Supplements for Endurance: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What Might Ep 94

Every endurance athlete remembers the moment when things finally click. Your swim feels smoother, your pacing makes sense, your fueling works, and suddenly the sport feels not only easier, but more fun. And for many athletes, that moment happens at training camp. That's exactly why we created the Endurance Edge Triathlon Training Camp happening April 22nd through 26th at Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. For 4 incredible days, you'll train in a small group with expert coaches, sports nutrition support, and sports psychology guidance, all designed to help you train smarter, race stronger, and finally connect the dots in your performance. We swim in crystal clear mountain water, ride beautiful and challenging roads, run scenic trails, and spend the rest of the time recovering, learning, laughing, and eating some seriously amazing chef-prepared food. Mm-hmm. Camp is intentionally small, just 20 athletes, so you get real coaching, true connection, and amazing breakthroughs. So if you want an experience that can transform your entire season, we invite you to join us. Head to theenduranceedge.com and click training camp and reserve your spot with just a $100 deposit. Come train hard, learn a ton, and leave stronger than you ever imagined. I'll see you there. Hey y'all, and welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am excited you are here. I am your host, Coach Christina Fiumara Newport, and we are talking about some fun stuff today. Supplements for endurance performance. What works, what is not really worth your time, and what might work. So let's jump right in. And I also wanna make sure that this isn't a pitch for powders or pills or potions or anything like this. This is about evidence-based tools that complement your training and daily nutrition. So I cannot emphasize that enough, y'all, that supplements are not going to fix inconsistent training or lack thereof, or Just a crappy diet. So, and I laugh because it's so easy to do and it's just also so easy to be like, well, if I take this magic pill, then won't I get better? And maybe, but that really is the foundation is good quality training, consistent training, and consistent daily nutrition. Oh, and might I also add that your truly magic pill is sleep. But that's not what today's episode is all about. It's all about What things actually work to help your endurance performance? So the big one, in fact, the big three. Here are the magic ones. You guys, drum roll, listen up. Here they are. Carbohydrates, electrolytes, and fluids. So carbohydrates are your number one fuel. I mean, the research is very clear. That carbs are the most proven supplement for your endurance performance, especially as a multi-sport athlete, as a runner, as a cyclist, as a female, as a male, as a kid, as a master's athlete. It doesn't matter. Carbs truly are king in helping you delay fatigue, in helping you maintain adequate blood glucose, in helping improve your time to exhaustion. In other words, the amount of time that you get tired. In your race. So most of the time carbohydrates are gonna be either before exercise, during exercise, or post-exercise. There's a lot of nuances and variations, and we go over all this in the Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp that's coming up in the next couple of weeks. So if you haven't already, be sure to head over to theenduranceedge.com/fuelingbootcamp and get on the priority list. We open up our doors next week, and then we get started the week afterwards. It includes sweat testing and includes all this information about how you digest and absorb and metabolize carbohydrates, fluid, electrolytes, so that you can make the appropriate choices for you on how to do this pre-, during, and post-workout. Because yes, are there lots of different guidelines of you must eat beforehand and you have to, you know, eat during exercise at, you know, said interval, and recovery must be answered. Yes, we have all that, but for you specifically, and putting it all together, that's where we— that's the goal of this program, is helping you to determine when do you need and what do you need pre-workout, during, and afterwards based on your training and based on whatever race distance you are doing. So getting a little bit more into carb loading, is there a specific strategy for carb loading? Yes. This sort of antiquated version was a week prior to your event is to have like a really, really hard workout and then basically go super low on your carbs for the next several days. As you might imagine, everybody got really, really grouchy and then prior to the race would just be sort of stuffing your face full of carbs and then lo and behold, It was seen that it helped, but this strategy was just not quite as optimal as it could have been. So then they started leaning into a more short carb loading opportunity, and that's all about optimizing your glycogen stores. This isn't about like, oh my gosh, I get to eat all the cookies in the world, which wouldn't that be nice? But there's other metabolic processes that are going on when we're just eating lots of carbs, but not necessarily exercising