Nutrition- Refuel, Rehydrate, Rebuild

The next great workout starts right now! If you want to keep up the good work in the water, you have to plan ahead and get the most out of your recovery. Other than having good sleep hygiene (Overtraining chapter), nutrition is the biggest factor that determines the quality of your workouts, and therefore, the amount your Swimming Machine can adapt and become better.

By the end of a tough workout, your muscles have torn themselves apart, you sweated out liters of fluid and ran your sugar fuel tank dry as you fed the glycolysis and mitochondrial engines. ALL of this needs to be fixed, and the clock is ticking because the next workout is coming up fast, so if you neglect your nutrition, you are really just neglecting your training and can even lead to overtraining.

An elite swimmer training four hours a day will need about 4000-5000 calories a day. Swimmers who were constantly fatigued were found to be 1000 calories under their daily requirements, muscle glycogen (sugar) stores were much lower than usual and their distance per stroke was 10% less in workout.

Tangent: Tour de France riders will burn upwards of 12,000 calories a day one their month-long race!

The goal of good nutrition is to refuel the muscle’s sugar stores as much as possible while also limiting how much nutrition gets sent to fat cells. This has nothing to do with looking good and maintaining a socially acceptable body weight, it’s just that fat cells don’t have anything to do with creating motion and will just eat up valuable sugar and turn it into fat and make it virtually unavailable for the muscles. With some understanding and planning, we can create the ideal environment throughout the day that will maximize muscle sugar stores and minimize fat creation. The first thing to do is understand our food.

What is Food?

All food is made up of the same four basic compounds: carbohydrates, fat, protein, and nucleic acids. According to a big fancy document called the Institute of Medicine’s Macronutrient Report, the average person should consume so and so much of this and that… all of which swimmers ignore. And they should. What the average person needs and what you need are different. We aren’t worried about controlling our Diabetes or heart failure, we care about refueling. To get the maximum out of this refueling process, let’s go through each of the four compounds and break them down a little to understand how we can take advantage of them.

Tangent: A balanced diet for general population: 2,000 calories divided up into 10-35% protein, 45-55% carbs, 20-35% fat. A balanced diet for a swimmer on the other hand should hit >65% carbs.

Nucleic Acids are the molecules that make up your DNA and RNA, that’s where the “NA” comes from. They do the job of transferring information in the cell and are sometimes part of enzymes. They are super simple for us. There are four of them A, G, T and C and they don’t matter at all for our talk. The body can make all four of these molecules from scratch if it has to and needs very little to get the job done, so you never really run out as long as you have a balanced complete diet. Done.

Proteins are the next easiest to understand and also has little to do with our plans for world domination… I mean nutrition domination. A protein is a big molecule made up 20 smaller ones called Amino Acids.

Any amino acid can link up with any other amino acid, and the sequence gives the completed protein it’s function and structure. This is very similar to Legos, except there are only 20 blocks to play with and they all connect to each other. With those 20 blocks, you can make anything.

For the most part, proteins and amino acids are not used as fuel, and so they are not a big part of our nutrition talk because most everyone on the Western world diet gets plenty of protein. Even bulking weightlifters get plenty of protein in a regular diet. We do need to have a good source in our diet for two main reasons. One, only 11 of the amino acids can be made from scratch in the body, the rest need to come from your diet. And secondly, all those structures we built with our Legos/amino acids wear out and need to be replaced. Some can be recycled, but a lot of amino acids need to be replaced completely.

Tangent: Oh yeah… the leftovers of proteins and amino acids get metabolized into urea, otherwise known as pee.

In the past, it was recommended endurance athletes double their protein intake at the beginning of the season to help fuel the muscles during periods where the athlete was still out of shape. Now however, the recommendation is to double your protein intake compared to an average non-athlete. In terms of daily consumption, about 2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day is needed, or about 100 grams of protein a day. There are no such thing as good or bad proteins (unlike fats, coming up next), so just get enough from anywhere: plants, animals, protein shakes.

But remember, even if you’re eating double your need of protein, it won’t be enough if other energy reserves are not refueled, just like we talked in Overtraining. So, let’s talk fats and carbs.

