Ever wonder if those fancy post-workout shakes, pills, meals, or other crazy things people are doing are actually worth it? Or if you're leaving gains on the table by not optimizing your recovery? Well, today we're diving deep into something every athlete from weekend warriors to seasoned pros cares about, optimizing their recovery with the right supplements and approaches. So let's get started. And welcome back to Team Twitly, building a lifelong athletes podcast. Thanks so much for stopping by. I really appreciate it. We haven't had the chance yet to meet. My name is Jordan Renneke, and I'm a dual board certified physician in family and sports medicine. And the goal of this podcast is to keep you active and healthy for life through actionable evidence of form education. So let's dive in today. So as you know, exercise, especially intense exercise, is a calculated disruption of your body's balance or homeostasis, right? You are purposely exercising hard and disrupting that. It's designed to push your limits and stimulate adaptations, right? That's kind of the big goal. But the magic and the real gains actually happen during recovery. And this isn't just about resting though, right? You don't just sit there laying on the couch, it's nothing. It's an active, complex biological process where your body works to repair tissue damage, replenish energy stores and modulate inflammation, ultimately restoring that balance back and then super compensating to a higher level. So the whole idea behind is you have to stress your body, right, you need some sort of stressor. If it's just everyday business for your body, it's not gonna respond. So we need to have some sort of stimulus and then you recover from it and then hopefully you compensate to that and go higher and higher and you're more capable of this next time. That's fitness, that's how you get better. And so understanding this process is actually key to unlocking the true power of recovery supplements. So we can break down different ways and different things we're gonna do. So we're going to break down post exercise recovery into three main pillars. So any supplement claiming to aid recovery must in some way address one or more of these fundamental processes. So first up, we have exercise-induced muscle damage or EIMD. Think of this kind of like microscopic tears in your muscle fibers or little amount of damage, right, from intense or unfamiliar exercises. I think everyone knows that's the idea is that when you work your muscles hard, you're putting a little bit of damage in there to then hopefully have them build up later. So that's the one thing. That's number one, we're going to have this, right? So we have to get this inflammatory response. This is totally normal. This damage kicks off that inflammatory response and that's actually kind of a double-edged sword, right? So it's necessary for repair and growth, but an excessive or prolonged inflammatory response can actually kind of exacerbate secondary damage, impair muscle function, and hinder an athlete's performance in subsequent training bouts. And so it's kind of finding the right balance, right? So, but we're gonna have some, that's just a normal part of things. Second, there's the anabolic or catabolic balance. So simply put, it's kind of a tug of war between building new muscle proteins, which is muscle protein synthesis, and breaking things down, which is catabolism. So after a tough workout, especially if you're fasted, your body's in a net catabolic state where your muscle protein breakdown is happening faster than the muscles building it. So we want to flip that into the anabolic state. That's the ultimate goal. So when we exercise, we go back and we get bigger and stronger and that's what we're going for. And finally, the last of these three is a glycogen depletion and resynthesis. So muscles and liver store carbohydrates in the form of glycogen, which serves as a critical and readily accessible exercise fuel. So essentially you use this glycogen to do high intensity activity. Like that's the big thing there for is, right? These long things. You can get by without them if you're doing just, you know, steady state cardio or long distance things. You don't necessarily need a ton of glycogen available. You know, you can maybe use fat stores for that. Either way, you're probably using glycogen anytime you're exercising. So intense exercise specifically though, does deplete it, leading to fatigue. And rapidly replenishing these stores is actually really important, especially if you're trying to train frequently or are competing on consecutive days and whatnot. Some of these things we're gonna talk about here, we're talking about optimization, right? So like optimal things, optimal things. If you're just a weekend warrior, I think it's very helpful to listen to. So you have some ideas, but some of these things don't necessarily apply. Like repleting your glycogen immediately, probably not that important if you're just a dude who works out like me. But regardless, the concepts still hold true. And so now though, I wanna talk about protein. Let's talk about the absolute non-negotiable cornerstone of muscle repair and adaptation that's adequate protein intake. So the general recommendation, so the recommended dietary allowance, the RDA, recommends about 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. So 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight today. But odds are this is probably insufficient for most people who are active. This is kind of like the bare minimum. This amount is probably not where we wanna go, especially if we're going strenuous exercise, right? Other papers and scientific consensus have kind of put in the range of maybe 1.4 to two grams per kilogram per day to optimize your response to training. So we go from 0.8 to essentially double that up to 1.6. I usually tell people 1.6, that's like a general goal. Some newer studies have come out and said maybe higher is better. Regardless, if you're getting there, you're probably gonna be good. And they get these numbers from these studies that show like quote unquote optimal level, but they still show people growing at 1.4 all up to two. And so it's one of those