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The Best Nutrients for Strength and Endurance: Getting the Most Benefits.

Greater strength and endurance requires improved muscle contraction to generate greater muscle power.

Author: Michael Rudolph

Increased muscle strength and endurance can be supported by certain nutrients that enhance the strength of the contractile technique in the muscle cell, resulting in greater superiority and endurance.

Other effective nutrients promote cellular energy production, especially in the form of ATP (Adenosine Triphosphoric Acid) , which stimulates muscle contraction, enhancing strength and endurance.

Finally, the last group of nutrients that are effective in increasing strength and endurance stimulate the rapid removal of certain metabolic waste byproducts produced during muscle contraction, which reduce muscle contractions. As a result, muscle contraction is less inhibited and muscle strength and endurance are significantly improved.

The best nutrients for strength and endurance and how to get the most benefit from them.

Creatine Monohydrate: Best Booster.

Creatine monohydrate is one of the most powerful strength and power supplements available on the sports nutrition market, with numerous studies demonstrating the positive effects of creatine monohydrate supplementation on strength and power, especially during high-intensity training.

Creatine's unique ability to prolong endurance performance to a significant extent, as well as the ability to function as a primary energy storage molecule that halts the depletion of muscle cell energy (ATP) that occurs during muscle contraction.

Maintaining energy in the muscle cell increases the force of muscle contraction, thereby creating the highest endurance. Additionally, creatine also improves muscle growth through many different cellular mechanisms, including stimulating muscle cell formation and increasing muscle protein synthesis.

Another great benefit of creatine is that it increases and enhances endurance, as larger muscle groups loaded with energy become much stronger and more resilient.

Increase strength and power with Betaine.

Betaine, also known as trimethylglycine, is a nutrient that functions as an osmolyte in cells, protecting the cell from dehydration by increasing and retaining cellular water through osmosis.

Betaine's ability to maintain hydration reduces the negative effects that dehydration has on exercise, such as increased heart rate, increased glycogen utilization, increased muscle temperature and increased lactic acid levels.

In addition to betaine's ability to counteract dehydration, this nutrient also plays a key role in the biosynthesis of the strength-enhancing compound creatine, essentially making it a very powerful nutrient for increasing strength and endurance. In fact, betaine has been shown to significantly increase anaerobic power and strength in the bench press and squat.

Increasing muscle strength with ATP

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is another nutrient that has the extraordinary ability to increase strength and power. Oddly enough, ATP's ability to increase strength and strength has nothing to do with its primary function as the primary energy supplier for all energy-dependent functions within the body.

In fact, research has shown that oral administration of ATP degrades the high-energy phosphate bonds in the body's ATP and therefore the ability of ATP to supply energy. However, oral ATP supplementation is still effective in increasing endurance performance. This is because ATP's ability to enhance endurance and strength comes from a set of extracellular functions of ATP that have nothing to do with ATP's ability to supply cellular energy from its high-energy phosphate moieties.

This occurs when ATP reacts with a specific set of adenosine receptors embedded in the cell membrane, initiating certain cellular signaling cascades that ultimately have a significant effect in gaining strength and endurance.

Improved contractility with calcium.

Calcium facilitates the interaction between two muscle proteins, actin and myosin, which directly leads to muscle contraction. Thus, more calcium in the muscle cell increases the actin-myosin interaction, which leads to increased muscle contractions, increased strength. Recent scientific evidence has shown that muscle contraction causes the release of ATP from the muscle cell.

Once released from the muscle cell, ATP binds to the adenosine receptor on the outside of the muscle cell, causing an increase in calcium in the muscle. In addition, it has also been shown that directly adding ATP to isolated muscle tissue also increases intramuscular calcium levels, suggesting that external ATP sources or ATP supplementation may also enhance muscle contraction.

Since ATP increases calcium levels in muscle cells to improve muscle contractile forces, the researchers wanted to see if adding ATP could actually improve muscle efficiency. One study conducted by Jordan showed that 225 mg of ATP per day for two weeks, combined with resistance training, resulted in an increase in the total load lifted in the bench press, as well as a significant increase in the number of repetitions performed during the first approach. In another study by Wilson et al., 12 weeks of ATP supplementation of 400 mg per day, combined with resistance training, was shown to increase total body weight as well as muscle size. Overall, these results indicate that oral ATP supplementation increases muscle contractile force, providing greater strength.

Strength and power with calcium.

In addition to the increase in calcium in muscle cells increasing muscle contractility, additional research has shown that calcium's increase in ATP in muscle tissue also increases the influx of glucose into the cell, providing the muscle cell with a higher degree of energy.

Increasing liver calcium levels from ATP consumption has also been shown to increase the conversion of glycogen to glucose, so it can be used as an energy source by muscle tissue and the rest of the body.

Because glycogen is stored in large quantities in the liver, the conversion of glycogen into glucose, caused by ATP, provides a huge source of energy for the muscle cell, improving muscle strength.