While proteins can be broken down into only 20 amino acid building blocks, fats come in about a million varieties and some are better than others for optimal performance of the Swimming Machine. Fats are a huge fuel source for the mitochondrial engine in endurance athletes like swimmers. But, they never seem to be used up. Two reasons. Any leftover sugar or protein that is eaten and not used will be converted and stored as fat. Secondly, fat is a very high-density storage system so you can pack a lot of energy into a small location. At any given time, about 70,000 calories of fat are stored in the form of fat in an average person. Even “shredded” swimmers have lots of fat on them… trust me, I’ve seen the insides of a 90-year-old frail lady who was melting on my cadaver table in anatomy… the fat is there.

It’s ok. Fat is a good thing. It helps you get through tough workouts and is essential to absorbing certain fat-soluble vitamins. But not all fats are made the same, and some should be avoided. We can group the millions of varieties into three big categories that are easy to keep track of: Trans fats, Saturated fats, and mono/poly-unsaturated fats.

Tangent: The four fat soluble vitamins are K, A, D and E. Remember them as the name KADE. Running out of these, especially K, can be really bad…like bleed out of everywhere bad.

Trans fats are by far the worst fats you can eat and should be avoided 100% of the time. These fats are rarely found in nature and are mostly a synthetic fat created to give natural fats (like vegetable oil) a desired physical property (margarine, which is processed vegetable oil and solid at room temperature). Because it is not found in nature, the Swimming Machine is not capable of metabolizing trans fats effectively and will cause a lot of damage to blood vessels over the long term.

Trans fats can be found in anything that is processed and lasts forever: cake, frozen meals, fried food… all the good stuff. Here is a good list to keep posted on your fridge at all times with a “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” sign as well.

Saturated fats come from animal fats and are ok in moderation. These can be found in meat, dairy and eggs which are generally solid at room temperature. According to the whose who of science (Wikipedia), only about 7-10% of total daily calories should be saturated fats.

Finally, mono/poly-unsaturated fats are actually very good for you and there is no limit to how much you can eat (other than needing to eat protein and carbs). These fats mostly resemble what is found in the body and are used to construct cell membranes properly. These fats are mainly plant and nut derived: olive oil, canola oil, avocados, fish and cashews along with others. These are also where we get those healthy Omega-3 fatty acids from which can help reduce bad cholesterol and inflammation in high doses.

Tangent: Some studies suggest increasing your monounsaturated fat intake decreased anger and irritability. So, have an avocado after a bad race…no DQ!

Why all this talk on fat? At the end of the day, most swimmers can burn every calorie they eat so what’s the difference if it is a saturated, trans or an unsaturated calorie? Like putting bad gas in your car, putting bad fat in your Swimming Machine might allow it to just get by and function, but if you want to excel, you have to put good in to get good out. The goal is about 1 gram of fat per kilogram of body weight per day of mostly mono/polyunsaturated fats, with saturated fats only coming from meat and eggs.

The fourth, final and most important food compound to discuss are carbohydrates. Named after their molecular composition of carbon and water (H20), carbs are the most important fuel source to replace after a tough workout, which can burn up to a gram of sugar a minute! Because of this massive burn rate, athletes need to increase their carbohydrate consumption compared to non-athletes. The more you work out, the more carbs you need. Here are the guidelines:

The base unit of any carb is a simple sugar which is a single molecule that is a ring of carbon with attached H2Os. Depending on the specific direction of the H2Os and the number of carbon atoms, you can create a multitude of different simple sugars. The most important to us is glucose which is the preferred fuel source for all cells in the body.

Tangent: A single unit of carb like a single glucose molecule is called a monosaccharide (mono- one, saccharide- sugar). If two units are linked together, they are called disaccharides. If more than two, then it is a polysaccharide. The bigger the molecule, the more “complex” the carb and the slower it is to absorb.

Like amino acids, simple sugars can be attached to each other to create very large storage molecules called complex carbs. Foods can either contain simple sugars, complex carbs or both. In order for the body to absorb eaten carbohydrates, they must be broken down into simple sugars first before they can cross the gut barrier into the blood.

This takes time (about four hours from mouth to muscle). On the other hand, drinking a bunch of dissolved simple sugar (like in sports drinks) can have very quick absorption and we are going to take advantage of both the quick and slow absorption of different carbohydrates in our meal planning. Once in the blood, sugar can be stored inside muscles and the liver as glycogen, another complex carb specific to animals.  

