Many athletes take dietary supplements in the form of pills, powders and beverages to enhance their performance. Although they promise stronger and faster athletes alike, often their science behind these claims remains questionable.
Man-made creatine supplements may benefit athletes who engage in sports that involve short bursts of intense exercise with quick recovery times, such as sprinting and power lifting, but long-term safety studies on teenagers aren’t available yet.
Nutritional supplements
No solid evidence exists to prove the efficacy of nutritional supplements as muscle builders or performance enhancers, contrary to claims made by marketers and some athletes themselves. Athletes should exercise extreme caution when purchasing any dietary supplements from any source – be it online or retail stores – without first consulting professional advice beforehand.
Nutrition often plays only a minor role in elite athlete success, yet dietary supplements remain an important element. They may offer direct performance-enhancing benefits (correction of deficiencies or provision of convenient energy and macronutrients) or indirectly boost performance via improved physiological functions that increase training hard, recovery quickly and adapting quickly to training or competition environments.
Athleticians considering any dietary supplement should conduct proper due diligence with third party certification schemes to verify its safety and ensure it will not contain prohibited substances, in order to make informed decisions about which supplements offer greater gains while posing lower risks of anti-doping violations and potentially harm their careers and reputations.
Pre-workout supplements
Pre-workout supplements are designed to give athletes an energy boost and enhance performance, giving them an edge against fatigue during training sessions. You can mix these powders with water or ready-to-drink (RTD) formulas. For maximum effectiveness, consider customizing your pre-workout supplement to your training goals by including beta-alanine, creatine and L-citrulline in their formulation to boost endurance as well as muscle growth and blood flow improvements.
These products also contain electrolytes such as sodium, potassium and magnesium to replenish what was lost during intense exercise. Some might contain caffeine or other stimulants but these ingredients have often not been well studied together or have been dosed too lowly to have the desired effects.
Existing research indicates that pre-workout supplements can enhance performance during exercise sessions, but they’re no silver bullet – you must still put in work in your sport! Levi Streeval and Trey Haralson, sophomore biology students from Lipscomb University recently conducted extensive research into this area as part of their project for the 2024 Lipscomb Student Scholar Symposium.
Post-workout supplements
After working out hard in the gym, it is time to recover and refuel your muscles. Post-workout supplements (also called protein powders) offer just that solution, promising muscle growth assistance while simultaneously decreasing DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness), replenishing energy stores, and aiding recovery post exercise. Like pre-workouts, post-workout powders should be mixed with liquid for consumption.
Supplements may contain carbs for energy and Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) to decrease fatigue during workouts, with creatine often added in to aid muscle growth and prevent breakdown during sessions. However, these supplements should never take the place of a healthy diet and regular training schedule.
Other supplements
Athletes often use supplements, including multivitamins, branched-chain amino acids, omega-3 fatty acids, creatine, beta-alanine and more, in an attempt to enhance athletic performance. Unfortunately, scientific evidence for their efficacy on athletic performance remains limited at best; most studies that attempt to assess value and safety for supplements targeted specifically towards athletes tend to use short study designs with small sample sizes or durations that use unreliable tests resulting in poor control over confounding factors [3].
Nutritional supplements can assist athletes in meeting their training and competition goals more easily. Unfortunately, however, many athletes misuse or misuse supplements unnecessarily which often has the opposite effect than intended. Furthermore, athletes should be aware of any prohibited ingredients present in certain supplements which could compromise an athlete’s ability to compete and should contact the administration or governing body of their sport to receive a list of prohibited substances.