things where you gotta find out what works for you and your GI system and all that stuff and go from there. But yeah, that's essentially where we're going. And protein supplements though, such as powders derived from whey, casein, or plants are not these magic bullets, but they can be helpful. So they're practical and efficient tools that can help athletes meet these protein targets that they're at, but they're definitely not necessary. You can just eat food, that's totally fine. While achieving the total daily protein goal is the primary determinant of long-term adaptation, the specific type and timing of the protein ingestion are secondary things to consider and they can influence your recovery process. But I do wanna foot stomp this, that the total amount of protein is by far and away the most important factor when it comes to protein ingestion. It's way, way, way more important than protein timing or specific type, like we'll talk about those. Some people wanna optimize everything and worry about that. But at the end of the day, if you just step back and hit your overall protein goals, probably spaced out a couple of times throughout the day, it's probably better to do it a couple of times from a muscle protein synthesis perspective. Even then, just getting your total number, that's probably gonna be good to go and that's all we're looking for. So just to give you a heads up there. Next, let's move on to protein types, specifically whey protein. So whey protein is probably the most popular post-workout supplement there is. And for good reason, it's known as a fast digesting protein because it is rapidly absorbed, leading to a quick and pronounced spike in circulating amino acids. And kind of diving into it a little more nerdier here. What happens is particularly there's a lot of leucine, which is a specific type of amino acid. And that is a powerful signaling molecule to trigger muscle protein synthesis. And so it works through this pathway called mTOR1. Not that important for this podcast, but that's how it triggers it. But leucine specifically kind of triggers this muscle protein synthesis. So people talk a lot about this, but it is an important pathway that starts the process of building muscle. And studies have shown that whey protein can have a small to medium positive effect on the short-term restoration of muscle contractile function within 24 to 96 hours following resistance training. So what does that mean? Well, restoration of muscle contraction, meaning getting back to your normal level, whey protein may help you get back faster. So get ready to do more bouts of exercise, get you more recovered quicker. Other research also suggests that peri-exercise protein consumption. So either like during or right after or kind of around that workout in general, helps preserve maximal strength and can potentially lower concentrations in the muscle damage marker called creatinine kinase. However, it's important to note that while whey reliably enhances post-exercise anabolism, meaning the rate of muscle protein synthesis, this acute metabolic effect does not translate into measurable reductions in muscle soreness or other markers of muscle damage. And it's also worth mentioning, a lot of these studies look at creatinine kinase or CK. And we don't really have a definitive guide for like what an elevated CK actually means for anybody. I see patients all the time, they just get labs. Like if you happen to get a CK and maybe elevated, like they just worked out like it's elevated. And you're like, oh, what does that mean? Like, I don't know, they're normal, they're healthy. Like there's no problem. And so that's just one thing. They use these four studies and yeah, it's totally fine to look at these in studies 'cause it is an indicator of potential muscle damage. But for most people, there's a wide range that's considered normal, right? Unless we're talking about something like RABDO where you're having enormous levels of CK, you know, you see a slightly elevated CK, I'd be like, did you just work out yesterday? And they say, yeah, but all right, cool. Like I could not tell you from that number if they're sore, if they feel fine, like anything like that. And so a lot of times they use these markers from a clinical perspective, but they don't have that much like clinical practice perspective. So it's more like laboratory stuff. Moving on to casein protein. Now whey is kind of the fast protein, casein is kind of the slow protein. It's kind of the counterpart to that. And in an acidic environment in the stomach, it forms a gel-like substance or something called a Micell, super nerdy, but that's what it is. It results in a much slower, more sustained release of amino acids in the bloodstream over a period of up to like six hours or more. So we talk about whey, fast, spike up right away, casein much slower, kind of slower release. And this unique digestive profile makes casein an ideal protein for consumption before periods of fasting, and most notably before sleep, right? So there's people who are like, I'm optimizing it. I'm taking casein before, you know, I go to bed, I'm taking a wader in the day. Like that's totally fine, but it's just why they think about it. 'Cause overnight fast typically is the longest catabolic period of the day and then just in casein before that may counteract some of that. A systematic review in the literature did show that consuming 20 to 48 grams of casein protein, approximately about half hour before bed does significantly increase overnight muscle protein synthesis, improves the whole body protein balance and helps mitigate the natural decline in muscle protein synthesis that occurs during sleep. So it could be helpful. And over a prolonged training period, this strategy of turning on the overnight kind of anabolism or inhibiting it from losing all that muscle, it may be helpful in terms of a long-term kind of idea. That's something we could. It doesn't really matter. The question though, I'm gonna go all through this for completeness, but if it sounds overwhelming to you like, oh, now I have to have two protein supplements, what's going on? I just wanna reassure you that once again, the overall protein intake by far and