007 World Championships, he had gone to Outback and ordered the biggest steak he could! "You have to do what works for your body" he says.

Professional distance runner, 2 mile record holder (8:07:07) and fourth fastest American 5000m runner of all time, Matt Tegenkamp, has ice cream and peanut butter 3-4 times a week... and doesn’t use a bowl!

American middle-distance runner Nick Symmonds has a burger every Tuesday and pizza on the weekend- and will even have 3-4 beers on Saturday!

American swimmer and 2-time Olympic gold medalist Lindsay Benko admits to having eaten McDonald’s for lunch the day she set the world record in the 1200m freestyle...although she doesn’t recommend that. She actually tries to keep her protein intake high and carb intake low... which is actually contrary to what the science shows us- that carbs should be an athlete’s predominant fuel.

American gymnast Stephen McCain is another proponent of the low carb diet claiming that since gymnastics is an anaerobic sport, his body needs more protein. 60-70% of his diet actually comes from protein: egg whites for breakfast, chicken for lunch, small snacks of cheese and vegetables and maybe fish and fruit for dinner.

“I’m years old, so I’m going to do what I’m going to do,” he says. “But I think I’ve finally got a real good grip on what’s right”.

However, he said this during a 2004 interview... maybe he's since changed his tune and reverted back to a higher carb diet?

Someone who is known to have been obessed with his diet is Lance Armstrong, 7-time Tour de France winner. He used to weigh his food and calculate, calorie for calorie, how much food he needed during his training and competition.

According to Armstrong’s coach, Chris Carmichael, athletes need to eat in correspondence to the period they are in in their training- periodization is a training technique where your training is broken down into periods, each with a different goal. The nutrients you need varies between periods- and, according to Carmichael, it’s not as simple as adding a granola bar or 2 when the training gets tougher- the ratio of carbohydrates, protein and fat changes as well.

For example,leading up to the Tour de France, Armstrong used to up his caloric intake from 3000 to 6000 or more calories- the average rider burns between 7000-10 000 calories per day of the 21-dayTour that covers about 2200 miles- and his carbohydrate intake increased frm 60% to 70% of his total calories.

Sources:

"A swimmer of a certain age" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29torres-t.html?pagewanted=6&ref=olympics

"Torres is getting older, but swimming faster" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/sports/othersports/18torres.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&adxnnlx=1218294193-NgzQccK3nGG7lC3/N/N7lA

"What's driving Dara Torres" http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1825304,00.html

"41 and ripped: I want abs like hers" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080808.wlabs08/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

"Weight no problem for Cunningham" http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/athens/fight/2004-07-01-cunningham-weightlifting-oly-glory_x.htm

"How Olympians Eat" http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100205413

"Eat to win" http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/eat-to-win?page=4

"Eat like a champion" http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-301--6686-1-1-2,00.html

"Slideshow: What it takes to get an Olympic body" http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/slideshow-olympic-body

"Canada's Olympic women eat to compete" http://www.straight.com/article-156506/medalhungry-olympic-women-eat-compete

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Tegenkamp

"What does Lance eat for breakfast" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/07/27/hlance27.xml

"How many cheeseburgers does Lance Armstrong need to eat?" http://scienceline.org/2008/07/25/blog-mahan-cheeseburgers/

"The inside edge: 41 Olympians share 84 insights into training, eating & competing" http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KGB/is_6_5/ai_n6110824

"What do Olympic gymnasts eat anyway?" http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/5317716/

http://www.doubleazone.com/images/marionjones.jpg

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2004/04/startracks/040920/mphelps.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.people.com/people/gallery/0,,695143_8,00.html&h=400&w=300&sz=41&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=qlzVOcjl13lh-M:&tbnh=124&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmichael%2Bphelps%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

http://i.pbase.com/g4/02/589102/2/63551373.orgzJh9g.jpg

http://www.adrenalinefitnessny.com/content/lancearmstrong.jpg

Part 1: What do Olympians Eat?

It’s Olympic time again- I’m very excited!

Seeing all these amazingly fit athletes always makes me envious of their amazing bodies and makes me ask.... what do they eat do be able to compete at such a high levels and yet stay so lean and cut?!

However, although I did find some information on what athletes actually eat (stay tuned for Part-2 tomorrow!), I mostly found stories of disordered eating and elite athletes starving themselves to 'lean-out' in order to perform better!

According to Carl Lewis, American track star, 10 time Olympic medalist (9 of them gold!) and who was actually vegan when he was at his prime: "most athletes have the worst diets in the world and compete in spite of that".

