Sup with the SUPPS?!

Welcome back, dancers and friends!

It was recently international ballet day! Or world ballet day. Or something like that. Hopefully, you, as dancers, celebrated! This week, I'd like to touch on different dietary supplements outside of vitamins and minerals that you may or may not take, or even know about!

What the heck is an ergogenic aid?! Well, it's a fancier word for a supplement OR training technique, device, practice, ingredient, pharmacological or psychological technique that can improve your exercise performance.1 

For instance, one you might find common in the dance world is protein! You may also have heard about BCAAs, L-Glutamine and L-Carntitine. Maybe even creatine for the male dancers! Another commonplace aid may be practices like Intermittent Fasting (for which we can discuss another time...I have my thoughts!).

Just so you know, the FDA and FTC have oversight on dietary supplements. Usually, ingredients of supplements go through different research on their efficacy, safety, what they may/may not improve in your body and so on. They usually are done on rats and then humans, so some supplements may not have as much testing as others or many studies on them. It's super important to check the parameters of the studies on such supplements and aids so you can tell if it was skewed or marketed to trick you into buying it!1

All supplements are to be tested for quality assurance as the companies are formulating new products to put on the market. It goes back to each single ingredient being researched, tested, finding the best form of it/for purity, and then clinical dosing. Eventually, they can be tested and then sent over to the FDA for approval.1

Third party testing is other companies you'll see on labels like the NSF seal. They further research and test these products and if they hold up, they get a seal of approval. Since the FDA isn't directly testing these, I always feel safer seeing NSF on aids I may buy!

When you see claims being made about dietary supplements, you should be wary on how much research went into these supplements. I'll show you what I mean below! 

I'd like to further talk about BCAA supplements for a moment as they are on the rise - at least in terms of marketing. They always exist (in your food), regardless! But, some information you may find can be misleading. Remember, BCAAs are Branched Chain Amino Acids (proteins)- Leucine, Isoleucine and Valine, they can't be made in your body but they are often consumed in a well rounded whole foods diet.1 

Some of the popular claims for BCAAs are (outside of all those influencers who don't bother to learn the science!)

-Enhance muscle protein recovery after a workout.2

-They reduce soreness. 3

-They allow you to increase and/or stimulate muscle protein synthesis. 4

While yes, BCAAs can do this, you may or may not need a powdered supplement to see these types of effects. These are common claims I found online from different supplement and non-academic pages on the internet! 

But, in the (scientific) literature, you will find a mixed bag of results. Ultimately, what I've found in prior research is that we definitely need longer studies as well as bigger and more varied populations and sample sizes! It doesn't take long to do a quick search, I promise!

To explore the "popular claims" I mentioned above, I found some long systematic/peer reviewed journal articles and studies that in summary, said the following. In resistance trained athletes in different conditions, there was no significant difference in reduction of muscle soreness after a workout. 5. Efficacy in supplementation of reducing muscle damage and recover quicker so far is also poor and once again, may only help athletes that are resistance trained for many years.6. A systematic review of other literature on BCAAs also concluded stimulating muscle protein synthesis with BCAA supplementation is unwarranted. In part, due to lack of human studies with oral ingestion as well as what other studies on human subjects (mostly small sample sizes, n=6) have done thus far.7

Once again, the populations that may reap the most benefits from supplementing with BCAAs at this point in time are resistance trained males/athletes! Unfortunately, we need a lot more studies to see if these will help you, as a dancer! 

But, just so you know, it IS common to take a scoop before or sip on during your workout. Others prefer to take them after. Specific doses in studies are set for before/during/after on very specific schedules of days, but for the average person, it's not so rigid. 

For example, a schedule such as: BCAA supplementation strategy with daily intake larger than 200 mg kg−1 day−1, duration longer than 10 days starting at least 7 days before the damaging exercise would be effective to limit muscle damage resulting from exercise6.

Also, there are some common concerns or points to be aware of.. first and foremost, BCAAs can essentially be expensive pee!  Additionally, they're not calorie free so if someone is focusing on hitting this to a T, they need to add that into their count for the day.

To wrap it all up, I HIGHLY encourage you to reach out to me or someone else educated in sports nutrition if you need help figuring out whether you should add something into your regimen or not. I implore you to practice good research techniques (search PubMed and the like) for good information on supplements rather than just the .coms or supplement sites! The proof will be in the pudding. I would rather you supplement after your workout with a good ole carb and a good dose (20-40 g) of whey protein if you can't grab a real food source!1.

References

 1. Essentials of Exercise & Sport Nutrition: Science to Practice by Richard B. Kreider.

2.Gnc.com. (2019). What Are BCAAs And How Do They Work? | GNC. [online] Available at: https://www.gnc.com/sports-performance/what-are-bcaas.html 

3. Today, 6. (2019). 6-Reasons Why You Should Take BCAAs Today | GU Energy Labs. [online] GU Energy Labs. Available at: https://guenergy.com/6-reasons-take-bcaas-today/

4. What Are BCAAs and Should I Be Using Them?. [online] Available at: https://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition-weight-loss/a26859247/what-is-bcaa/ 

5.Effects of Amino Acid Supplementation on Muscle Soreness and Damage, Sacco, & Mawatari, 2006

6.Is Branched-Chain Amino Acids Supplementation an Efficient Nutritional Strategy to Alleviate Skeletal Muscle Damage? A Systematic Review Alexandre Fouré * and David Bendahan, 2017

7Branched-chain amino acids and muscle protein synthesis in humans: myth or reality? Robert R. Wolfe 2017. Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition.