SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

The gastrointestinal issues may have been a problem for a few of the testers, but some clever "natural workout nutrition" company is certainly going to eliminate this minor obstacle very soon... and who knows: maybe they make the product more potent by adding whey ,  resistant starches , bicarbonate , or other potentially performance-enhancing ingredients on the way. It's 2019 and everyone has been infected by the "sugar is the devil" and "carbohydrates are not essential" viruses. Everyone? No, there's a small group of loyal sugar-guzzlers who keep Gatorade & Co in business (for a good reason, by the way, 'cause CHO supplements are the best-researched ergogenic for endurance athletes). Now, a new study by scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  ( Salvador 2019 ) shows that homebrew... ah, homecooked potato puree will have the same ergogenic effects in non-pro cyclists as the expensive CHO gels. One clear di...

Don't pre-order yet: We don't know if you are a 'responder' and even if you are whether your gains will actually benefit from allegedly increased muscle activity (eventually it's not even clear that high EMG = high motor unit activity, cf. Vigotsky 2017 ). The promise of achieving greater muscle activity at lower weights while embracing the strengths of barbells (stability, easily rackable) and dumbbells (natural/optimal movement pattern) is yet intriguing, I must admit 😏. The "good old barbell" is just that. It's "good" and it's "old" and it has proven its efficacy for generations of bodybuilders and strength athletes. So why would you even consider replacing it with a barbel-ish new device? Maybe because of the results of a recent study from the  University of Cassino and Southern Lazio  which promise increased muscle activation at lower loads and correspondingly reduced injury risk? Sounds good? Well, we'll see... ...

Mixed news about nutrition, exercise, and supplementation. In the absence of game-changing nutrition, exercise, and supplementation science I decided to post one of the recently rare installments of the good old " on short notice " column at the SuppVersity . This installment of the " short news " features two plus one papers from the latest issue of "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise"  and their, as of yet, unpublished "ahead of print" articles. While we'll start with a short discussion of the latest investigation into the accuracy (or rather usefulness) of your (old) Fitbit Charge 2.0 , I suspect that most of you will be more interested in the "training low [carb/glycogen]" study which is the first to quantify the (to be expected) increase in protein/amino acid requirements in those who avoid carbs to maximize the mitochondrial response to exercise (see "Maximizing Training-Induced Cellular Adaptation: T...