that we wanna avoid. And some of that is genetically related. Anyhow, during exercise, carbohydrates, certainly for 90-minute-plus exercise, are going to be beneficial, whether it comes in the form of fruit, whether it comes in the form of energy gels or drinks or those types of products. Typically, the amount that we're going to see that are beneficial— I usually like to start people off a little lower and then we increase from there. We're finding more and more, like, we don't really know what the gut can absorb, cuz people are always pushing the limits, which is great to see what your limit is. But at the end of the day, you have to figure out what your limit actually is. So usually a good place to start is somewhere around 25 to 30 grams of carbs per hour. That's likely gonna be lower and you can start to work your way up from there. We've sort of gotten married to this like 60 gram, 90 gram, maybe it's 120 gram, but it's gonna be very specific to you and your race distance. The shorter you go, the more carbs you're burning and the less your body wants to digest. The longer you go, the slower you go, the more you can lean into some of that fat oxidation and using that as an energy source, the less reliant you are on glycogen, and then you can digest a little bit more. So there's a spectrum. Based on your intensity and based on your needs. And of course we have post-exercise in terms of recovery and most importantly with glycogen replenishment or putting back all of the carbohydrates that you used or the glycogen that you used during your exercise, putting that back into the muscles in particular. And training is part of what helps that process. And then in the Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp, we get more into multiple transportable carbs because what we're finding, at least in the literature, but you have to experiment for yourself, is that at a certain point, certain transporters get saturated and then are no longer able to take in and oxidize that carbohydrate for exercise. We sort of reach a tipping point, and then we have to use other types of carbohydrates like fructose for longer events because that's a different transporter and has to go through the liver first. So kind of fun and interesting there. Next piece that we're making sure to not ignore from a supplement perspective for endurance performance is electrolytes and hydration. Remember that electrolytes is very important to have sodium and chloride. So, you know, salt, potassium is also a major player. Magnesium is also a major player and helps maintain that fluid balance, nerve transmission, and muscle contraction. In particular magnesium when it comes to muscle relaxation. So a nice balance of those. And the reason why I mentioned balance is because oftentimes folks, especially in the more natural realm— and I'm air quoting here— lean into things that have more coconut water, which is a great product, and certainly no issues with coconut water in and of itself. It is very high in potassium. But if they're not balancing with more levels of sodium, we can put ourselves at risk for different electrolyte imbalances. In particular, I have seen hyperkalemia, which is high amounts of potassium, and then hyponatremia, which is low amounts of sodium, from someone who's drinking only water and neglecting the electrolytes. Where do you start from a matter of electrolytes? Like, do I just start taking salt stick pills, or do I just grab an element container off of the store shelf and just start drinking that? Good question. I don't necessarily have the perfect answer because we use sweat testing in order to determine that number because the numbers are just so incredibly vast and wide ranging that this is where I get a little bit uncomfortable for people just being like, oh, just try this. If you're doing like a general Gatorade, you're probably gonna be just fine. But when we get into longer distance things, if you're starting to have issues with GI, matters, if you're starting to have issues with cramping, if you're getting excessively fatigued, those types of things. And actually, electrolytes matter in the recovery process, believe it or not. Then we start to look a little deeper into what is the appropriate electrolyte needs for you based on what you're losing, because your sweat is literally like your fingerprint. I have seen some folks lose as little as about 200 to 300 milligrams of sodium per hour and well over 5,000 milligrams of sodium per hour. So I, I can't necessarily make just a general guideline other than make sure to include electrolytes, but there's so many different products on the market, it's truly overwhelming. I encourage people, yes, you do need to start somewhere, and generally the stuff on the grocery store shelves, while I don't love a lot of the different sweeteners or artificial sweeteners and whatnot. It can be a good starting point until you find, okay, let's dig into this a little bit deeper. And that's what we do in the Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp is actually testing your sweat cuz it doesn't change. The electrolyte content doesn't change. I've had people insist I want another sweat test. No problem. Comes out the same. So then we can start