away, the most important thing, this is more just like a, hey, I'm trying to turn every level 'cause I got this competition coming up or I do this or hey, I just get into this and I nerd out. That's fine too, but I'm just doing this all for completeness. And now next, I do wanna talk about plant proteins and plant protein that we see and then also blends of different proteins. So plant-based proteins, the market's absolutely exploded for this, right? So there's lots and lots of options formulated with sources like pea, pumpkin seeds, and even things like a watermelon seeds proteins is what I've seen. And while a single plant protein source usually has a lower concentration of one or more of the essential amino acids compared to whey, well-formulated blends of different plant proteins can provide a complete amino acid profile that is definitely capable of stimulating muscle protein synthesis. And this is kind of interesting. There's also this concept of protein blends, right? So kind of getting it all together. So combining whey protein, like a fast and a slow digesting like casein or something like that, or maybe they have mixes of whey and soy, all those things. There's lots of things and you can have mechanistic plausibility for why you do that and it can be helpful, but those are definitely out there where you're saying, "Hey, I'm kind of hedging my bets. I want some fast acting, some long acting, some animals, some pea, and whatever." That's totally something that we see now. And I did see a study that directly compared a protein blend to whey protein alone and found that while whey did cause a faster and higher initial spike in blood amino acids, the blend resulted in a more sustained elevation of amino acids and critically kept the rate of muscle protein synthesis elevated for a longer period of time in the two to four hour post-ingestion period. And this suggests that a blend may provide a more prolonged anabolic signal, bridging the gap between rapid acting whey and the sustained release of casein. So this makes blends a versatile option and while a more targeted approach would usually involve something immediately post-workout like whey for rapid muscle protein synthesis, casein would be kind of your nighttime. This kind of bridges that gap right there. So it's an option. Once again, I don't want anyone to get overwhelmed, but at that's least worth mentioning. And I also think it's worth mentioning that a lot of people will say that plant proteins are not complete proteins and that they're inferior. And I think if you go head to head, like just one single plant protein to like whey source, yeah, you're probably right there. But I do think that in the research we see that if you get enough protein overall, it tends to work out. So if you get a couple of different sources there and you get enough throughout the day, you're gonna be fine. A lot of these protein do have lots of blends which make sure you're getting enough of the essential amino acids, so you're getting all of them. So really you just have to have a ton of choices now and you can pick whatever works for you. So this is kind of splitting hairs quite a bit. I like getting in the nitty gritty. Some people are like, this is too much. But people say don't use plant because it's not complete. And then the day it's probably not a big consideration if you're getting enough total protein through the day. And a lot of times these blends have all the essential amino acids that you need. So just my two cents, if you're saying, hey, I wanna stick with whey or whatever, that's fine, but you have lots of options now, which is good. And so I wanna shift gears now to carbohydrates. This is looking more at the role of recovery when you need to perform again, right? Not necessarily like day to day. So this is like, hey, I need to get going again. That's it. The role of carbohydrates in post-exercise recovery in this situation is definitely important. It centers on replenishment of muscle and liver glycogen stores, as we mentioned previously. As glycogen depletes, it definitely causes fatigue, right? But if the restoration is really important, if we're going to exercise again, right, and maintain performance, it's really, really important. That's why I see people doing the gels and all that stuff to kind of get that glycogen back. And the scientific literature definitely provides a clear, consistent guidelines for optimizing post-exercise glycogen or synthesis. That's what they say. It provides recommendations. Obviously it's gonna be different for every person. We know that that's how everyone works, but they do say that there's lots of things and it's based on a lot of different variables, right? The timing, the amount, the type. But if you're the everyday athlete and you're just like, uh, I'm trying to be healthy and I don't care about like the next bout, then this is definitely not nearly as important. We'll talk more about that, what they recommend, but we'll kind of dive in here first. So yeah, I thought that was interesting. There is this anabolic window, right? Everyone talks about in protein, like, oh my gosh, the anabolic window, if you miss your protein, it's over. Actually, surprise, it's actually less important for protein and more important for carbohydrates. So it's most critical for carbohydrate intake. A lot of people will make you believe it's protein, but it's not. And we've really seen that once you get protein, as long as you have enough of it through the day, probably gonna be good. But the period immediately following exercise is characterized by heightened insulin sensitivity and increased activity as the glute for glucose transporter. So essentially this is the one that allows glucose to get into cells and moves over to the bloodstream side and says, hey, here's glucose and brings it into the cell. So exercise makes you really intensively sensitive and ready to bring in those carbohydrates. That's what happens. And delaying carbohydrate ingestion by just two hours can actually reduce the rate of glycogen synthesis by 50%. Therefore, for athletes requiring rapid recovery, initiating carbohydrate consumption as soon as possible post-exercise may be helpful. And when it