Exercise Threesome: 40g of Galactose = 17% More Stamina Than W/ Same Amount of Glucose ☆ Faster Sprints W/ Psychological Tricks ☆ 10% Lower Insulin W/ Exercise

A neat threesome, anyone?
A threesome is always quite entertaining, especially, when it's one that can help you (a) increase your stamina, (b) boost your sprint performance, and (c) decrease your fasting insulin levels by 10%. Ok, I have to admit it will probably not suffice if you only read the following paragraph, but buying 40g of galactose, playing a couple of psycho-games on yourself and the adherence to the regular exercise program you are already performing anyway (right!?) is something you will probably manage to do, as well.
  • 40g galactose before a workout will increase your stamina (O'Hara. 2014) -- Basically that is already the main finding of a recent study by John P. O'Hara et al... well, aside from the fact that the same dose of glucose didn't produce similar benefits - but let's tackle one thing after the other...

    The researchers evaluated the effects of the pre-exercise (30 minutes) ingestion of galactose (Gal) or glucose (Glu) on endurance capacity, as well as glycaemic and insulinaemic responses.

    To this ends 10 trained male cyclists completed three randomised high-intensity cycling endurance tests. Thirty minutes prior to each trial cyclists ingested 1 litre of either
    • 40g of glucose,
    • 40g of galactose, or
    • 40g of a placebo
    in a double blind manner. The protocol comprised: 20 minutes of progressive incremental exercise (70% to 85% maximal power output (Wmax)); 10x90 second bouts at 90% Wmax, separated by 180 seconds at 55% Wmax; 90% Wmax until exhaustion.

    Blood samples were drawn throughout the protocol. As the headline already told you the times to exhaustion were longer with glactose (68.7+/-10.2 minutes, P=0.005), interestingly that was true for both the placebo (63.9+/-16.2 minutes) and the glucose (58.5+/-24.9 minutes) trial.

    In view of the anti-lipolytic effects of high insulin, it's probably also worth mentioning that the ingestion of 40g of performance-increasing galactose supplement did (at least from a statistical perspective) not increase the participants insulin levels, at all.
  • SuppVersity HIGHLY Suggested Read: " Brocebo? Add 10kg to Your Bench in Days with Sugar-Based "Anabolic Steroids". Old Study Shows, Many "Natural Anabolics" Could Work Solely via Placebo Effects" | read more
    Psyching yourself up will boost your sprint performance (Sarra. 2014) -- A soon-to-be-published study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research that investigated the effect of "psyching-up" (PU) strategies, in this case preparatory arousal and imagery strategies, would improve the performance of 16 male sprinters (age 20.6 +/- 1.3 years, body mass 77.5 +/- 7.1 kg, height 180.8 +/- 5.6 cm).

    If we sprint forward to the results, we'll see that the imagery and preparatory arousal strategies did in fact contribute to performance increases in the short-distance sprints (from 0 to 10-m). The imagery strategy also increased the performance in the 30-m sprints.

    And you know what? These "psyching-up" strategies work even if you don't buy a useless supplement take it before your workout and ignite the "placebo afterburner"
  • Work out to decrease your fasting insulin levels by 10% (Conn. 2014) -- In spite of the fact that we all believe we knew that regular exercise will have beneficial effects on  insulin sensitivity, there is very little comprehensive data on the average effect size.

    A recent meta-analysis from the University of Missouri provides just that: A "Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Outcomes Among Healthy Adults", which reveals what the subheading to this item in today's exercise news-quickie already told you: The average participant in one of the 78 papers that were included in the analysis showed statistically lower fasting insulin levels (6.9mU/L) than the control subjects (7.9 mU/L).
Bottom line: If you are already working out regularly, you may want to try to psyche you up, while you're guzzling a galactose drink before your next workout and let me know what happened, after you tore down the gym... if you are not, I mean, not working out, on the other hand, the decrease in insulin you can achieve with a minimal amount of physical activity should be reason enough to get your ass off the couch... and no, I am not talking about walking to the fridge to get another bottle of coke and some ice-cream to satisfy your sweet tongue ;-)
Reference:
  • Conn V. S. et al. "Insulin Sensitivity Following Exercise Interventions: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Outcomes Among Healthy Adults." J Prim Care Community Health. (2014) Jan 27. [Epub ahead of print]
  • Hammoudi-Nassib, S. et al. "Effects of psyching-up on sprint performance". Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. January 28, 2014 [accepted manuscript].
  • O'Hara, J.P. et al. "The Effect of Pre-exercise Galactose and Glucose Ingestion on High-Intensity Endurance Cycling". Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. January 28, 2014 [accepted manuscript].
Disclaimer:The information provided on this website is for informational purposes only. It is by no means intended as professional medical advice. Do not use any of the agents or freely available dietary supplements mentioned on this website without further consultation with your medical practitioner.