Instant Energy for instant strength and endurance with caffeine.

Unlike the previously mentioned compounds, caffeine clearly increases strength and endurance by enhancing both contractile force and cellular energy in the muscles. Caffeine is able to achieve this dual effect due to caffeine's similar chemical structure to the cyclic AMP (cAMP) molecule and adenosine.

Its chemical similarity to cAMP gives caffeine the ability to block certain enzymes that break down cAMP, effectively increasing cAMP levels in the muscle cell. More cAMP functions as a signal to activate several enzymes in the muscle cell that break down glycogen and fatty acids into energy, resulting in increased energy that improves strength and endurance.

Caffeine's structural similarity to adenosine enhances muscle contractile force because caffeine can bind to adenosine receptors embedded in the muscle cell, initiating an increase in calcium release within the muscle cell, which, as mentioned, increases the number of actin-myosin interactions generating stronger, more powerful , muscle contractions.

Muscle contraction and citrulline.

Citrulline increases strength and endurance in a unique way compared to all previously mentioned compounds because it rids the cell of certain metabolic byproducts that inhibit muscle contraction, which leads to increased strength and power over time.

Exercise-induced muscle fatigue is caused by many different factors, including the accumulation of certain metabolites in the muscle cell, such as ammonia.

During intense exercise, the conversion of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to adenosine monophosphate (AMP) provides the necessary energy for muscle contraction as well as increased AMP levels.

More AMP from muscle contraction results in higher ammonia levels because the body converts AMP into ammonia. Ammonia accumulation inhibits pyruvate metabolism (oxidation of a glycolytic product) in the muscle cell, reducing energy production while increasing lactic acid production, which consequently negatively affects muscle contraction and exercise performance.

Citrulline malate reduces ammonia accumulation by activating the urea cycle, a biochemical pathway that reduces ammonia levels by converting it to urea. This, of course, reduces the buildup of lactic acid.

Additionally, citrulline's ability to reduce lactic acid levels during intense exercise significantly improves strength and endurance.

What to eat after training?

After completing your workouts, you need to eat in the next half hour if the workouts are aimed at building muscle mass and not losing weight (in this case, it is not permissible to eat food for 1.5-2 hours). During the first hour, you should eat protein-rich food; if this is not possible, you can snack on cottage cheese or a sandwich. In the first minutes after exercise, you should drink a high-protein shake or juice to nourish your muscles.

Also for nutrition during strength training:

• eat foods containing fast carbohydrates to raise insulin - honey, dried fruits, jam;
• eat light-colored lean meat – veal, poultry;
• low-fat cheeses, cottage cheese, kefir and milk;
• chicken eggs without yolk.

It is also recommended to include sea fish in your diet; it saturates the body with all the necessary substances, promotes accelerated muscle growth, and improves performance. Fish can be stewed, baked, boiled and cooked in any other way except frying.

If you follow the principles of proper nutrition, increasing muscle mass and getting into shape will not be difficult. A harmonious combination of physical activity, drinking regimen and a well-designed diet gives an impressive result - the body becomes sculpted, fat disappears, and the body heals and rejuvenates.

Special Additives

But powerlifters pay much more attention to supplements than ordinary “jocks” or bodybuilders. The modern sports industry offers many supplements for fans of strength sports. From simple vitamin-mineral complexes to complex stimulators of hormone secretion and growth factors. Let's look at the most popular supplements.

1. Creatine. Creatine ranks number one among all powerlifting supplements. Its harmlessness and effectiveness make it almost indispensable for powerlifting. Of course, its effect is not even close to that of steroids, but it is a completely harmless and natural supplement that is not addictive, whereas steroids are hormones that have many side effects.
2. Taurine and glutamine. This combination of taurine and glutamine has a synergistic effect when taking them together enhances each other's effects. Taurine improves energy processes in cells, and glutamine promotes hormone production and improves recovery. By the way, many manufacturers include all these three substances - creatine, taurine, glutamine - in special preparations. The most famous of them is CGT-10 from Optimum Nutrition.
3. Preparations for joints. When lifting heavy weights, lifters are forced to pay a lot of attention to the health of their joints. Heavy weights have a serious impact on cartilage tissue and ligaments. Therefore, taking drugs containing chondroitin and glucosamine is also common. And sometimes it’s inevitable.
4. Anabolic formulas. Do not confuse anabolic formulas with anabolic steroids. Anabolic formulas are natural drugs that are designed to increase an athlete's muscle performance over a certain period of time. They are natural and safe and are mainly built on stimulating the central nervous system, as well as improving energy metabolism and stimulating the secretion of hormones. Anabolic formulas also often contain mega-doses of amino acids and vitamins to improve muscle recovery.

There are also many special drugs - HMB, ZMA, zinc and chromium preparations, and many other drugs that improve muscle recovery and performance. But their effect is individual, and they are not yet widely known in our country for mass use.