comes to the amount to maximize the rate of glycogen synthesis, well, particularly in recovery periods of less than eight hours, the general recommendations are to consume about one to 1.2 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per hour. So that's a lot there. That's a lot. If we consider, let's do some math, right? So for simplicity sake, let's say we have a 100 kilogram person that are athletes. So that would mean you're consuming about 100 grams of carbohydrate per hour for the first four to six hours. That's a lot. And in no universe does the average person need to consume this unless they're really, really concerned about recovery for an upcoming training session or repeat bout that day, something like that. But that's at least worth mentioning. And then finally, the type of carbohydrate matters, high glycemic index carbohydrates, such as glucose or glucose polymers like maldextrin are the most effective for rapidly replenishing muscle glycogen. Further though, so fructose in contrast is really preferential for taking up in the liver. So liver glycogen. So a lot of times many athletes, they have a supplement containing a mixture of glucose and fructose, which can be optimal for replenishing both stores specifically. And stepping back once again, if you can simply think about this, like the average athlete, if you work out, like you're probably fine, just like eating a meal afterwards with some carbohydrates and some protein. Like that's really what it is. My goal is to never complicate things. I wanna make it simple. So if you're just like, hey, I wanna know the things I could have, but like what's practicality? Like, well, the practical thing is this, like eat after that's pretty much what I do. But if you do follow like a low carbohydrate diet or something that may change and that's fine, but literature for repeated recovery typically talks more about including and eating these carbohydrates after. So once again, don't want you to get overwhelmed, but this is what the data shows. And so now we're talking about combining the two. So kind of using protein and carbs acting in synergy there. In fact, though many commercial recovery products feature a combination of carbohydrates and protein. And the strategy is kind of supported by a nuanced look at the relationship in the literature, right? So the rationale is to address both the refueling of glycogen and repair of protein in a single feeding. And we've also seen that the co-ingestion of protein with carbs can actually enhance the rate of glycogen storage, which is interesting, but this effect is highly conditional. The benefits not universal for everybody depends heavily on the total energy and carbohydrate context of the supplement. Like it's getting a bit into the weeds here and I'm not trying to tie down there, but if you're eating a meal or replacing an adequate amount of calories, like it may not matter at all, then it may just not make that big of a difference. So what I want to say though, specifically for that is how fast you absorb these things and how fast you repair glycogen may impact, maybe impacted by the total number of calories you take. But it's like, if you just tune out for the last 20 seconds of your life, that's pretty much miss nothing other than me saying that it's complicated, but probably doesn't matter for the everyday athlete. And so while adding protein may not always accelerate glycogen storage, its inclusion is a fundamental, you know, piece of the puzzle for stimulating that muscle protein synthesis. And so a carb only supplement can achieve this positive net protein balance of muscle protein synthesis. So that's why it's essential to include protein when we're talking about in that recovery window. And so the primary, like, do you need to have carbohydrates after like, it's probably helpful to have a little bit of something, protein probably helpful as well. I don't think you need to stress out about it, but if you're hitting, you know, plateau or you're not feeling your normal, like you don't feel very well, you're recovered next day, these are things that we can kind of tweak to maybe help things up a little bit. All right, and so now let's move on to other supplements. So we have creatine here, right? So we've talked about creatine in the past, in the podcast, but we're gonna talk about it here again, 'cause everyone loves talking about creatine. And so this is probably one of the most extensively studied and scientifically validated ergogenic aids in all sports nutrition. While it's known for its ability to improve high intensity exercise performance, a compelling body of evidence establishes as a versatile supplement that can do lots of things and specifically help with recovery. Its benefits are multifaceted addressing all three pillars of the recovery phase, including muscle damage, force restoration, and energy replenishment as well. So creatine supplementation has been shown to significantly enhance recovery by attenuating exercise-induced muscle damage, so meaning lessening the damage, and accelerating the return of normal muscle function. One 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis found that creatine supplementation effectively reduced indirect markers of muscle damage, like CK we talked about before, following a acute bout of exercise. Furthermore, research demonstrates that creatine helps preserve maximal voluntary contractions of your muscles in the 24 to 72 hours following the workout, which is awesome, meaning athletes can recover faster potentially. And this effect is critical for those who need to perform at a high level on consecutive days. And when I think about creatine, I typically think about it as it helps you with your ability to do more explosive types, either more of them, or in quicker interval, anything like that. That's the main benefit behind it, but it seems like we're learning more and more about it each day, and it can do a lot for a lot of different people. And so moving on to creatine a little bit deeper here, what is kind of interesting though, we don't have it all figured out quite yet. In fact, there is a kind of paradoxical effect of creatine. While supplementation reduces damage markers