Vitamins

levels of catecholamines are at the maximum daily peak and exceed the basal values by up to 3-4 times: it would therefore be more appropriate not to take carbohydrates in excessive quantities.

In any case, it is wise to ensure that the workout is dealt with maximal energies, by taking care to better manage the pre-workout phase and the hours before the workout, perhaps with regular and constant carbohydrates. This allows you to get to your training (in the evening, in this example) “loaded” and ready to face the volume and the intensity of your objectives. The post-workout period should be a time window that we can define as “lipolytic”: first of all, we will have to ensure the protein-amino acid share, then afterwards we can calmly think about the recovery phase.

CHAPTER 44

Supplements, from A to Z

To facilitate the understanding and the choice of using one supplement rather than another, at the end of each discussion I decided to insert a table in which I assign a sort of score that distinguishes the specificity of the supplement. I preferred to adopt this system, instead of dividing the supplements according to their characteristics at the outset, as many of them would have fallen into multiple categories. The score is assigned by me based on evidence from scientific literature, but also on personal observations and feedback from the practical use in the world of sport and fitness. This choice is due to the fact that, as far as scientific studies are concerned, there is such a variety of elements to be taken into consideration – dosages, number of subjects involved in the study, starting conditions of the subjects themselves, confounding factors (smoking, alcohol, drugs, hormones, etc.), different diets, different genetic characteristics, use of different methods of statistical analysis, the company that sponsors the study – so it is normal to find apparently similar studies that demonstrate the opposite of each other. Obviously, the meta-analysis, that is the analysis of the various studies in this regard, becomes fundamental, but sometimes even this can be manipulated by excluding certain studies and inserting others, and by using subjective criteria that can influence the final result. For these reasons, in addition to my personal experiences, I believe that it is necessary to take into consideration also the experiences that come from the field. It is not the first time, and it will not be the last, that a supplement has been launched and placed on the market based on scientific research and then rejected by the sports community. The supplements that really work resist over time and are hardly affected by passing trends.

The indicated specificities are: strength, resistant strength, mass, endurance, weight loss, concentration and recovery. By strength we mean the maximal or submaximal explosive strength that still uses the anaerobic alactacid metabolism. By resistant strength, we mean the muscular endurance or in any case the short-term resistant strength (35"-2'), but also exercises of greater duration with intervals, which mainly use the aerobic lactacid metabolism. By mass we mean those adaptations of the muscle that lead to the phenomenon of hypertrophy and/or hyperplasia, stimulated by workouts that use the anaerobic alactacid metabolism and, above all, the lactacid metabolism. By endurance we mean the stamina and duration that mainly uses the aerobic energy metabolism, but which also benefits from a base of resistant strength and the ability to bear an effort. By weight loss we mean all those metabolic and biochemical processes that promote the loss of body fat, either through hormonal modifications, by increasing thermogenesis or through the best use of fats for energy purposes. By concentration we mean the ability to maintain the at-