Tangent: Depending on how they are connected together, glucose molecules can be linked to form either starch or glycogen. Starch is the preferred sugar storage form in plants, while glycogen is the preferred sugar storage form in animals.

As we mentioned a couple times in Part-II, carbohydrates hold on to three times their weight in water because the oxygen molecules yada yada electronegativity yada like dissolves like yada… they just do. That’s why you can only hold about 40 minutes worth of sugar in your muscles during hard workouts, and why the body stores most of its energy as fat.

The body can modify sugars that are absorbed to a certain degree to convert them all to glucose, the main sugar the body likes to use. Galactose, lactose, glycerol… all fine, EXCEPT fructose. Biochemically fructose can’t be converted to glucose or used in any pathway that is any good, so 90% of it just gets stored as fat. So, no fructose… ever. That includes “table sugar” which is half glucose and half fructose.

Tangent: Fructose is the main sugar in fruit and it is ok. It’s a small amount and comes with a lot of good stuff to balance it out.

Insulin, Glycemic Index and the Workout Loophole

Before we dive into our meal plan, there was one detail we skipped over that is confusing but important. After being eaten, carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars, absorbed in the intestines, enter the blood and are then distributed throughout the body as simple sugars.

BUT, the sugars in the blood are not allowed to be absorbed by muscles, fat cells and other organs just willy nilly. They need a hormone called insulin to give permission for the muscles to take sugar out of the blood and store it inside the cell as glycogen.

This confusion exists because a very selfish organ called the brain demands first dibs on sugar in the blood because it is the only fuel source the brain likes to use. The brain is special and doesn’t need insulin’s permission to take sugar out of the blood. Once the brain get’s its fill, then muscles can start absorbing sugar. This is actually a good thing because if the brain doesn’t get its sweet tooth fix it can stop functioning normally real quick and cause you to feel tired, pass-out, have seizures and die.

Tangent: Type 1 diabetics have no insulin and so their blood sugar can skyrocket because the body never gets permission to absorb it. At the same time, the cells starve because all their fuel is outside in the blood.

The amount of insulin released in the blood is proportional to the amount of sugar that enters the blood. So, if you have a couple sports drinks full of simple sugars that absorb within minutes, then insulin has to dump into the blood all at once and the insulin levels spike in order to get the sugar inside muscles and fat cells quickly. If you have a complex carb meal of veggies and pasta, the absorption of sugar will slow down and insulin won’t have to rise very high to maintain sugar levels at a reasonable level.

The speed and amount that blood sugar rises from different foods is called the Glycemic Index (GI) and it is a good estimate of how much insulin will rise as well. The higher the glycemic index of a food, the faster sugar is absorbed and enters the body, and the higher insulin will go to bring the sugar levels back down by allowing muscles and fat to absorb the sugar. Instead of trying to memorize every food’s index, it is easier to group them as low, medium and high glycemic index foods. The glycemic index is affected by how simple or complex the carbohydrates are in any given food. Dietary fiber that is found in fruits, veggies and unprocessed foods also slows down the absorption of sugar in the intestines and further reduces how high insulin levels go, and therefore will lower the glycemic index.

Here are some helpful links to find lists of foods and their glycemic indexes:

Simple list: https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycemic-index-and-glycemic-load-for-100-foods

>1000 foods listed: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/76/1/5.full.pdf

So, why do we care about the glycemic index and insulin spikes? The problem is insulin will send sugar anywhere that will take it. Muscles are where we want the sugar to go, but insulin will open up fat cells and other organs to taking that sugar too. That is sugar that is not going to muscles, not refueling glycogen stores, and not feeding your next workout. On top of that, insulin is a “rest and store” hormone, meaning it signals fat cells to absorb what they can, convert it all to fat and store it. That’s wasted fuel!

Our goal should be to maximize muscle’s absorption of sugar without getting spikes in insulin. Luckly, there is a loophole in the system that we can exploit. During and immediately after workout, muscles DO NOT need insulin to absorb sugar from the blood. The theory is that a workout is kind of like being in a fight for your life (and if it’s a butterfly set it really is). The body wants to win that fight no matter what, so it allows muscles to take the sugar they need without insulin’s permission so they can keep their engines running at maximum to help you win the fight… I mean workout. It is not 100% clear how this happens (Nobel Prize potential?)

