Peak by Marc Bubbs

Author:Marc Bubbs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

Recovery Nutrition Part 3: Supplements

In terms of supplementation, certain recovery-specific supplements can accelerate an athlete’s capacity to get back in the gym to train or be ready for another competitive game on back-to-back nights.

CREATINE: THE FORGOTTEN RECOVERY ACCELERATOR

As noted in Part Two: Fuel, creatine ticked all the evidence-based boxes for supplements that can support strength, hypertrophy, and performance for athletes. What often gets overlooked is the ability of creatine to support recovery. If you’re looking for a nutritional strategy that will enhance fuel replacement, increase post-training muscle protein synthesis, stimulate genetic growth factors, and reduce exercise-induced muscle damage and inflammation, then once again, creatine ticks all the boxes.48 Research in lower-body-based eccentric exercise found that creatine reduced creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels, which are reliable markers of muscle damage.49 Creatine also improves delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), prevents reductions in range of motion from heavy training, and accelerates creatine resynthesis in muscles—all big wins if you’re doing multiple sessions in 1 day.50 Endurance athletes often overlook the benefits of creatine, thinking it’s solely for power-based athletes. But multiple studies have found creatine loading in endurance athletes (20 g per day for 5 days) buffered spikes in muscle damage and inflammation after a 30-km run and half-Ironman.51 Athletes saw reductions in both CK and LDH, as well as pro-inflammatory markers prostaglandin E2, interleukin-1 beta, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. If you’re working with endurance-based athletes and their recovery time is a limiting factor in their ability to train or perform, creatine supplementation might provide a recovery advantage that will allow them to train more often or more intensely.

CURCUMIN: THE SECRET FOR STRENGTH-BASED ATHLETIC RECOVERY

Curcumin is the active ingredient in the traditional Indian spice turmeric, and it exerts significant anti-inflammatory effects via COX-2 and TNF-alpha inhibition (among other pathways).52 If curcumin supplementation can reliably reduce muscle soreness and inflammation in athletes, it might have a role as a potential recovery aid. For strength-based athletes doing eccentric resistance training, the results look promising. High-quality curcumin supplements at 400 mg daily reduced pro-inflammatory markers of muscle damage by 48 percent when taken 2 days prior and 4 days after the high-intensity training bout.53 Another study found curcumin supplementation significantly reduced delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) 24 hours and 48 hours after intense muscle-damaging training.54 Interestingly, for endurance athletes the evidence isn’t so clear. A 500 mg curcumin dose given 3 days before and immediately prior to training demonstrated no difference in muscle damage or inflammatory markers.55

GELATIN AND COLLAGEN: BULLETPROOF YOUR JOINTS

Gelatin is the new kid on the block when it comes to sports supplementation and recovery. The work of muscle physiology researcher Keith Baar, PhD, from the University of California, Davis, has uncovered some incredible findings on the use of supplemental gelatin for joint health and recovery. Just like you can’t build a strong wall without bricks, you can’t build strong joints without collagen. Gelatin is found in the skin, bones, and connective tissues of animals (if you make bone broth at home, it’s the stuff that floats to the top).

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