Is protein supplements important?

[Vault Boy]

I have many team mates that use protein supplements. Are they effective?

[Flow]

protein supps are effective! I used to take loads of those...builds muscle fast, recovers from fatigue fast.... also used to take creatine, chromium supps...haha....until....someone tell me they may have cancer inducing substances in them....scared the hell outta me....stopped taking from then on....

But seriously, if you eat smart you can achieve very satisfactory results too....bananas and egg whites are great training foods if im not wrong

[Nautilus]

The main purpose of the use of protein has to be taken into perspective.

One has to be very clear that if you are a paddling athlete, the primary goal of the use of protein supplementation is for the purpose of aiding recovery and rebuilding of stronger muscle bundles. The aim therefore will not be the use of protein for the purpose of hypertrophy (grow bigger muscle). Growing bigger will probably be an inevitable by product of training, but should not be taken as the primary goal.

With that in mind, i must say that protein supplementation is essential for all serious athlete. But there are many kinds of protein, and not all protein are equal.

The following information is provided is generally accepted by the sports medicine community. Anything which belongs to 'the-jury-is-still-out' category will not be shared.

Whey protein
is the name for a collection of globular proteins that can be isolated from whey, a by-product of cheese manufactured from cow's milk. It is typically a mixture of beta-lactoglobulin (~65%), alpha-lactalbumin (~25%), and serum albumin (~8%), which are soluble in their native forms, independent of pH. Whey has the highest Biological Value (BV) of any known protein.

The biological value of whey makes it the best form of protein to be retained and utilised biologically in human body. However whey protein is considered a "fast acting" protein. But what, exactly, is meant by 'fast'?

Fast refers to the amount of time it takes to be fully metabolized. More specifically, the time it takes for it to be digested (if needed), absorbed into the blood, taken up by a bodily tissue, and complete one of many metabolic fates.

The two dominant pathways here are the creation of a new protein from the individual amino acids or oxidation into urea and possibly glucose.

Urea is the major component of urine, while glucose is the human basic unit of carbohydrate. With whey protein, it will take only 20 minutes before almost all of what you have consumed is coursing through your veins.

Somewhere between 20-40 minutes, the level of amino acids in your blood has reached its high point. Within the hour it will have gone through the various metabolic processes, either protein synthesis, or oxidation. Simply, either your body have absorbed it for muscular synthesis or oxidised it for energy in the form of glucose or transform it into urea.

This feature of whey is especially good after intensive physical training. The human body's response to trauma to the muscle fibres through intensive exercise is to secrete growth hormone. This is when you need to flood your system with protein quickly so these 'building blocks' are present for use in repair of the micro-damage to your muscle fibre.

The other time when you could do well by consuming whey protein is immediately after waking up. After a whole night of fasting, your body will be in a nitrogen-deficient state. Consuming whey will reverse this 'catabolic' state such that your body do not cannibalise your muscle cells for energy. As it is your body is probably still repairing itself from yesterday's gruelling training, to allow the body to become catabolic will not help the recovery, resulting in less than optimal effect from your training.

In my opinion, taking whey protein supplements at other timings is just a plain waste of money. :wink:

Food Protein & Casein

These source of protein are also not to be neglected and should be regularly eaten throughout your meals. These protein takes a longer metabolic path and are considered slow-acting.

Casein is another major component of cow milk. It tends to coagulate in an acidic environment, i.e. in your stomach. Thus it is digested and absorbed slower. Food protein because of their various structure and nature, take some time to be digested. You may want to note that egg is actually the best source of protein with the highest biological value for a whole food.

As such they could be consumed as night snack to last you through the night and preserve your body in a nitrogen positive (anabolic) state, as opposed to the previously mentioned catabolic state.

In conclusion, the correct understanding of the type of protein and timing of consumption will help an athlete achieve his best.

[Vault Boy]

thanks for the info. very educational. but what about creatine?