to determine, okay, what do we need during an hour hot workout? What do we need during a 5-hour Half Ironman? In cooler conditions, what do we need in an Ironman? All of that is something that's easily determined as long as you have your sweat needs. So sodium is absolutely the most critical, especially for those heavy sweaters in hot conditions. Welcome to North Carolina. If you are in North Carolina, it's hot, you guys. So we don't want you to be cramping. We don't want you to have any dizziness or GI distress, and certainly no hyponatremia, which is far more dangerous than dehydration. Hydration and making sure that we test that sweat so that we know and can be more educated to find the right solution for you. So definitely your electrolytes, your carbohydrates are successful endurance performance boosters, just like water. I'm not gonna get too deeply into water because we know water is important. The bo— body is made up mostly of water and it's important to be able to fuel those cells. Let's talk about those good old ergogenic aids or supplements that may be performance-enhancing. Number 1, drum roll. Do you know what it is? It's probably sitting— if you're sitting in your car driving to work, it's probably sitting in your coffee holder. Oh, I just gave it away. Well, it could be coffee, but caffeine. So some people take that caffeine in the form of coffee. Some people take it in the form of energy drinks. Or in the form of a pill, like a NoDoz or something like that. There's lots of different ways that we can get caffeine, but this is an interesting one. It's heavily, heavily researched, but there is a genetic wildcard. So where caffeine is helpful is it can reduce our perceived exertion. So if it's like, oh my gosh, this is hard, caffeine will just make it feel a little less hard. It can increase your alertness, certainly can be important if you are navigating a hard course or need to stay awake in the dark during an ultra run, and certainly can enhance endurance performance. So good common protocol to start with is somewhere between 3 to 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. So take your body weight in pounds. Divide that by 2.2, and then you get your weight in kilograms. So that's often a good starting point and how they've done a lot of the research. And that's typically consumed in the 45 minutes to 60 minutes before starting exercise. Here is the genetic wildcard again. Fun fact: did you know that caffeine across different humans has a 40-fold difference in how we process it? So this is insane to me, and also relates to how you're going to use caffeine during exercise, or before exercise, that is. So if you're somebody who processes caffeine quickly, you are going to benefit from having some closer to time or even during exercise. If you're someone who processes it on the opposite end of the spectrum, very slowly, the caffeine you take in really won't kick in, in essence, until you're probably even done with your day. And then it could potentially affect your sleep later on in the evening. And then that of course affects our recovery. So knowing what your caffeine genetics will help you determine what protocol to use. Then of course you have to start practicing it. So even if you're somebody who processes caffeine very quickly, but you take a high dose of it and you're not used to that, it's likely going to make you jittery. It's gonna increase your heart rate. And oftentimes that just brings additional anxiety, especially for somebody who's very well in tune with what their zones are or what their heart rate should or should not be given a certain intensity. And if you've taken too much, even though you process it quickly, that feeling of all of that caffeine hitting you at once, hitting those adenosine receptors and being like, oh, oh my gosh, I feel like my heart is gonna beat outta my chest. We need to practice. What's your timing beforehand? How much are you going to try to use? Because depending on your habitual use of caffeine, that's where some of this comes into play. The more habitual you are, typically you're not going to feel the effects as much for exercise. But again, everybody is unique. So that response is genetically dependent based on fast or slow caffeine metabolizers. And certainly the fast metabolizers have seen a higher boost in performance. A slower metabolizer, especially paired with some of your other genetics, might actually raise the potential risk of heart attacks and again disrupt sleep or just generally provide no benefit. So this is one of those that you have to ease into it a little bit. Oftentimes most people know how they generally react to caffeine, but some people are surprised. Keep in mind that caffeine again can come in things like pills, gels, chews. So just make sure that whatever you're doing, you got to test it before you actually use it. All right, so next one up, this is nitric oxide boosters. You may have heard of things like, uh, may have heard them called things like NO boosters or beetroot juice. We have a nice partnership with a company called Alt Red. That's a great little product and you can literally see that it's beetroots in a pill version. So it is purported to increase blood flow and improve