I coach rowing, a sport considered to be 70-80% aerobic activity. The general formula followed by rowing coaches is therefore to spend 70-80% of training sessions developing an aerobic base, and 20-30% on anaerobic threshold.
I’ve been looking into supplements for my athletes, I know other coaches using protein and creatine for their rowers but I’m dubious about the value of creatine when training 60-120 minutes steady-state.
In the gym rowing training progresses from hypertrophy to max strength to power and then power endurance, so creatine supplementation here seems reasonable.
Particularly during preseason training we endeavor to develop bigger athletes with greater aerobic fitness, but what supplements are on the market that will aid with aerobic development? I asked at my local supp store and was directed toward arginine for aerobic development and beta alanine for competition.
I plugged both these into T-Nation searches and found David Barr’s damning assesment of arginine supplementation (which supprised me because so many competitors in other aerobic sports seem to swear by it). Beta alanine came up with more favourable reports, but I’m still not sure exactly how it would best be used in training.
There is plenty of information available on supps to help you get big, but I’m still not a whole lot wiser as to what I should be looking at when it comes to aerobic training.
beta alanine for sure. the problem here is it is quite new and we have only a few studies. they are all positive as is feedback from all the athletes i know using it, whether they be endurance runners or strength athletes.
making sure your athletes are acid-base balanced can be a big performance enhancing factor for longer events, so make sure they get all their fruits and veggies.
other than that most sports nutrition is actually geared toward recovery, so dosing is based on training volume and body size.
With a supplements such as beta alanine, which may well help people train at a higher intensity - does this actually elicit a better aerobic base once supplementation is removed?
My point is, is it worth supplementing with beta alanine during off season training, or would it be just as beneficial to use it to maximise carnosine stores (which doesnt take long) before events.
If beta alanine can develop energy systems independent of it’s primary effect on muscle buffering then it would be worth using pre-season, but if its only effect is acutely in the muscle, then surely it is a waste of money using it to improve performanc pre-season.
To reiterate my point, doesnt beta alanine merely increase performance due to increasing buffering - i.e take supplementation away and once carn concentrations have fallen, performance will return to baseline levels? Therefore the best way to improve performance is through training and general diet.
For bodybuilding/hypertrophy/max strength it may be different because these can’t be increased through acute supplementation.
there is no reasons that gains made during training will not carry over once beta alanine supplementation is removed. that is not to say that one will be able to perform at the same level (i believe the athletes told dr. stout they sucked without the beta alanine) but rather that any improvements in perfromance other than that ascribed to the buffering capacity should remain.
[quote]edvizard wrote:
With a supplements such as beta alanine, which may well help people train at a higher intensity - does this actually elicit a better aerobic base once supplementation is removed?
My point is, is it worth supplementing with beta alanine during off season training, or would it be just as beneficial to use it to maximise carnosine stores (which doesnt take long) before events.
If beta alanine can develop energy systems independent of it’s primary effect on muscle buffering then it would be worth using pre-season, but if its only effect is acutely in the muscle, then surely it is a waste of money using it to improve performanc pre-season.
To reiterate my point, doesnt beta alanine merely increase performance due to increasing buffering - i.e take supplementation away and once carn concentrations have fallen, performance will return to baseline levels? Therefore the best way to improve performance is through training and general diet.
[/quote]
All that stuff you said is pretty much true. Except that, once muscle carnosine levels reach peak levels through training, only supplementation will make it go higher.
There hasn’t been any research on what happens after the supplementation is taken off, at least that I haven’t been able to find.
You could take baking soda to help the buffer system in the body, but only for people that won’t get upset stomachs from it.
For aerobic supplementation, you could try l-carnitine. There was a research that showed it improved trained athletes’ v02 max a few points compared to the control. They took 3 grams a day.
A good peri-nutrition drink would also be very helpful with recovery and performance. Something with bcaas/protien, and carbs.