after a single acute bout of exercise, the same studies often show that after a chronic period of exercise with creatine, damage markers actually may be higher than when compared to a placebo group. You might be like, "Wait, wait, Jordan, you just told me that creatine helps with that and decreased markers of that. But now you're saying long-term it shows more." Well, yeah, it's actually interesting. And I kind of don't think it's a negative thing. Instead, it's kind of hypothesized that because creatine supplementation increases your work capacity and training tolerance, it allows an individual to train in a higher volume and intensity. And this greater training stimulus naturally results in a more pronounced damage response. So which is thought to be the key driver for improvement. So what we're seeing is you're having a higher inflammation and damage because you're able to do more, right? So you're doing more, and that's a good thing when you get stronger. And also another thing, although lesser known benefit of creatine is the ability to enhance post-exercise glycogen resynthesis. So there's a couple of studies looked at, have demonstrated that co-ingesting creatine with carbohydrates leads to a significantly greater glycogen store in the hours following exercise compared to consuming the same amount of just carbohydrates. And so that's kind of where we're at. And for dosing wise, I've talked about this previously, but the most well-established and effective dosing of creatine monoharmarate is anywhere from five to 20 grams per day. So typically if someone wants to get it into the bloodstream as fast as possible, you consume 20 grams per day in for like five to seven days. So that's kind of this loading dose. And then after that, you kind of have, keep it steady at three to five grams. However, I think most people just do five grams a day. And eventually when you get loaded up, you get loaded up. I don't think the loading phase is necessary by any means, but if you really want to get up fast, you can do that. Otherwise you just take five grams a day and you don't have to worry about it. All right, moving on next, we have beta hydroxy beta methyl butyrate or HMB. This is a metabolite of the amino acid leucine. And it's marketed primarily as an anti-catabolic agent purported to reduce the muscle protein breakdown. And really it's just gonna help you stay huge is what they're kind of saying. The most consistent and well-supported benefits of HMB for recovery is its ability to attenuate exercise and do some muscle damage like we mentioned before. And a systematic review and meta-analysis from 2018 concluded that HMB supplementation had a significant effect on reducing serum levels of CK and LDH, which is lactate dehydrogenase, kind of markers of cell injury. And the benefits were more pronounced in studies lasting six weeks or longer, indicating that this may be more beneficial from a chronic supplementation perspective than to a cube. And while HMB is theorized to possess anabolic properties, the scientific evidence really doesn't support that. It doesn't really translate into real world gains in muscle mass or strength or anything really like that. A comprehensive meta-analysis from a 2020 concluded that HMB produces only a small effect on total body mass gain and then doesn't translate into significantly greater increases in fat-free mass or strength or anything like that. And so I thought that was interesting. So its primary utility seems to be, looking from a resistance training and recovery perspective, seems to be protective from maybe breaking down muscle a little bit rather than strongly anabolic. So they're not necessarily helping you grow muscle, but maybe it's helping you not lose muscle. It's kind of interesting. The standard dosing of HMB used in the majority of the studies is about three grams per day, often divided into multiple smaller doses. However, the question has to be asked, does this really matter, right? If you're getting enough leucine with protein sources to begin with, like HMB is kind of a breakdown product of amino acids, are you getting enough of this and you need to supplement with this? And that's kind of where I see this. It's like, I'm not gonna complicate my process by adding something that may or may not work and not do anything. It certainly doesn't seem like it helps speed up your recovery necessarily. It's one of those ones that may or may not be helpful. I don't know. It's kind of like this is the one that was like shoulder shrug emojis. I'm not sure what to do, but it's definitely not robust that like this is gonna magically make your gains amazing. Next, let's talk about tart cherry juice. And so cherry products, they are rich in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds like polyphenols and anthocyanins. So they become more popular everywhere, has these tart cherry recoveries and that's what we're looking at here. But the critical insight from a lot of literature that we looked at is that tart cherry is not a conventional recovery drink to be consumed only after a size. Instead, it functions as a almost pre-covery intervention. So like pre-recovery, to be effective supplementation must begin several days before a strenuous event and continue through the event for the few days after. And so studies that initiate supplementation only on the day of exercise have consistently failed to show a benefit. And when used with the correct pre-covery protocol, tart cherry supplementation has demonstrated some benefits. So a couple of studies I've looked at have concluded that it has a high, moderate beneficial effect on the recovery of muscular damage and power following damaging exercise. So the evidence also for muscle soreness, so DOMS, everyone talks about delayed onset muscle soreness, may decrease a little bit and may decrease some of the inflammatory markers like IL-6 and IL-8. And that's where they've kind of seen that maybe that's directionally where it's going. Most common dosing protocols here in successful studies is eight to 12 ounces of tart cherry juice or one ounce of tart cherry concentrate taken twice daily. And so the evidence strongly supports the use of this in that kind of in either