oxygen efficiency and reducing the overall cost, if you will, of exercise. So it may help with lower intensity, longer duration events, but you know, there's some different mixed research. On which type of exercise do we want to use it. Do we want to lean more into endurance? Do we want to lean more into using it for strength and power? It oftentimes will work better in more non-elites. So, you know, certainly myself, I am not elite at all. Interestingly, nitric oxide boosters are affected by your oral microbiome and your genetics. So when I say oral microbiome, A lot of people think of the microbiome being their gut only. We have multiple microbiomes across our entire body, which is so fascinating to me. And one of them, of course, being in your mouth. So any nitric oxide booster you might be taking, whether it be from beetroot juice, whether it be from citrulline, citrulline, or arginine, or combination thereof, If you brush your tongue prior to using it, it is not seen to be as effective. Isn't that fascinating? Not that I don't want you to have good oral microbiome health, but it can actually affect that. Similarly, and most importantly in my mind, some people genetically convert nitrates to nitric oxide more efficiently. If you have genetics that are good at this process, those nitric oxide boosters are kind of pointless for you. Save your money. You're welcome. If on the other hand, the people who will benefit the most from things like nitric oxide boosters are the ones who have a certain genetic SNP with specific alleles, so specific genetic combinations that are not very good at this process. Therefore, those nitric oxide boosters are going to help. Now, that being said, nitric oxide boosters are also in naturally in things like spinach and beets and arugula. Please, y'all, eat your vegetables. But again, you can save your money if there are certain genetic alleles that you have that mean you don't need it, or you would certainly benefit from. So then you can decide whether you want to go that route. All right, so here are some additional supplements that might help, but perhaps only in specific contexts. So one that's being studied right now, beta alanine. There has been research for endurance performance in the training aspect with repeated high-intensity efforts, but less helpful for long steady-state endurance. So if you're going out for a 4-hour zone 2 ride, or a 2-hour zone 2 run, mm, beta alanine, probably not gonna be as beneficial. But if you are doing repeated high intensity, let's say FTP intervals or VO2 max intervals, then beta alanine can be supportive. However, this is not like a one and done kind of deal. It's not like caffeine where you take it and you're like, oh, okay, you're working. Beta alanine is a little bit different. You have to be on it more chronically in order for it to take effect. So that just may generally be one of those like, eh, is it worth it? If you're doing something like sprint or Olympic distance triathlons, or you're doing 5K, 8K, 10K, eh, maybe. If you want to play with it, one of the biggest side effects or potential side effects that people might call it a complaint or call it an interesting feeling is there is this sensation of tingling when you take it. So some people really like that. And honestly, I think that likely, that likely promotes the potential placebo effect. So if it's not actually benefiting your performance, but you feel this tingling effect, it's like, oh yeah, I'm getting ready for exercise. And that may alone help your performance. So that might be worth it. If you feel uncomfortable with that tingling sensation, and there's some buffered beta alanine sources that reduce that feeling. Again, this might be one, eh, you might leave it on the shelf still, or if you're able to chronically take it and certainly doing a lot of high intensity intervals, you may find a benefit of it. But this might be one that you might be able to do without. A more recent one that's coming back into popularity, which kind of blows my mind a little bit, but hey, that's how we operate, right, is sodium bicarbonate, or bicarb for short. Y'all, this is baking soda. So it buffers lactic acid but oftentimes causes GI distress. Unless it's dosed precisely. So we get a little bit deeper into this. I'm not gonna go into this now in terms of how you dose it and when you take it, but this is another one that does need a little bit of a runway. So anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks of taking it on a more consistent basis, and you have to practice it. This is not something that you can just down a bunch of baking soda and hope for the best because you might regret that very quickly. So another one that I wanna make sure to address is creatine. I personally love creatine. I think it's a great product and certainly used in a lot of strength and power sports, but holy smokes, this one has been researched in so many different applications. It's amazing. Everything from traumatic brain injuries to increased, uh, weightlifting. It may support more high-intensity efforts more so than it certainly in multi-sport athletes or in, you know, endurance athletes. But it's less effective in, will it help you get a faster Ironman