“Houston, we still have a problem,” an exciting article by sports scientist Martin Buccheit, tells us the story of the divergence of science and practice.1 The reality is that scientific findings and recommendations seem to be impossible to use in practice. In sports, the result is the only measure of success. Every athlete, when we offer him something new, will ask: “Will I be better? Will I score more goals, points? Will I earn a better contract?” Everybody dreams about a magic potion with the secret success formula. Unfortunately, that kind of magic doesn’t exist for now, or we don’t know about it yet. However, there are some supplements that can help athletes to build their future success.
In a sea of supplements, athletes must choose the ones that will help them reach their goal, and sometimes it is not easy to pick the right one. BUILD, a new supplement on the market that can improve sports performance may be just the right choice with the right composition of ingredients that athletes need. It is a combination of 5gr of creatine monohydrate, 3gr of β-alanine, and 3gr of β-hydroxy-β-methyl butyrate (HMB). Very well-composed, BUILD stands firmly in the group of premium products. Why is BUILD better than others? This is a complex issue that requires a more detailed and extensive explanation. So let’s get started.
The Importance of Creatine
If we want to archive our goals, we need to start strong. Most of the gold medals in the Olympics are decided in a blink of an eye or a quarter of a second. To start strong in a race, jump high in basketball, strike in an Ultimate Fighting Championship match, you need, and you depend on, creatine. Creatine is a molecule that is responsible for every movement’s beginning and serves as the fuel that ignites our machines (muscles). It is unimaginable to picture today’s modern sports without it. Why is it so important, and how does it work?
Creatine is a combination of three non-essential amino acids (methionine, arginine, and glycine). Today, there is an ongoing scientific debate on whether creatine should be regarded as a semi-essential or even essential nutrient. We are on the side of those who think progressively. What we do know is that it is synthesized endogenously in our body. We can consume creatine through our diet, but recent research highlights that 42.8% of the American population has an average intake below recommended levels.2 Because of this, it would be ideal, especially for athletes, to ingest creatine through supplementation. Plenty of studies have examined the effects of creatine supplementation. For example, a recent meta-analysis3 showed that creatine supplementation resulted in a 7.5 % increase in short, high-intensity exercise. Also, it highlights that the ergogenic potential for creatine supplementation in aerobic exercises is reduced as the duration of the activity increases over 150 seconds. Creatine supplementation could increase 1 repetition maximum (RM) of strength,4 power output,5 sprinting and jumping abilities,6 and total workload, and peak power.7 Mostly creatine will affect short and high-intensity activities. It is possible that creatine will not improve aerobic abilities, but it can positively impact recovery. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) binds hydrogen ions during the resynthesis process, so creatine can reduce muscle acidity and act as a buffer. It is also used in endurance sports or aerobic activities where creatine supplementation reduces inflammatory processes after a training episode. Because of its ability to bind water, it has potential in sports that take place at high temperatures, where creatine supplementation has been shown to be successful in reducing athlete dehydration.
Due to all the above reasons, it can be considered a useful, semi-essential, or even essential supplement for performance in strength and power sports such as combat sports (wrestling, judo, UFC -fights), weight lifting, hockey, NFL-football, and others. Recovery is equally important as training. In the study of Bassit et al.,8 a decrease in several muscle damage markers in athletes after an Ironman competition it was noted. Further, creatine significantly affects the recovery of knee extensors after eccentric training.9 A few studies have examined the effects of creatine supplementation on muscle atrophy rates due to limb immobilization during rehabilitation. For example, Hespel and colleagues10 investigated the effects of creatine supplementation on rehabilitation outcomes in patients who had their right leg casted for 2 weeks. After 10 weeks of rehabilitation, patients who consumed creatine experienced significant changes in the cross-sectional area of muscle fiber (+10%) and peak strength (+25%) compared to other groups. These changes were linked with myogenic protein expression.
As indicated in the introduction, there are not many studies examining creatine’s effect in a sport-specific situation. There are many limitations, and the biggest one is that most of the studies published in scientific literature tend towards ideal conditions in their trials, which are practically impossible in practice. Nevertheless, one should think logically. If something makes the athletes faster, improves their results in short-intensity activities, and helps them recover and maintain ideal body composition, isn’t that something that will help athletes be better? Of course, creatine is fabulous, but it is not perfect. One of the drawbacks is that it is mostly limited to activities up to 2–3 minutes long. However, that is where beta-alanine comes into play.
The Importance of β-alanine and Carnosine
β-alanine is a non-essential, non-proteogenic amino acid. Endogenously it is synthesized in the liver. It is important to note that we consume β-alanine primarily because of its ability to form carnosine. Carnosine (beta-alanyl-L-histidine) is a dipeptide molecule made up of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine, with its main function to act as a buffer and lower acidosis in muscles. β-alanine is considered the most effective way to increase carnosine levels in muscles. The main function of β-alanine is to increase the buffer abilities and capacities. A potential theory that explains how buffering mechanisms occur is called carnosine transfer. Broadly explained, carnosine, located between the muscle cell and the sarcoplasmic reticulum, binds Ca+ and H+ ions. Within this process, the ions are interconnected so that the accumulation of H+ ions in the sarcomere leads to the release of Ca+ in the sarcoplasmic reticulum, and conversely, the release of Ca+ ions from the sarcoplasmic reticulum stimulates the release of H+ ions. Simplified, when one comes out, the other enters. This is important because H+ ions disable muscle contraction, while Ca+ ions stimulate it. Depending on the amount ingested, there may be an increase from 59–200% of muscle carnosine after 24 weeks of supplementation.11 Interestingly, there is no clearly defined upper limit of carnosine in the muscles, and it seems that athletes have more significant benefits and higher growth than the general population.
