Creatine and electrolytes for CrossFit performance?

Synergetic benefits of mixing creatine and electrolytes
If you are looking to improve your performance at any sport, here are probably two of the best supplements. Some of us were looking for motivation to keep training, so here it is: the CrossFit Open are back ! Today, we talk about electrolytes and creatine - why and when we should use it.

 

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CREATINE Creatine has consistently shown to improve an athletes high intensity performance as well as muscular strength. The body's ATP-storage is emptied within 2-3 seconds and ATP is our energy currency of our body - with creatine supplementation, we can increase our intramuscular creatine concentrations and this leads to ATP resynthesis (PCr + ADP + H+ → ATP + Cr) The Creatine Phosphate storage lasts for sprints and intensities for a few seconds such as a Snatch or an Air Bike sprint. The amount of creatine you need depends on your diet and the sport you´re involved in. If your goal is to increase your creatine stores once and maintain the storage afterwards:
  • Start with 0,3g/kg body weight x4 per day for 5-7 days
  • Continue with 3-5g/day

If you´re not a vegan, you might get 1-2g of creatine through your diet per day - if you´re vegan it means you should supplement more creatine. Additionally, creatine has shown to be more beneficial when taking together with protein and carbohydrates after your workout or training session. Considering protein and carbohydrates are essential for optimal post-workout recovery, adding creatine would put the cherry on top of a perfect post-workout shake. If you don´t know what creatine form you should use: creatine monohydrate is the most effective and most studied form of creatine in terms of its mentioned positive effects. barbara hydraforce Our Hydraforce contains 4g creatine monohydrate, which leads to an effective dose for high performance athletes. REHYDRATION It´s pretty simple to explain the disadvantages of dehydration: your mental and physical performance can decrease and it can impair thermoregulation, because of water and salt deficits. Because of sweat losses during exercise athletes have a higher fluid requirement than “normal” people. To analyze the perfect rehydration strategy high performance athletes should weigh-in before and after a training session - obviously not every day, but at least 2-3 in different weather conditions, to have an average. Another tool is to look at the sweat salt losses, which can be determined by analysis of sweat samples. What about dehydration and sports performance? Muscle glycogen might be faster depleted with dehydration in addition to a release of stress hormones and ROS. More than 2-3% of dehydration can lead to a decrease in aerobic performances and from 4-5% the anaerobic performance can be negatively influenced. Basic Rules

  • Check your urine color
  • Rehydrate after your training session and look for sodium-rich foods or fluids
  • For each kilogram lost through training → add 1,5 times the fluid afterwards
  • Check your fluids lost through weigh in before and after training session
Check your urine color hydraforce One of the most lost electrolytes, which is lost with sweat, is sodium with an average loss of 40 mmol/L. As sweat loss is totally individual, please use our basic rules to estimate your individual fluid intake, but look for fluids or foods, which contain sodium. Proteins and carbohydrates will be discussed in another article, but these two macronutrients also play an important role for post-workout nutrition. As an athletes` need for carbs and proteins is also individual, the Hydraforce is your perfect first supplement for rehydration and recovery followed by your choice and amount of proteins and carbs. Sources
  1. Andre, T., McKinley-Barnard, S., Gann, J. et al. The effects of creatine monohydrate supplementation on creatine transporter activity and creatine metabolism in resistance trained males. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 12, P43 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-12-S1-P43
  2. Kreider, R.B., Kalman, D.S., Antonio, J. et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 14, 18 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-017-0173-z
  3. Belval LN, Hosokawa Y, Casa DJ, et al. Practical Hydration Solutions for Sports. Nutrients. 2019;11(7):1550. Published 2019 Jul 9. doi:10.3390/nu11071550
  4. American College of Sports Medicine, Sawka MN, Burke LM, Eichner ER, Maughan RJ, Montain SJ, Stachenfeld NS. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Exercise and fluid replacement. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2007 Feb;39(2):377-90. doi: 10.1249/mss.0b013e31802ca597. PMID: 17277604.
  5. S. M. Shirreffs and M. N. Sawka, “Fluid and electrolyte needs for training, competition, and recovery,” J. Sports Sci., vol. 29, no. SUPPL. 1, Jan. 2011, doi: 10.1080/02640414.2011.614269.
Author:Miriam Krug - Founder of NubyMi Nutrition numi