Kelly Jones, MS, RD, CSSD

The side effects of supplementing with creatine are minimal. Most people don't experience any side effects, and there is no evidence to support that it causes kidney problems or is a steroid. Some people may have digestive reactions, so if this is you, you should avoid taking it.
 
Transcript: "Love this one. What are the side effects of supplementing with creatine? I am such a creatine fan and I wish I was back when I was a competitive athlete, but I bought into a lot of the myths and misconceptions associated with it. People think that it causes unnecessary weight gain. Well, really it's just hydrating your muscles better. People think that it causes kidney problems. There's actually no evidence to support that. People think it causes muscle cramping. It may actually do the opposite. And it's also not a steroid. I don't know where that started floating around too, but if you were taking simply creatine monohydrate, I see that there can only be benefits. And I'm going to link to a paper right here that anyone can read and have access to that goes over all of these myths and misconceptions with research evidence that they really aren't true. I will say that anecdotally, some people may have digestive reactions. If that's you, you just might have an overly sensitive digestive tract and don't take it. But for the vast majority of people, we don't see side effects even when taking amounts much greater than the recommended doses and even in adolescents still."
 creatine myths + misconceptions 

A good recovery smoothie after a sprint conditioning workout should include carbohydrates (such as a banana), protein (like Greek yogurt or a protein powder), antioxidants (like frozen berries or spinach), fat (such as peanut butter or avocado) and electrolytes (like a pinch of salt).
 
Transcript: "What would a good recovery smoothie include after a sprint conditioning workout? The amount of what I'm going to say that you will need is going to be based on what else did you eat that day, maybe even what did you have the day before, did you ingest anything during that training session, and of course how long was that training session and how much of it were you moving, how much was that stressing on your body from a heart rate perspective and energy burn perspective. But when you're looking at a recovery smoothie, my checklist is going to include carbohydrate in some capacity, even if that ends up being from fruit like a banana, because that's gonna have both starch and some sugars in there. They're gonna be quick energy replenishment to your muscle cells. Two, we want to have some protein there. So while yes, protein powders are an option, that could also be a Greek yogurt, it could be you know milk or soy milk, as long as you're including enough. And then we want some antioxidants, so you're gonna get color. So that could be from frozen berries or it could be adding spinach. And then we also want to ensure that we're including some fat and electrolytes. So fat can be simple, peanut butter, avocado, but plant-based fats that are going to have anti-inflammatory type of benefits. And then from an electrolyte perspective, if you were exercising for a long period of time, if it was in the heat, then we want to add some salt. So that could be as simple as a pinch of salt, it could be an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, but that's gonna vary again depending on the person."

The top three, most popular supplements that are primarily hype / marketing are BCAAs, multivitamins, and collagen.
 
Transcript: "What are the top three most popular supplements that are primarily hype slash marketing instead of actually demonstrating an effect? Well, I have two that I'll definitely call out and I'm teetering on a third, but number one BCAAs branch chain amino acids, you don't need them. If you take BCAA supplements before a workout and you feel like it increases your energy during exercise, it probably means that you're not eating enough carbohydrates, which are your body's preferred source of fuel. Other than ultra endurance athletes having some BCAAs along with their carbs during their long distance training or racing, uh, where it might have a little bit of an effect to help with, uh, their muscle recovery and their immune system. Number one, your everyday exercisers and your athletes don't need it. You can get all three branch chain amino acids from whole food protein sources. And along with that, you're going to get all of the other essential amino acids that you need to actually repair muscle and supply your body with what it needs. Number two, multivitamins. It's not going to hurt you, but there's a good chance it's not going to help you unless you're focusing on a well-balanced diet. Uh, athletes wouldn't be the type of people who could most benefit, but there's probably single nutrient supplements and other things you can work on. Last one, collagen, unless you have a joint injury, it's not something that I recommend. And I think it's way overhyped by the media."

Eating disorders and disordered eating in athletes is a real problem, and it's important to have a care team involved with dietitians, psychologists, doctors, and sports medicine professionals. Screenings and education need to be done to help the athletes understand what is an inadvertent issue and what could be a more serious disorder. The team should also be helping to limit exercise when necessary.
 