That means if you drink a bunch of sports drinks during workout and within 30 minutes of finishing workout, your muscles will absorb all that sugar without a lot of insulin needing to be released. That means no sugar is sent to fat cells because they still require insulin’s permission to absorb the sugar. We are going to take advantage of this loophole to jump start our recovery the second we are out of the water and make sure our muscles are fueled up and ready to go for next workout. As we get farther from workout, we will focus our nutrition on lower glycemic index foods to keep insulin at a reasonable level and supply muscles with a steady stream of sugar to refuel them over a longer time.

Tangent: The glycemic index is a good guideline as to how different foods will absorb in your body. But, if you eat a few pounds of low glycemic index foods, the amount of sugar present will still get a big rise in insulin. This is known as Glycemic Load, or how sugar-dense a food is. We skipped it because swimmers eat so much they glycemic overload everything!

How much sugar should you be drinking during workout? A study was done with cyclists where one group drank water while another group drank 60 grams worth of sugar (2-3 bottles of sports drinks) PER HOUR for a two hour “fast as possible” ride. During the first 90 minutes, there was no difference in power output, speed or perceived effort. But during the last 30 minutes of the ride, the water group started falling behind, slowing down and reached exhaustion earlier than the sugar group who was able to maintain their effort and feel more comfortable doing so than the water group. I know that’s a lot of drinking for a swimmer to do, and we are disadvantaged because we workout laying down and anything we drink wants to come back up. But this study illustrates an important point, we are not controlling our diet for the moment, we are planning ahead so that we can get the most out of every minute of our workout instead of burning out at the end. If you want to end as good as you start, you have to be proactive, not reactive!

Training and Competition Meal Plan

Now that we have an understanding of how different foods behave when we eat them, we can construct a daily meal plan. We are going to assume the worst case scenario and that the day consists of a morning and afternoon practice and will use a 3 meals 3 snacks approach. Here is the pattern we are going to follow:

1. High glycemic index liquids during and immediately after workout
2. High/medium glycemic foods right after practice
3. Lower glycemic index foods the further away from practice’s end
4. NO JUNK FOOD EVER! Garbage in = garbage out!

Tangent: Intense exercise can suppress appetite so creating an eating schedule can help make sure you meet your consumption needs.

Three Meals Three Snacks:

1. Snack 1: Refueling liver and feeding the brain after an overnight fast (sleeping).
1. 30-60 min before hitting water.
2. Liquid snack of low to medium GI food focusing on complex carbs, some protein and caffeine. About 3:1 carb to protein ratio.
3. Breakfast shake with some fruit: apple, orange, banana…etc.
2. Morning Workout
1. Sugar drinks (super high GI) starting after warmup and throughout workout. No limits!
2. Between exiting the pool and hitting the shower, another big bottle of sugar drink.
3. (Hard candy, chocolate, fruit rollups… they are ok here if you need your sweet tooth fix, but only before showering).
3. Meal 1: Breakfast
1. Balanced meal with medium GI carbs, protein and fats
2. Eggs, oatmeal, granola, fruit, milk…
3. No juices! We are gonna be done with those. NO doughnuts, pancakes or cakes or processed bread, too much trans fats, not enough fiber.
4. Snack 2 (can be before or after meal 2, depending on when lunch is)
1. Low GI foods, something salty to keep your hydration up.
2. About 3:1 carb to protein ratio.
3. Almonds, avocado, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, another shake, cheeeeeese.
5. Meal 2: Lunch
1. Balanced meal with low GI carbs, protein, fats.
2. Meat and veggies, very paleo here.
3. No corndogs, hamburgers, fried chicken… too much bad fat. If you have to bring pre-prepared food from home, do it!!
6. Afternoon Workout
1. Sugar drinks after warmup and throughout workout just like the morning.
2. Between exiting the pool and hitting the shower, another big bottle of sugar drink.
3. (hard candy, chocolate, fruit rollups… they are ok here if you need your sweet tooth fix, but only before showering).
7. Meal 3: Dinner
1. Balanced meal with mostly medium GI carbs, protein and fats
2. Spaghetti, beans, rice with associated meats and veggies. Fruit is your new dessert.
3. No cake, no bread, no bagels, no cookies or muffins please. We are done with these too.
8. Snack 3: Bedtime Recovery
1. Protein based snack with some very low GI carbs.
2. Protein shake, cheese, jerky, milk.

