Creatine (Page 2)

Anyone considering creatine supplementation must understand that Creatine supplementation is driven by the the energy system it plays a roll in.(Phosphocreatine system) For short, typically less than 30 sec bursts on intensity that is not dependent on oxygen nor is there enough o2 present for such a high intensity exercise.  The Phosphate is cleaved from the phosphocreatine allowing it to "join" witht the ADP to form ATP...and so on and so forth....so taking this has been shown in some studies to help in short duration activities it will not help directly in endurance events. This is completely different than aerobic glycolysis.  I guess you can think that if your gym training/or sprint training improves  it will indirectly help your conditioning, but in the sports med field it is not emphasized to endurance athletes period...If you chose to take it for about a week take 20-30g /day and then 2-5 g a day after that.

In regards to the carbo loading debate...There is a lot of research regarding Carbohydrate supercompensation increasing muscle glycogen levels.  But the difficult thing is around a week before the activity you need to deplete your CHO stores wit diet restriction and exercise , than begin loading. 

good luck

Regarding thirst, this has been debated here before, but that also is well documented that your thirst receptors may not be activated untill you are already close to 2% drop in body weight, therefore if you wait till you are thirsty you have waited too long.. Does not mean you cannot make it up but you need to be on a hydration plan.

Good luck

btw: regarding hyperhydration strategies: I would be open to read any contrary evidence but everything I read says it does not work......it goes against the feedback loop in physiology that when we have increased volume our hormones vasopressin and aldosterone are suppressed therefore we pass more water and visa versa.......so yes you can drink yourself to death (hyponatremia) but our body will try damn hard to keep you from doing it.

 tj - would you mind sharing your pre-race hyper hydration strategy? I am curious to hear and perhaps implement in preparation for my A races. thanks

This is an older review article but pretty thorough

There is another study done in triatheletes and a couple more done in distance runners that show creatine resulted in no effect to slightly slower times. There is also one published that used wattage on a TT to show it had no effect.

It has a measurable positive effect on short-burst high activities, and causes weight gain. So maybe good for weight lifters, sprinters, etc. but not endurance athletes.

Now a day everything thing is on WADA list, even steaks...

Here are a couple of links referencing more or less what I do. One is just an article and the other is an actual study.(The absorbtion % of fluid is of note in the article, as it's commonly suggested you need to drink the same volume you lose in sweat, when the reality you should be drinking 110% or more to replace.)

http://www.active.com/nutrition/Articles/Boost_your_training_with_hyperhydration.htm

http://www.sportsnutritionworkshop.com/Files/35.SPNT.pdf

There's lots of info out there regarding the use of glycerol if you just google hyper hydration. I personally have never used it so I can't comment.

I would agree that your body is pretty good at balancing things out, and while not exercising it's pretty difficult to go hyponatremic by just drinking water. Once you are exercising though that game changes and it's a bit more of a risk.

Having said that, you can still get your body to hold more fluids. bloated is a term that comes up. My personal weight can swing as much as 6 pounds or more, not counting when I dehydrated from a long run or something.

My personal strategy is pretty simple. I drink sport drink or water (alternating) starting 2 days out and sip them non stop until race start. I will always have a bottle in my hand. With this I eat relatively easy/bland food that has a decent amount of sodium and protein in it.  The added sodium, etc helps me to take on water weight so that I'll be a little heavy when the gun goes off. This is more closely followed when it's hot like Kona, because just walking around to get your packet, etc you are sweating quite a bit, so staying on top of and getting ahead of hydration is really really hard. I will dedicate some time to lay down in the hotel room where it's cool and just drink. Then back out for a short ride or lunch or whatever, then back to drink.