Transcript: "All right, my practice works a lot with this and really preventing this, but how do you address eating disorders and disordered eating in the athletic population? Unfortunately, the risk for eating disorders is higher for athletes, especially high school and collegiate athletes when risk is high in general. But the hard thing with athletes is determining do they have an eating disorder or are they inadvertently not eating enough? We deal a lot with something called REDS, relative energy deficiency in sport, where the amount of calories that athletes are eating often is not adequate to support basic body functions after they consider their high calorie and energy demands for training. So because of that, we can see a whole slew of problems, health and performance wise, where they have limited strength, they're not recovering well, their endurance is suffering, their injury risk and immune system are not doing well. And then we can also see things like depression, GI problems, and heart issues, so on and so forth. So we need to do a better job as a whole of identifying when there are these issues with energy deficiency and athletic trainers and dieticians could be doing more screenings for them, but we need to educate coaches more too. And then from there, working with the athletes to determine, okay, do you actually have poor body image? Are you trying to lose weight? Is thinness something that you're obsessed with or is it an inadvertent issue? Either way we go, we need to work with that athlete, either just on habits or on psychology. And on the psychology side, if it is disordered eating or an eating disorder, it's incredibly important that there's a care team involved where you have a sports dietician who really understands the culture, you have a sports psychologist, and then their sports medicine doctor, of course too. And we really need to get them on board with admitting that they have these issues. And hopefully we also have a physician who can help limit their exercise too."
 more on RED-S

The body uses carbohydrates as its primary source of energy for exercise. The body stores carbohydrates as glycogen in the muscles and liver, which is then used during exercise to release energy. If exercising for over 90 minutes, it is important to replace carbohydrates during exercise to ensure there is enough to supply both the muscles and the brain.
 
Transcript: "How does the body utilize carbohydrates for energy during exercise? Well carbohydrates are the body's preferred source of energy for exercising muscles and both carbohydrates and fluid are known as our limiting factors in both intensity and duration, especially when we're looking at endurance exercise, which really any real athlete is engaging in endurance exercise with their training, right? So when we eat our carbohydrates, if you're eating enough carbohydrates first of all, you're going to store them as glycogen. So we digest them into individual molecules once they're in our bloodstream, we link them back up together to be stored as this glycogen in our muscles and a little bit in our liver and that is going to be the preferred source of energy for our muscles during exercise. It's right there, it's ready to go, it's gonna be the quickest conversion into energy. We can release energy from it most easily and that's going to be more and more important as we reach higher intensities. As I mentioned earlier, it limits our intensity if we don't eat enough carbohydrates or drink enough fluid. So the higher intensity you go, the more carbohydrate your body wants to use. The longer you're exercising, the more carbohydrate you want to have stored away. If you are not replacing carbohydrate during exercise, especially longer duration activities, then you will chip away at our blood sugar, which we'd rather have supplying energy to our brain. Then we're gonna kind of exhaust that liver glycogen that we can store away to. So we do want when activity is especially over 90 minutes, I say, supply ourselves with some carbohydrate during exercise and there's a variety of methods that you can do that so that we can then again have more in our bloodstream to supply both our muscles and the brain when our muscles start to run out."

The best pre-sleep snacks for muscle protein synthesis overnight are high-quality proteins, like dairy, soy, or tofu. You can also pair protein with carbohydrates such as Greek yogurt with pineapple, a higher-protein cereal with milk and chocolate chips, or a smoothie with carbs, fruit, and protein.
 
Transcript: "What are the best pre-sleep snacks to help with muscle protein synthesis overnight? I love this question. At night you are not really just resting, you are recovering and we want the nutrients there so that you can do that. So number one is going to be protein. As long as you're eating enough over the course of the day, protein is number one at night and in a high quality form. So if we're not having a dairy protein, let's say cottage cheese or yogurt, or even just milk, soy proteins are really great alternative for anyone who doesn't include dairy. So that could be soy milk, it could be a soy based yogurt, or even soy products like tofu or edamame. You can even have seconds of whatever protein you had at dinner if it's a high quality option. But from a snacking perspective, yogurts and milk are easy to go to. And if you're actually truly hungry, pair it with carbohydrate too. Especially those of you that are engaging in any endurance exercise or training every single day, it's helpful to replenish those energy stores to make sure that you're really using that protein that you're eating and that nighttime snack for muscle recovery. So some examples, you can have Greek yogurt, especially higher in protein paired with some pineapple. You could have cereal that's a little bit higher in protein, a whole grain cereal with milk or soy milk and add some chocolate chips in there. If you're craving something sweet, you could even do a smoothie that includes carbs and fruit, maybe for antioxidants and then protein in some format too."