You don’t need supplements to perform. But they can help.

There’s a million out there.

But only 5 with enough evidence to be backed by the International Olympic Committee:

• ☕️ Caffeine‍
• 🥄 Creatine
• ‍🧂 Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
• 🧬 Beta-alanine
• ‍🥬 Nitrate
  

If you’re not an elite/pro athlete, sodium bicarbonate, beta-alanine and nitrate probably aren’t necessary for your day-to-day.

But keep ‘em in mind if you’re super active. Or training hard for a big event (I wrote another post on them here).

Caffeine (duh) and creatine on the other hand, are a couple big levers we can pull for our performance.

1. ☕️ Caffeine

We know caffeine charges us with energy, focus and endorphins. Which is great for our day-to-day performance.

But in physical activity, it also reduces the perception of fatigue and boosts anaerobic and aerobic performance.

The research suggests a 3-8% improvement.

It seems to benefit everything from strength to endurance (but the longer the activity the bigger the benefit).

Caffeine hits everyone differently. But the benefits seem to start at around 1-3mg/kg of body weight (that's 80-240mg for an 80kg human). And go up to 6mg/kg.

It can vary wildly, but your average coffee has about 100mg. Same with military gum.

Get it in you 30-60 minutes before activity.

Note: Our caffeine tolerance increases when we have it often. So if you hit multiple coffees a day, might be worth tapering off before a big event.


2. 🥄 Creatine

Creatine supplies energy to working muscles.

A small amount of creatine is made naturally by the body every day. Seafood and red meat also give us a bit. But not at levels to get maximum benefit.

So this powdered supplement might be a goer.

It’s been shown to:

• 🏋 Improve short-term strength and power (in efforts less than 3 minutes) by about 10%‍
• 💪 Increase muscle mass, strength and power over time (when taken consistently)
  

But even day-to-day supplementation of creatine helps:

• 💥 Lower exercise inflammation
• 🧠 Brain function: improve memory and focus + create and protect nerve cells + (emerging research suggesting it can even) fight against neurogenerative diseases like Alzeihmer's and Parkinson's
  

5g/day is the recommendation.

You can get a small amount of water retention in the muscles from it.

That's why I never really liked it. It’d blow me up like a balloon. Extra body weight I figured (probably wrongly now looking at all the research 🤦) was slowing me down...

But the research is fairly conclusive. It’s safe and effective.

Something I’m now considering for the brain benefits (which seem to be seriously impactful).

Read up on the other 3 supps here.