Is that the most incredible, most awesomeness meal plan ever made?! The best part? It’s easily modifiable to your needs. Only have one afternoon practice that day? Cut out Snacks 1 and 2. If you only have a morning practice, skip Snack 3. If you have a day off, are in the off-season or in taper, get rid of all snacks. To some degree, we have to account for calories-in balancing with calories-out. More important however is eating good quality food that is good for you.

How do you know what good food is? Two rules of thumb:

1. The faster something spoils, the better it is for you (milk and veggies vs. chips and jam).
2. The longer it takes to make, the better it is for you (pot roast vs. microwaving a frozen dinner).

Something not mentioned in the plan is hydration. Working out hard, even in a pool, you can lose up to two liters (4 pounds) PER HOUR of water through sweat. As little as a 1-2% (or 1.5-2lbs for most of us) decrease in body weight due to dehydration is enough to cause a measurable decrease in performance. If your blood volume is low from dehydration, your heart has to pump harder and faster to maintain its output which increases how hard you think workout is. On a daily basis, you need to get about 4 liters (1 gallon) of fluid a day. That’s 4 x 32oz bottles. These are on top of the sugary drinks we use during practice. If needed, weigh yourself daily before and after practice to monitor your hydration status. After you pee, the toilet bowel should look like nothing happened!

Tangent: If you lose 4% body weight in water due to dehydration you can become at risk for heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

If you are really having trouble downing that much fluid every day, there is a trick. Only about 70% of water that you drink is absorbed and for every pound of water you lose, you have to drink three cups of water to replace it. If you want to maximize that percentage, you need to have more salt in your fluids in order for your body to retain what it absorbs. Sports drinks have some salt in them, but it’s not enough and they come with a lot of sugar which we don’t want to drink outside of practice. Broth is a great option! The salt will not only help you absorb and retain >95% of what you drink, but also make you thirsty, incentivizing you to drink even more. You don’t have to drink a whole gallon of broth a day, but a cup or two right after practice can help jump start your rehydration and get you ready for the next workout.

Now let’s talk about the big day, RACE DAY! The goal here is to race without feeling hungry or full. It’s a tough balance because you could be at the pool six, eight, ten hours a day with races at any time. Between warm up and cool down you can easily eat up 1000s of yards of swimming, even for a sprinter. So, you have to keep your nutrition up without overfilling yourself at any one time during the day. That’s why snacks will be essential. Here is the plan:

1. Try to eat a meal 2-3 hours before getting on the blocks, which might be only an hour or so before prelim’s warmups.
   1. Mostly low to mediumGI carbs with some protein. Limit fat since it takes a long time to digest. I like rice or ramen with an egg or two.
2. Snackon salty low GI carbs to keep you thirsty and not hungry.
   1. Dried fruit, nuts, plain cooked pasta. Stay away from sugary sports drinks unless it is right after warmup or the mile. Everything else is too short a race to burn much sugar, so we don’t have to worry much about refueling at this point.
3. Eat a big balanced mealas soon as possible after the session, this may be the only meal before finals.
4. End the daywith more emphasis on protein to rebuild muscle during the night.

You may notice that during taper and competition you are swimming about half the usual yardage and at a much lower average intensity. Adjust your diet to match. To some degree, it is a calories-in/calories-out equation, and you don’t want to spend the last two weeks of the season eating like you’re training 10,000 yards a day when you are really only swimming about 3,000. Cut out some of the snacks and high glycemic index foods that are heavy in carbs. You will still recover just fine, but you won’t blow up like a balloon either and you will be ready for those cameras at the meet.

Tangent: Bodybuilders have a famous saying, “Built in the gym, chiseled in the kitchen!”

Micro-nutrients, Supplements and the Microbiome

This is Part-III of the Biology of Swimming, we are not here to do average or even good… we are here to perfect! If you did everything we talked about so far, you will be feeding your Swimming Machine better than most athletes of any sport feed themselves, but if you want that little extra something, this is the section for you.