time? Eh, probably not. Will it hurt you or decrease your likelihood of gaining time? Eh, also probably not. But if you are somebody who's vegan, certainly that's a great one to lean into. Or, and of course you, you won't know this until you start to take it, somebody who has lower baseline levels of creatine, because for some people, again, genetically creatine, they can take it and they don't ever really raise their baseline levels, and it won't necessarily provide the strength and power boost. But another population that I'm finding it to be really beneficial for is menopausal women. As we start to lose bone mass potentially, or lean body mass, this is one in conjunction with picking up heavy things or your strength training could support lean body mass and maintaining that. So in that respect, if somebody is also picking up heavy things and doing endurance sports, it can certainly support that lean body mass and longevity rather than just thinking of, oh, will it make me faster in my Ironman? Uh, I certainly lean more into the former, but will it make you faster in Ironman? Eh, probably not. So again, might be one of those that you leave behind. And quick note on creatine, don't want it to be in liquid for extended periods of time. It's not a, Not as effective. All right, so another one that I would be remiss if I didn't mention it, antioxidants. Chronic high-dose antioxidant use is not recommended and can blunt your training adaptations. So what do I mean by specific antioxidants? Cuz antioxidants can be a very, uh, broad range, but more specifically I'm talking about vitamin C and vitamin E. I know people love their, um, emergency products and they're taking it chronically. Or even more, more than 1,000 milligrams a day, 2,000, 3,000, and certainly in the periods of time surrounding exercise, it seems to blunt some of those training adaptations. So probably not the best option if you are looking at increasing your endurance. And definitely vitamin E is the same. But that being said, it is good for you to get those things from your food. So vitamin C, things like red bell peppers, strawberries, guava if you have access to it. And vitamin E is nuts and seeds that you can sprinkle on your oatmeal and add to your snacks. So those certainly will help your daily nutrition and support your overall training. But in chronic high doses, antioxidant supplementation can blunt those training adaptations. So, all right. So what should you actually do when it comes to supplements? Well, that really depends on you, but we certainly know that carbs, hydration, and electrolytes— start with the basics. Those guys are certainly gonna be the ones that actually work. Make sure also everything needs to be tested in training, especially for events over 90 minutes, so that there are no surprises on. Race day. And things like lab data can certainly be helpful and insightful for making sure that you're picking out— it's just a faster track to pick out what actually works for you from your sweat testing results, from your genetic insights, in order to fine-tune your strategies. And remember, supplements are tools, not shortcuts. So just a reminder that your biggest friends for improving your endurance performance are consistent training, good quality, consistent training, I should say, consistent sleep, and wonderful daily nutrition. So if this episode got you thinking about how to fine-tune your supplement strategy, or even if you've been second-guessing what to eat or drink on race day, then definitely check out our Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp. That is exactly what you need. Grab a spot on the priority list now. It's theenduranceedge.com/fuelingbootcamp. And inside that program, we cover everything from carbohydrates in depth. We go into the metabolism of them so that you can create your specific strategy for every different race distance, going over electrolytes, reviewing caffeine, including going over the different genetics, going over nitric oxide boosters so that you can actually start to test what works for you, time everything correctly. And then you'll also get access to fueling calculators, templates for different types of events, and guidance directly from me so that you can build a plan that's race-ready, not just lab-perfect. So whether you're gearing up for a marathon or triathlon, long-distance cycling event, this is certainly the most comprehensive science-backed program to help you show up confident and prepared on race day. So spots are limited. Again, just a reminder, theenduranceedge.com/fuelingbootcamp to get onto the priority list, save your spot. And if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe, share it with a training buddy that really helps us out who needs to hear this too. And until next time, train smart and fuel smarter. Thanks for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And if you're interested in learning more about our endurance coaching, sports and wellness nutrition, metabolic and sweat testing, triathlon training team, or our triathlon training library, be sure to check us out at theenduranceedge.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media at The Endurance Edge. Thanks again, and we'll catch you next time.