Even Carl Lewis admits to having starved himself to stay lean...until researching the matter and learning how to eat to stay lean and healthy while still having the energy to perform.

This is a bit surprising- you would think that elite athletes would be doing everything they can to improve rather than hinder their performance.

Athletes are driven, extremely focused people- even obsessive-compulsive, so it shouldn't be such a shock that they are susceptible to suffering from eating disorders. In fact, disordered eating has been reported by 1/3 of American female college athletes.

Kimiko Hirai Soldati, a 2004 American Olympic diver has admitted to having struggled with bulimia for 1.5 years before seeking out help. She claims that it would be hard to find a female athlete in a "thin-build" sport (one that requires a lean body weight such as gymnastics, diving, cheerleading, figure skating, synchronized swimming, dancing, wrestling, lightweight rowing) who isn't preoccupied with their weight.

World famous gymnasts Kerri Strug and Nadia Comaneci have admitted to having struggled with eating disorders as has 1972 Olympic gold medal winning gymnast Cathy Rigby, who's 12 year struggle with eating disorders caused her to go into cardiac arrest twice. Chrsity Henrich, a former world-class gymnast suffered from anorexia and actually died in 1994 at the age of 22 from multi-organ failure.

However, it's not just the athletes of aesthetic sports that are at risk. Allie Outram, a British runner that competed internationally for 12 years, recently published her memoir "Running on Empty" where she describes her long struggle with anorexia and then bulimia. Her weight went down to 64 lbs and she was eventually hospitalized. She claims with confidence that at one World Cross Country Championship, 4 of the 6 girls from the Great Britain junior women's team had some form of an eating disorder. This corroborates the results of a 2007 study published in the journal of Psychology of Sport and Exercise that found that one in five of Britain’s leading female distance runners had an eating disorder or had suffered from one in the the past, compared with just 1% of the general population.

The Frost twins, now 24 years of age, were considered among Britain's best prospects for track medals at the 2012 Olympics but last year revealed how they survived on just a few pieces of fruit a day because of anorexia.
Liz McColgan, British long distance athlete, has said that during her training for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where she finished second, her weight fell to 98lbs, which probably cost her the gold medal. “I was so weak and undernourished that I didn't have the energy to sprint for the line,” she said.

The director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recounts an urgent request from the woman's cross-country running coach to speak to his athletes after learning that the girls were competing at the dinner table to see who could eat the least. Some of these girls were running over 100 km a week and only eating a carrot a day!

In 2001, German rower and 1988 Seoul Olympic eight time gold medalist, Bahne Rabe, died at age 37 as a result of an eating disorder. In 2003, Helen Lee, British cross-country champion died at the age of 18 from pneumonia and organ failure thought to be a direct result of her long-term battle with anorexia. 41 year old American swimmer and 2008 Olympic hopeful Dara Torres, pictured above with the amazing 6-pack, has admitted to having suffered from bulimia in the past.

Even Canadian elite ironman Peter Reid, 10 time ironman champion, admits to having "somewhat of an eating disorder". His normal weight is 172-175lbs but his race weight is 10 lbs below that. To get to that weight, he keeps his fridge and cupboards empty so he won't cheat. He shops for each meal and often goes to bed with a headache because he's so hungry. He claims this obsession with weight is very common among runners, cyclists and triathletes and that it is necessary to compete at a high level.

According to Dr. Angie Hulley, a sports psychologist and former international marathoner, a relatively low body weight can be helpful for elite athletes. Being overweight can limit performance in many sports because the body is forced to supply oxygen to fuel surplus fatty tissue. When you're leaner, the oxygen goes directly to the working muscles instead, enabling faster and more efficient movement. However, the danger is that many athletes get caught up in the mindset that they need to be even thinner to be a winner. Dr. Hulley states that there is a thin line between an optimum racing weight and one that is too low, and it is easy to overstep the mark.

But how do athletes keep training when their energy reserves are so depleted?

According to Hulley, “The body has a tremendous ability to cope with calorie deprivation for a while,” Dr Hulley says. “Eventually, though, it becomes too weak to sustain the activity, becomes prone to viruses and stress fractures and has to draw on all its reserves just to stay alive.”

Sources:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=744765316519516434
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-02-05-women-health-cover_x.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52856-2004Aug9.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4445180.ece
http://hope4eds.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/athletes-and-eating-disorders/
What it Takes: A documentary about four world-class triathletes' quest for greatness. WIT Group, LLC. 2006