Micro-nutrients are the vitamins and minerals you need just a few micro-grams of a day to stay healthy. Most of them are involved in making certain enzymes and chemical reactions work correctly. Being deficient in any micro-nutrient will cause you to have a tough time swimming fast… or living in general. But with a balanced and complete diet, that is rarely the case. Having extra of these nutrients added to your diet doesn’t usually help, but here is a summary of a few that tend to get low and do seem to show a benefit when a little extra is taken.

1. Vitamin D: Keeps calcium at normal levels, and can affect mood if severely low.
   1. This one is especially important up north where the sun don’t shine.
   2. 1000-2000 units a day is good. (can’t really overdose on this stuff).
2. Vitamin C: Reduce oxidative damage.
   1. 500mg per day right after exercise has been shown to maintain the immune system and decreases the rate of upper respiratory tract infections (colds).
   2. Useful if training hard which can suppress immune system or coming up to a big meet and you tend to get sick around that time.
3. Vitamin E: Also reduces oxidative damage.
   1. It has been shown to help with training at altitude. It improves oxidative stress during workout, but has not shown to change racing performance at sea level.
4. Iron: Used in transporting oxygen inside red blood cells.
   1. Iron helps if you are iron deficient. 46% of female athletes have low stores of iron, but are not actually anemic. Iron supplementation didn’t seem to make a difference in performance.
   2. Vegetarians and vegans however should be on a daily iron supplement since they have a tougher time maintaining a balanced diet.
   3. 65mg a day is plenty. In the hospital we usually start with 324mg tablets, but that will be overkill. Be careful, it can cause constipation and black poops.
5. Salt: Helps retain water and maintain blood volume.
   1. 500mg per day minimum taken during the initial weeks of training immediately after exercise improves blood volume, especially if training in the heat.
   2. During long endurance exercise, 1.5-3 grams of salt has been shown to help too.
6. Zinc: Also maintains the immune system
   1. 25mg per day during heavy training to keep the flu away!

You thought potassium was going to be on that list and that it helps with cramping, didn’t you?! NOPE, cramping has nothing to do with potassium. At the end of the day cramping has to do with your muscle cells running out of ATP causing the actin and myosin to lock together and prevent their release (see Chapter 1). This can be from a number of things: closed off blood supply (fins), run out of glycogen (long workout) or blood shunting (pulling for an hour and then jumping into a kick set).

Tangent: Increased intake of the vitamin niacin (B3) actually decreases exercise capacity by preventing the mobilization of fatty acids to be used by the mitochondrial engine.

I wanted to talk about supplements in this chapter for a number of reasons, one of them is NOT because you need them. After all, they are called “supplements.” As you get older and it becomes increasingly difficult to get best times, you may start considering supplements as a way to enhance your performance and that isn’t a bad thing. The problem is that there are about 1000 supplements that will claim can make you the next Olympic superstar, but in reality, only a few have good research to support their benefit and safety. At the very least, this overview will keep you well informed and prevent you from getting blindsided by some TV commercial, store clerk or God forbid your coach or teammate (or parent… yeah, I know you are competitive too Mom and Dad)!

The term “supplement” is pretty vague and probably means something different to each person. You may have heard the term “ergogenic aide” which is really anything that helps you perform better. Either term can be used to describe anything from anabolic steroids to water. For our purpose, a supplement is going to be any naturally found compound that is concentrated and taken to produce a training, recovery or racing enhancement that is not on the WADA list of banned substances and can be totally excluded from the diet without harmful effects. That’s a long definition… but it’s pretty much what you think it is.

Unfortunately, we HAVE to have the talk…about supplements I mean. Supplements are not tightly regulated by the FDA like medications or food. Manufacturers do have some proofs and regulations they need to follow, but anything they say can be skewed to fit their selling point including the famous “clinically proven to…” phrase. New supplements can be downright dangerous, but they won’t be pulled off the market until it’s too late because regulation of supplements is generally retroactive, not proactive. On top of that, unless the manufacturer has a third-party examiner like USP (United States Pharmacopeia), there is no guarantee that what is on the label is what is in the bottle. A lot of athletes are getting busted for tainted supplements and you should be very careful how to use them. We will present only the best researched, effective and safe supplements to try for your training, but make sure to get them from a trusted source.