[merman]

I use to take creatine myself when I was younger after it became all the hype and became easily accessible. The results were very good I must say. It allowed me to train harder and become bigger easier, simply because I trained harder and broke down my muscle fibre more. I could simply do a lot more pullups with and without creatine. This is something I noticed. (But mind you, creatine does not cut it for slackers, you still have to train to improve. Its not miracle strong-man drug!) But I think back and realised that creatine is not cheap. I think it really helped serious athlete at a very high competitive level to maximise their potential. However, I guess regular amateur athletes like us could do very well without creatine. Just my take on things.  

[SwImmIng]

As a canoeist, how should we take our protein supplement?

[lala]

As a canoeist, how should we take our protein supplement?

"how should we take?'' drink it?

[lala]

Will protein intake increase body weight? Will heavy body weight affect the performance of a canoeist? (as in, will the boat sink/poor balancing etc..) :?  :roll:

[Nautilus]

As a canoeist, how should we take our protein supplement?

If you use protein supplements, I presume the type you use is pure whey protein, not some mass-gainer type protein mix which consists of casein, whey and lots of sugar. I will summarise from my previous long post.

1)Take your whey protein first thing when you wake up, to prevent your body from eating up itself, especially after 'fasting' for a whole night.

2)Take your protein immediately (preferably within the 30min window) after training, (you should plan to have some simple carbohydrates together as well, i.e glucolin.) to time it with growth hormone release after exercise.

3)If you do supper, take casein protein or food protein, (Milk, egg, soy milk, tuna etc. Forget about whey protein supplement now cause it will just be a waste of money, as whey goes through your system to fast to last the night.) to time with growth hormone released during sleep.

4)Take between 20 - 40g of whey protein each time will be more than enough. Anything more will be a waste of money.

Will protein intake increase body weight? Will heavy body weight affect the performance of a canoeist? (as in, will the boat sink/poor balancing etc..)

The primary objective of protein supplementation for a canoeist/kayaker is to assist in post-training recovery and prevent overtraining. When you train, you invariably build functional muscle mass to assist you in your paddling, i.e you become stronger. You cannot become very much stronger if you do not build new and stronger bundles of muscle tissue.

When you mention will protein supplement increase body weight, I will probably say yes and no.
Why? When you build bigger and stronger functional mass, you will increase in weight naturally. However, at the same time as you train you will reduce non-functional mass, i.e fats tissue, since they are used as fuel during training. You see, body weight is not a factor at all with protein supplement.

It is not very easy, even with protein supplementation, as most believe for people, especially asian like us to build very huge muscle or have tremendous increase in body weight from added muscular tissue due to our gene. It is even harder for female athlete to gain the musculature of a male athlete due to the low level of testosterone in the female body. For the record whey protein supplements are not miracle drugs, they are simply extracted from cow milk, and has better nutritional and bio value.

If your concern is that the added muscular mass (which translate to muscular strength) will sink the boat, it is simply unfounded. In fact the opposite is true. Balancing the boat comes from central nervous system conditioning, or what we normally call muscle memory. You wont forget how to balance a bicycle no matter how heavy you become. The more you train the better you are at balancing the boat.

You just have to look at the Hungarian women kayak national team to say if their boat sink or fly.

[DrowneD]

i believe for everything u do... there is a purpose... it really depends on individuals, some for recovery, some for muscle mass... to answering lala's question.... i do see a far bit of canoeist with really huge body frame, incidentally i link them as 'heavy'... so for ur question.... i dun think it affects.. cause there are boats that are built according to weight.. (check out nelo's webby)

protein supplements in general, aids in body 'repair' to muscle 'bulking'.... i wouldnt want to say much, but 'drink as direction suggests', or check out health dietitians, cause its really subjective, and i feel that its much more 'professional' in the quality of advice u'll receive from ur dietitians... or from Nautilus... it seems he has alot of knowledge on supplements...