concentrate or from real frozen cherries. And once again, this is probably getting a little bit into niche here situations, but if you're a high level athlete, I wanna complete at least mention this here 'cause I think everyone deserves at least no, but most people just don't care enough to drink cherry juice every day, multiple days before this. And if you wanna include it, that's fine. I'm always hesitant to include sugar sweet beverages of any kind 'cause most people have the biggest problem of consuming too many calories. If you're a high level athlete, that's usually not the issue it's trying to keep up with your training. But for me, this is one of those ones where I don't do this. It's just a lot of effort and I don't love necessarily just drinking sugar beverages just 'cause from a calorie perspective, but it's there and there is data supporting it. Next, I want to move on to Omega-3s. Omega-3 could pop up everywhere, right? So specifically EPA and DHA, these are the big ones that are found in fish oil and are well-established for their anti-inflammatory properties throughout the body, right? So they've been studied all over and now they're kind of asking the question, can they be used for recovery as well? And their primary recovery related mechanism is their ability to modulate the inflammatory response. So when consumed EPA and DHA are incorporated into the fossil open membranes of the cells where they kind of compete with pro-inflammatory Omega-6 arachidonic acid and it leads to the production of less inflammatory chison-NOEDs known as a generation of special pro-resolving mediators, so SPMs. So that's kind of where these specialized pro-resolving mediators like essentially, you step back Omega-3s, they can interact with Omega-6s and they create these SPMs that kind of helps fight inflammation and that's kind of what we're looking at. So in summary, they decrease the inflammation and the evidence though for this, it's potentially promising, but also kind of like all Omega-3 studies, it's like, I don't know. There was a meta-analysis like that that found that Omega-3 supplementation significantly decreased DOMS, which is huge. I mean, that'd be awesome. And a separate robust meta-analysis concluded that Omega-3 supplementation is effective at reducing serum concentrations of muscle damage markers like CK, LDH and myoglobin. And this effect was notable in untrained subjects with chronic supplementation lasting over a month, highlighting that probably like tart terry juice, Omega-3s are not an acute single dose intervention. They're probably getting more effective reducing inflammation over time specifically. And they mentioned from a dosing perspective, the effective dosings were anywhere from like 1.5 to three grams of combined EPA and DHA per day. And it's crucial to understand this is more of a chronic supplementation perspective. But as we've mentioned before in previous podcasts that they're not without side effects, right? You can have the fishy taste, which is one, but of high level dosing, there are, have been some cases in showing that you may increase the risk of atrial fibrillation. So it's definitely a balancing act, not like they're entirely harmful, but may or may not be helpful, but it's more of a chronic type thing. And then moving on to magnesium now. Magnesium is an immensely popular supplement, right? Frequently marketed for preventing muscle cramps and alleviating soreness. Its popularity stems from its undeniable importance in the fundamental physiologic process throughout our body, right? So magnesium is an essential mineral and a cofactor of more than like 300 enzymatic reactions throughout our body. So there's tons of this. And for athletes though, its most relevant roles include energy production is required to synthesize ATP, also involved in muscle protein synthesis and a neuromuscular function. And critically magnesium acts as a natural physiologic calcium antagonist. And so for a brief physiology review, let's step back here. Remember that calcium is the primary trigger for muscle contraction, right? And eventually it needs to be released and removed so the muscle can relax. And that's where magnesium comes in, right? This is why people think that when you're low in magnesium, it may lead to cramps and spasming as we can't unlock that calcium. So it keeps the muscle contracted. And prolonged and intense exercise can increase magnesium losses through sweat and whatnot. So you could sweat off magnesium and you have a decreased amount of magnesium. However, while physiologic rationale is sound, the body of direct high quality evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses, specifically linking magnesium supplementation to enhance recovery is less than robust, that's for sure. Its most important role, it seems to be in correcting if you're deficient. So if you are low in magnesium, correcting that seems to make a difference, but otherwise people who are already, you know, normal levels of magnesium supplementing doesn't seem to make any huge difference, at least according to the literature. All right, and so now I wanna talk about a couple categories, specifically BCAAs. And so we have these BCAAs and L-glutamine. So we'll kind of dive into BCAAs first. So BCAAs supplement, they kind of contain three essential amino acids, leucine, isoleucine, and valine. And they're ubiquitous in the fitness industry and among, you know, top selling recovery supplements and gurus and everyone who says to buy my supplement. Marketing is built almost entirely on one central claim that they stimulate muscle protein synthesis and therefore are anabolic. But here's the specific reality. The claim that BCA supplementation is anabolic is a significant oversimplication and misunderstanding of muscle physiology in general, really what it comes down to. While the BCAA leucine does indeed act as a signaling molecule that triggers muscle protein synthesis, this is only one part of a much larger process, right? So for the synthesis of new complete muscle protein to occur, all nine essential amino acids must be present in sufficient quantities. And consuming only three BCAAs in isolation creates an immediate bottleneck, right? So