Tangent: “The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) is a scientific, nonprofit organization that sets federally recognized public standards of quality for medicines, dietary supplements, and foods. USP has been establishing standards since 1820, and today USP standards are used by manufacturers and regulators in more than 140 countries. While others may provide testing and quality seals, USP is the only standards-setting organization recognized in U.S. federal law that offers third-party verification.”

1. Creatine monohydrate: Increases exercise capacity, ability to perform high intensity exercise and increases lean muscle mass.
   1. Easily the best studied, most beneficial and safest supplement on the market. The problem is it mainly improves sprint and power sports like weight lifting and throwing. The associated weight gain may be detrimental to swimmers who need to stay lean. For the right athlete in the right events, creatine might be something to play with.
   2. Studies showed a 2-5lbs weight gain in lean body mass in about 12 weeks with weightlifting training. Improvements in exercise were best seen with repeated sprints or lifts that had at least 50 seconds of rest in between repeats.
   3. Start by taking a loading dose of 0.3 grams per kilogram of body weight for 3 days (about 20 grams a day for an average guy). Then take 3-5 grams per day for maintenance.
2. Caffeine: Inhibits an enzyme and certain receptors to act as a mild stimulant.
   1. Another well studied and safe supplement. The world’s most consumed drug by far.
   2. Caffeine enhances repeated sprint performance which is likely related to its energy stimulating effect. It can also improve endurance performance by increasing the body’s use of fats and sparing carbohydrates which allows athletes to train harder for longer. On average, expect about 3% better performance in endurance and up to 9% in sprinting!
   3. Take 3-9mg per kilogram of body weight 30-90 minutes before workout.
   4. Be careful… there is a limit on caffeine use during competition and taking over 9mg/kg will show up in the urine and trigger the doping threshold (>600mg in 70kg person!)

1. Beetroot juice or nitrate (NO3) -Improves blood flow to muscles, mitochondrial efficiency, glucose use and contraction/relaxation cycles of muscles. It may also signal increased mitochondrial growth.
   1. NO3 is converted to nitric oxide (NO) by bacteria in your mouth and the acid in your stomach. Nitric oxide is one of the hormones that is released by muscle during workout to dilate blood vessels and increase blood flow to those muscles (see Hormones chapter).
   2. Take 6-8 milli-moles of NO3 90-180min before workout. They come in little shots of beetroot juice, so don’t measure too much.
   3. Doesn’t seem to play well with caffeine interestingly, and mouthwash will kill all the bacteria that do the work for you, so don’t do that either!

Tangent: Tibetans have naturally higher levels of nitrites and nitric acid in the blood. People who get altitude sickness also have lower nitric oxide levels.

4. Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda): A compound found in blood that acts as a buffering agent against acid overload.
   1. In races that are 1-3 minutes long, sodium bicarb has been shown to improve performance by increasing your blood pH by just 0.1 and your resting bicarb levels by 5mmol (normal is about 24). It was specifically researched in swimmers and improved 200m swim times by about 2%.
   2. Take 0.3g per kilogram of body weight 60-90min before exercise or 5g twice daily for five days before your race.
   3. Be careful… baking soda has been known to cause stomach upset and explosive diarrhea! Don’t try it for the first time at a meet.
5. Sodium Phosphate: A compound that supplies phosphorus to your body. It is unclear how it helps. It may have to do with helping ATP recycle faster?
   1. Take 1 gram four times a day for 3-6 days before a competition.
   2. Shown to improve VO2max and increase the lactate threshold by 5-10% which is GREAT for endurance races.
   3. Other forms of phosphate (calcium/potassium phosphate) did not have the same effect.
6. Beta-alanine: Related to and boosts carnosine levels which is a muscle buffering protein.
   1. Decreases rate of fatigue with weightlifting which might make it good for sprinters, but probably not as useful for everyone else.

In addition to the supplements listed above, there are a couple up and commers that seem to have promise and are related to providing the body with a better source of fuel to help spare carbohydrates and allow better recovery and training. These are not as well studied, and only rate a “possibly effective” in the research.