Unlike creatine, β-alanine does not affect short and explosive activities. It is most efficient for prolonging high-intensity activities that last up to 4 minutes.12 It can be very useful for athletic performance in 400m, 800m, and 1500 running and other endurance activities such as swimming or cycling.13 Saunders et al.14 reported that β-alanine supplementation enhanced performance in the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test in soccer players. The athletes supplementing with β-alanine had a greater training volume throughout their workouts and had significantly lower subjective feelings of fatigue.15 The β-alanine ability to effectively reduce acidosis during prolonged high-intensity training is an excellent addition to creatine. Creatine and β-alanine work great together to enhance their benefits when combined. This is confirmed by research that indicates that the combination of these two supplements can have positive effects on endurance and neuromuscular fatigue, and for resistance training athletes, could positively affect strength gains.16-18
The Importance of HMB
After each race or training session, our bodies and minds need something that will rebuild us. Beta-hydroxy-beta methyl-butyrate (HMB) is a leucine-derived metabolite. Leucine is an essential amino acid, which means that we have to get it from our diet. Interestingly, to get 3gr of HMB from our diet, we would have to ingest 60gr of Leucine,19 which is practically impossible. HMB attracted attention primarily because of its anti-catabolic characteristics. In addition to this, HMB can also decrease muscle damage after strenuous workouts.20,21 Several studies have proven the positive effects of HMB on strength increase,22 improvement in aerobic and anaerobic performance,23–24 body fat reduction, and increases in muscle mass.25
A few studies have examined the effects of the combination of creatine monohydrate and HMB. For example, a combination of 0.04gr/kg creatine monohydrate plus 3gr HMB supplementation showed a synergistic effect on aerobic power over 10 weeks. Other studies showed promising results in improving anaerobic capacity and performance.26,27 Also, the combination of these two supplements led to an increase in 1RM of strength. These results lead us to conclude that this combination can be very effective for strength and power sports activities. And almost every modern sport has these kinds of activities. However, we need to take these results with a grain of salt. What makes HMB interesting is its ability to improve recovery. The recovery of players is one of the most important things in professional sports. As sports reporters and coaches in NBA often say, “The best ability is availability. A few experimental studies and reviews have confirmed HMB’s ability to influence the recovery process.28,29
Because of the importance of all the above-mentioned ingredients, we recommend BUILD as a premium product because it incorporates all three in its formula. An important thing to highlight is the proper dosage of these three super-effective ingredients. Most of the supplements on the market do not have sufficient doses for optimal performance. Why is BUILD an excellent choice? Here is the quick and straightforward answer: BUILD is important for both performance and recovery and it can improve your strength, power, endurance, stamina, recovery, and muscle growth. BUILD is the ultimate game-changer.
Reference
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2. Ostojic, S.M., 2021. Dietary creatine intake in U.S. population: NHANES 2017-2018. Nutrition.
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4. Bemben, M.G., Bemben, D.A., Loftiss, D.D. and Knehans, A.W. (2001). Creatine supplementation during resistance training in college football athletes. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 33(10), 1667–1673.
5. Stevenson, S.W. and Dudley, G.A. (2001). Dietary creatine supplementation and muscular adaptation to resistive overload. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 33(8), 1304–1310.
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8. Bassit, R.A., da Justa Pinheiro, C.H., Vitzel, K.F., Sproesser, A.J., Silveira, L.R. and Curi, R. (2010). Effect of short-term creatine supplementation on markers of skeletal muscle damage after strenuous contractile activity. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 108(5), 945–955.
9. Cooke, M.B., Rybalka, E., Williams, A.D., Cribb, P.J. and Hayes, A. (2009). Creatine supplementation enhances muscle force recovery after eccentrically-induced muscle damage in healthy individuals. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 6(1), 1–11.
10. Hespel, P., Op’t Eijnde, B., Leemputte, M.V., Ursø, B., Greenhaff, P.L., Labarque, V., Dymarkowski, S., Hecke, P.V. and Richter, E.A. (2001). Oral creatine supplementation facilitates the rehabilitation of disuse atrophy and alters the expression of muscle myogenic factors in humans. The Journal of Physiology, 536(2), 625–633
11. Blancquaert, L., Everaert, I. and Derave, W. (2015). Beta-alanine supplementation, muscle carnosine and exercise performance. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care, 18(1), 63–70.
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16. Zoeller, R.F., Stout, J.R., O’kroy, J.A., Torok, D.J. and Mielke, M. (2007). Effects of 28 days of beta-alanine and creatine monohydrate supplementation on aerobic power, ventilatory and lactate thresholds, and time to exhaustion. Amino Acids, 33(3), 505–510.
17. Stout, J.R., Cramer, J.T., Mielke, M., O’KROY, J.O.S.E.P.H., Torok, D.J. and Zoeller, R.F. (2006). Effects of twenty-eight days of beta-alanine and creatine monohydrate supplementation on the physical working capacity at neuromuscular fatigue threshold. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 20(4), 928–931.
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23. Robinson, E.H., Stout, J.R., Miramonti, A.A., Fukuda, D.H., Wang, R., Townsend, J.R., Mangine, G.T., Fragala, M.S. and Hoffman, J.R. (2014). High-intensity interval training and β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyric free acid improves aerobic power and metabolic thresholds. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 11(1), 1–11.
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