Some common question's I receive on almost a daily basis from followers on social media, clients and gym members are:
"What supplements do I take?"
"What do I think about supplements?" - usually referencing efficacy of a particular product or ingredients
Allow me to ruin most of the mystique behind most supplements. While there are some generally beneficial supplements that can be used to enhance performance, recovery or provide some type of ergogenic effect, this is not indicative of the entire supplement market, i.e. there's allot of worthless products out there that usually amount to just making your wallet a little lighter. In this brief article, I will breakdown my personal overall view of supplements and which ones I personally use. In a future more detailed article, I will provide rational as to why I personally use these and how they support my own fitness/ health goals. Important disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes only. This is not a recommendation of what you should be doing, this is simply my own personal views on supplements and which ones I am currently using. Always consult with your primary physician prior to taking any supplement. Okay, lets dive right in.
My view on the overall use of supplements
Supplements exist as a dietary means of obtaining macro and micro nutrients, phytochemicals and herbal ingredients to offset nutritional deficiencies or in order to obtain an ergogenic effect. I must preface my stance and views on supplements by stating that I have a personal bias towards supplements having worked at varying capacities within the supplement industry including research and development, product formulation, brand ambassador and sponsored athlete. That being said, I am 100% pro supplement usage within the parameters of what organizations I compete within deem acceptable. I compete within the National Gym Association (NGA), Organization of Competition Bodies (OCB), International Pro Elite (IPE), Amateur American Powerlifting Federation (AAPF), USA Powerlifting (USAPL) and American Natural Bodybuilding Federation (ANBF), all natural organizations with their own respective banned substance lists or ones that utilize and follow WADA testing guidelines.
Ethical and Moral Considerations
My ethical and moral considerations with regards to supplement use are limited to utilizing only ingredients deemed acceptable by organizations I compete within. I don’t feel it is ethical or moral to use banned substances to any capacity as an athlete, whether that be in-season or off-season. If and when the time comes to no longer compete, I will likely no longer feel ethically or morally compelled to stick to the banned substance guidelines, primarily in regards to various supplement ingredients. I truly believe that individuals should have the right to utilize whatever supplements are legally (emphasis on the word “legally”) available to purchase. Just because a supplement is banned does not mean it is not available to purchase over the counter. Many supplements and ingredients, such as those found in the pre-workout category for example, can be purchased at any health food store but are in fact banned by some of the organizations I compete within.
Where do I draw the line
I suppose I draw the line at utilizing ingredients or items that are considered “illegal” to purchase. I believe that all people have the right to put into their bodies whatever they choose, but a line must be drawn somewhere in the sand. And to this end I draw the line at breaking the law. While we may not agree with certain laws, or agree that items such as anabolic steroids or other performance enhancing substances should remain illegal without a prescription or medical condition which deems use, these are the current laws and as such should be respected and not broken. If these item’s legal status were to change then my viewpoints on their use will also likely change but until that day if it should ever come, will be the line I currently draw.
The role of WADA, USADA, NCAA
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) exists as an independent agency with the focus of documenting anti-doping policies throughout the world in all sports (Who Are We?, 2019). WADA performs independent scientific research and educates the public in addition to developing anti-doping testing methods. The USADA is the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and is the U.S. Olympic, Pan American, Paralympic and Parapan American sport national anti-doping organization, they are in charge of in and out of competition testing, providing drug reference resources, athlete education and results management processes (About, 2019). The NCAA is the National Collegiate Athletic Association and consists of colleges and universities, athletic conferences and affiliated sports and organizations (What We Do, 2019). All of these organizations play a role in testing and ensuring athletes who are competing at professional or collegiate levels are honest and fair in terms of banned substance usage in order to keep the playing field fair. The organizations will disqualify athletes from participation or revoke awards if it is found out after the fact that an athlete was using an illegal substance. Personally, I feel that these organizations do a good job at deterring individuals from trying to use banned substances during competition, but the fact of the matter is, if there’s a way to cheat the system people will always find it. I personally know people who have used banned substances in certain organizations who have been caught and disqualified from competition or have had their awards revoked, but I also know people who have snuck between the lines. So, while these testing organizations are completely necessary, they simply cannot solve every problem. The hope is that the majority of the athletes follow the rules out of their moral compass, and that ideally the “cheaters” will be caught by drug testing. At certain levels of competition, like the Olympics, every athlete is tested. However, at organizations like collegiate sports, not every individual gets tested, and each definitely does not get tested before each match. This just leads to loopholes that athletes can sneak between and use banned substances, praying they will not get caught. My personal opinion, in order to cut down or reduce the instance of using banned substances, the monetary gain at competing at such high athletic levels would have to go away. If there was no monetary reward, most athletes would not go to such extreme levels to endanger their health or try to get so ahead of the competition.
The veracity of supplement claims
Supplement companies are known for veracious claims or using extravagant marketing ploys to push products. At the end of the day, the claims made by a company, the popular fitness athlete is pushing the product, or the type of fancy bottle they are packaging the product in does not intrigue me personally as a consumer. I believe that it is sole responsibility of the consumer to go beyond product and manufacturer claims and do the research for themselves. Look into the peer reviewed data and not just “cherry-picked” research by the company seeking to make a profit from sales. Once comparing all the research and weighing out health to risk benefit ratios, the next step is to simply experiment and see for yourself if any benefit what so ever is derived from the supplement. The “placebo” effect can be powerful at times so for this reason, depending on the ingredient and its purported mechanism of action I am advocate of performing pre and post bloodwork analyses. For example with various natural testosterone boosting ingredients such as Sodium-D-Asparatate or aromatase inhibitors like Androsta-3,5-dien 7,17-dione, I have routinely performed pre and post bloodwork to determine efficacy of the ingredients.
My individual strategy for supplementation
Given that I am responsible for complying with the individual guidelines of various natural competitive organizations, my strategy for supplementation is dictated by what I can and cannot use. Listed below are the supplements I basically utilize year round. I do not like any of the preworkout or intra workout supplements on the market, so I typically purchase bulk individual ingredients and construct my own utilizing efficacious doses which I have found in the literature for each individual ingredient.
The supplement ingredients I am using on a daily basis are all in compliance with the current organizations I am competing with. Based off of the ISSN, many of the ingredients above fall under a strong evidence efficacy and safety category, a limited or mixed evidence category and finally a limited to no evidence support efficacy (Kerkick, 2018). While I realize that there may be limited or no data on certain ingredients the rational I have based their use off of is individual anecdotal use and individual success in terms of noticeable recovery and/ or performance benefits.
References
“About” (2019). USADA. Retrieved on June 16, 2019 from https://www.usada.org/about/
Kerksick, C.M., Wilborn, C.D., Roberts, M.D., Smith-Ryan, A., Kleiner, S.M., Jager, R., Collins, R., Cooke, M., Davis, J.N., Galvan, E., Greenwood, M., Lowery, L.M., Wildman, R., Antonio, J., & Kreider, R.B. (2018). ISSN exercise & sports nutrition review update: Research & recommendations. JISSN, 15(38). Retrieved from https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-018-0242-y
“What we do” (2019). NCAA. Retrieved on June 16, 2019 from http://www.ncaa.org/about/what-we-do2
“Who we are” (2019). WADA. Retrieved on June 16, 2019 from https://www.wada-ama.org/en/who-we-are
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