1. EAAs (essential amino acids): Amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own and needs to ingest them from an outside source.
   1. Take 3-6g to increase protein synthesis if taken right after a weightlifting workout.
   2. Another supplement probably only good for sprinters or very skinny athletes who would benefit from some muscle mass gains.
2. BCAAs (branched chain amino acids): A select few EAAs.
   1. Taken before exercise, has been shown to delay the onset of fatigue, maintain mental function in aerobic based exercise and decrease CPK release which is a sign of muscle damage. If taken after workout, it stimulates protein synthesis and aides in glycogen re-synthesis (aka recovery).
   2. Take 200mg per day for more than 10 days.
3. HMB (beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate): A metabolite of a single certain BCAA (seeing a pattern here?)
   1. Helps prevent protein degradation and shown to increase muscle mass by 1-2lbs in 6 weeks. It also seems to decrease the breaking down effect of long exercise and has an additive effect with creatine.
   2. Only shows benefit with non-athletes newly starting to train. No benefit shown in athletes.
   3. Take 1.5-3 grams per day during exercise.
4. Ketones: A byproduct of extreme fat breakdown that occurs during starvation and feeds the body and brain when there is no sugar available.
   1. An interesting and very new (as of 2018) kid on the block. By feeding the muscles a source of fuel that it usually only gets during starvation seems to have a major benefit to sparing carbohydrate use and help re-synthesize glycogen after workout.
   2. It’s still a little early to tell, but keep an eye out for this one!
   3. Take 500mg per kilogram of body weight per day before and during training.

There are a lot more supplements that have been researched and found to be useless or unsafe. For a complete list and more details on the supplements above, see the ISSN Exercise & Sport Nutrition Review: Research & Recommendations review article published by the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition here:

Tangent: BEWARE of prohormones and stacks. These are the supplements in commercials that advertise boosting testosterone to give you better workouts and girlfriends. Most of these supplements have little to bad research behind them and some research even suggests that certain pro-hormones increase estrogen levels instead. Best case scenario is that these supplements work exactly the way they claim and now you are just taking steroids and cheating.

There are more bacteria in your mouth than there are cells in your whole body, think about how many there must be in your poop! The jungle of bacteria, viruses and fugi that live in your gut is called the microbiome. There are thousands of species that make up this community and depending on the distribution of certain bacteria, this microbiome can greatly alter your Swimming Machine. The microbiome is the hot button research topic these days and is being studied to discover the causes and treatment of diseases from chronic diarrhea to obesity to behavior and intelligence!

Here is an example of the power of the microbiome. An experiment was done where they took the gut bacteria (poop) from a thin mouse and put it in a fat mouse, and vice versa. Without changing diet or exercise, the fat mouse got thin, and the thin mouse got fat. Certain infections like Clostridium difficile which is a specific bacterium that outgrows the microbiome community and wreaks havoc now have FDA approved treatments that involve taking poop from a healthy individual, making a smoothie out of it and then spraying it all around the sick person’s intestines to return the proper microbiome balance. These are called fecal transplants and are nasty and cool at the same time!

Mouse study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5045147/

I was going to put in a picture about fecal transplants…but thought twice about it. You’re welcome.

The only research we have now focuses on the relationships between microbiome changes and diseases. One study did show that rugby players have a different community of bacteria than non-athletes and suggests that sports and the microbiome interact with each other in some way. Regardless, gut bacteria are a big deal in keeping your Swimming Machine running at optimum functioning and you can choose to either feed the good bacteria or the bad ones based on what you eat. In general, fiber (found in veggies) and probiotic foods feed the good bacteria while processed sugar and trans fats (junk food) feed the bad ones. Good sources of probiotic foods include: Yogurt, miso, kimchi, keifer, pickles and sauerkraut. These foods are fermented, and no… beer doesn’t count. Generally, having a serving or two a day of some sort of probiotic food is a good rule of thumb. In the future, it might be discovered that the real badness behind junk and processed foods has everything to do with changing your microbiome community!

Tangent…not really

Depending on parents and school to cook you good meals and snacks is not an excuse for eating crap.
Go to the grocery store with your parents and cook for yourself if you have to.
Bring food from home and eat your own lunch at school. I remember the garbage they serve and it’s cheaper if you do it yourself.

 

Karl Hamouche- Swim Smart founder

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