in the body, its attempt to build protein, it's forced to acquire the six other missing EAA's, potentially even breaking down other muscle to make new muscle. So it's just definitely not there. So therefore, human studies have demonstrated that the infusion or ingestion of BCAAs alone actually results in a decrease in the rate of muscle protein synthesis compared to baseline as the availability of other essential amino acids become the limiting factor. And so people say, "Hey, I gotta take this so I stay anabolic. So don't lose a muscle, don't lose a muscle." Like that just doesn't seem to be the case here. Like you'd be way, way, way better after suggesting protein rather than BCAAs. So I thought that was super interesting. Someone kind of seen and I'm doing research for this, learned more and more that that's probably the truth. And so while BCAs fail as an anabolic agent, they're not completely without an effect potentially, right? So a consistent finding across multiple reviews that I saw is that BCA supplementation can modestly attenuate markers of muscle damage and perceived soreness. So these studies conclude that BCAA intake can lead to decreased reductions in serum, pratine kinase and decreased levels of potential DOM, so delayed onset muscle soreness. But here's a critical caveat to the soreness benefit. The reduction in perceived soreness and damage markers doesn't translate to a faster recovery of muscle function or performance. So systematic reviews have explicitly found no significant differences between BCA and placebo groups in the restoration of muscle strength or power in the days following damaging exercise. And so in essence, an individual taking BCAs might feel less sore, but they're not functionally stronger or have more power anytime sooner. And the most logical and evidence-based conclusion is that they just eat intact protein sources. That's what it comes down to. If you eat a 20 to 40 gram serving of whey protein or any sort of complete protein, that's gonna be vastly superior to isolated BCA supplementation. And a serving whey protein naturally provides the robust dose of all the BCAs you need anyways, in addition to the other essential amino acids required to fuel muscle protein synthesis. So if you're asking me, I can tell you, just save your money and don't buy BCAs. You can just eat protein and get pretty much the exact same thing. So hopefully if you take anything from that, I'm trying to save you money and not have you buy things. I do wanna talk about L-glutamine as well. It's another extremely popular amino acid supplement, frequently marketed for enhancing recovery, reducing soreness and promoting muscle growth, right? So that's the one that says, oh, it's gonna do everything just like the BCAs. While there are a few isolated studies that have shown glutamine supplementation can diminish potentially muscle soreness, others have found no significant effect on soreness or recovery whatsoever. One review I looked at concluded that there's insufficient data to support the use of glutamine for improving muscle strength and recovery. However, here's where glutamine does shine potentially. It's that it's maybe have some role with immune system modulation, right? So glutamine is a conditionally essential amino acid and it serves as a critical fuel source for rapidly dividing cells, particularly cells like the immune system cells, specifically lymphocytes and macrophages. And prolonged high intensity exercise is known to cause a temporary drop in plasma glutamine concentrations. It's been hypothesized then to combine, or I'm sorry, to contribute to the transient immunosuppression, meaning, hey, when you work out really, really hard, you may have a small amount of immunosuppression. I think it's pretty well known. If you exercise too hard, you can have that, but that's an idea behind that. And yeah, based on the current body of evidence, L-glutamine could be involved in that process and shouldn't be viewed as a necessary involved with muscle protein synthesis, but potentially with immune modulation. Either way, it's definitely not robust, or like everyone needs to take this, but it's definitely there in literature. And so bringing this all together, I wanted to bring into this like a tiered system. Like how do I think about what supplements should I take, Jordan, that's a big thing. And the landscape of recovery supplements is vast and really confusing, right? With marketing claims saying that they can do anything, right? And these claims always outpace scientific validation. So I do wanna say that a lot of times something may work, but we just don't have the data to support it yet. And that's the one where you kind of have to decide then, okay, is it the risk benefit? Is it there? I don't know, but a critical analysis of the review allows for kind of a framework is how I think about it. So kind of preparing this, I was like, okay, this is the framework I wanna think about here. So the first is foundational things. So focus on foundational things. This is a non-negotiable. Before any supplements considered, an individual should focus on the big three I talk about all the time. Appropriate exercise, sleep, and diet. So the diet must provide adequate total energy. So if you're in a deficit, it's gonna be really hard to recover. Sufficient carbohydrates to support your glycogen needs. If you eat that way, once again, if you're low carb, that's fine too, we'll figure it out. And you should also have sufficient protein support, muscle repair, and adaptation. Consensus is for active individuals. Protein intake of around 1.4 to two grams per kilogram per day is the best. From a sleep perspective, sleep's also so important. And honestly, the best tool we have for recovery. Like if you could put sleep into a pill, it would be like the best thing ever, that's for sure. And it's really important making sure we get enough sleep. And then it's also worth mentioning that you have to have an intelligently programmed exercise program to help you in your goals, right? So if you have a terribly programmed exercise program that's always stressing you way too much, no amount of tricks or supplements are going to compensate for that, right? So you're gonna get hurt, you're not gonna recover well, you're not gonna get maximum gain. So you kind of have to think about those big three things. That's why for me, like, if you don't have to spend money on anything, that's ideal, right? So if you sleep, eat well, and have, you know, intelligent programming, like that's the big, big thing. But some people say, "Hey, I want some more." And so then I think about the next tier, which would be our gold standard supplements. So these have robust, consistent scientific backing for, you know, enhancing certain aspects of recovery. Specifically protein powders, whether it's whey, casein blends, or, you know, animal, or I'm sorry, plant-based ones, those are all fine. They're convenient and effective tools for meeting elevated protein needs. On top of that, we also have creatine. So creatine monohydrate, arguably the most effective and versatile recovery supplement we have. And I think it's safe to say that these two are probably the most well-studied. And I feel very confident recommending them if you want to add something. These would be like my two. If you're like, "Hey, Jordan, for whatever reason, I can't quite eat that much protein. Can I take a supplement?" Absolutely, you can do that. And obviously everyone's diet's gonna be different in what they can and can't do or want to do. But yeah, these are ones that I feel pretty safe in recommending as long as we get them from a reputable source, that they're probably gonna be helpful for you. Then we go into our third tier, which is kind of can consider for optimization, is what I say. These supplements are potentially effective, but their use should be tailored to a specific goal and training process as they modulate the body's natural recovery a little bit longer. So tart terry juice, if you want to do it, that's fine. Omega-3s, people take them for other medical reasons as well, both reasonable to do. And it's, will they be super effective in what you need from recovery? I'm not sure. I'm probably gonna be safe. And they wouldn't be my first recommendations, but these are ones that I would consider saying, "Hey, it's like, it's a reasonable thing about that." And then in tier four, I have save your money. These supplements have either weaker evidence or no evidence at all to support recovery. And specifically, I think HMB, it's probably not worth it. There's definitely some data out there, but just eat protein. Just eat your protein that has amino acids, you should be fine. Talking about BCAs and L-glutamine as well, once again, if you're just consuming complete proteins and getting enough of that, you're gonna get enough BCAs and all this stuff and L-glutamine, so for me, probably not worth it. If you're an optimizer that says, "Hey, I wanna do this thing. I want absolutely to have the best bang for my buck, the biggest chance to recover," then sure, you can try these things, but for the everyday athlete, for the lifelong athlete, probably don't need these. And so in summary, while this report is definitely kind of focused on nutritional supplements, imperative, as I mentioned before, supplements are just a piece of the puzzle, right? No supplement can replace the profound and essential role of sleep, hydration, stress management, exercise, all the big things I talk about all the time. Sleep is where the majority of our hormonal regulation and tissue repair happens, so if you're not sleeping, you're not gonna recover, but yeah, you can make recovery as simple or as complicated as you want, and that's the thing. In the internet these days, that's everything, right? You can make everything as simple or complicated as you want. I see people posting on social media all the time about their recovery routine, and it includes compression devices, these different garments, tons of supplements and whatnot, and in the day, for most people, that's probably not necessary. That being said, though, if you find that helpful and it's a hobby of yours and you don't feel overanxious or overwhelmed in that situation, then knock yourself out. I don't really care if that's fine with me, but for the vast majority of people who just want exercise and be healthy for life, then you probably don't need to do all that. I always say, if you start feeling anxious about are you doing enough from a recovery perspective, then it's probably time to back off and just live your life. That's kind of where I go is I think a lot of times less is more in focusing on the big things, but if you are spending a certain amount of time trying to recover and you're doing these optimization things and you're worried about this, worried about that, well, then you're not spending time doing something else, right? So I need to go to a sauna and I need to go to a cold plunge and I'm talking about supplements more here. If someone says I need to do all those things, then when you're doing those things, you're not doing something else, like spending time with your family or doing something else you truly enjoy. And so if that's something you do like, though, and you say, hey, I love this, that's great. Just be honest with yourself and prioritize it because some people can make it sound like you have to do all these complicated routines and I just don't really think that's the case. I think if you take care of the big rocks, that's probably gonna get you the vast majority of the way. Then if you wanna start eking out a little incremental gains here and there, I would do the things that are very likely to help you first like we talked about, protein and creatine, and then you can start adding on a little bit more and more. But yeah, I just don't want you to get into fringe things because I don't know if they're gonna help you, but I know for sure they're gonna shrink your wallet size and so I wanna make sure we're practical and thinking through that. But that's gonna be it for today. Thank you so much for stopping by. If you did enjoy the podcast, it would mean the world to me if you either share this with a friend, left a five star review on your podcast platform of choice, or subscribe on YouTube. Now get off your phone and get outside, have a great rest of your day. We'll see you next time.
