ALA for athletes

[monkeyballs]

I want to chime in here....
My guess is that the whole purpose of this thread is that "swimmar" want to swim faster.
So the essence of your question is this, will ALA supplementation help my times.

The anecdotal evidence that I can provide- not at all.

I'm not a swimmer, but I am an athlete who is only concerned with the bottom line of moving as fast as I can from point A to point B. As for my own experience, ALA will not help the bottom line, and contrary to many people's experience, I gained a small ammount of bodyfat during the course of my use. All other variables in my training were identical, so I'm virtually convinced that ALA was the culprit. Yes...I could be wrong. I'm open to suggestions, but I feel fairly certain that ALA is not usefull in helping the athlete achieve the bottom line. Every national sports machine agrees with me as well. Not one (none) uses ALA as a team sponsered supplement. Athetes, like BB's, are concerned with the "real world" results that everyone here is raving about, and In the "real world", ALA has not been shown to help athletes.

Now as for a ketogenic diet, I can't imagine a worse Idea for an athlete than to deplete his body of fuel in an attempt to get rid of fat. You are a sprinter, so am I. Your training will go to shit pronto if you follow a ketogenic diet. Even though your a sprinter, your body will still need carbs for a whole slew of reasons in order to function at its peak ability. While in ketosis your recovery will suck, therefore you training volume will suffer, and ultimatly your training intensity has gone to the shitter as well. The end result is slower times. Bottom line.

You mentioned Lance Armstrong earlier...he consumes up to 5000 calories a day, 60% of which is carbohydrates, many of them simple. Yes, it has been shown that his body uses fat for fuel more efficently than just about anyone on the planet, but the word "ketosis" isn't anywhere in his vocabulary. Nor is it in that of just about any elite athlete. Elite is the key word here. I'm sure high school sprinters can get away with a ketogenic diet, and depending on what level your swimming at, you may too.

That's my .2$.

I'd also like to add that this is a great post with a very healthy debate going on; A debate which I would like to see stay as constructive as possible. And for those of you who think that this thread is has too much "fancy book learnin", there are plenty of other posts for you to read, let the text nerds enjoy this one.

 

[luto199]

Can you post how much you took, your age, bf, weight, height, what you ate, your routine, and where you got the ALA form. These things would be helpful.
You mentioned you run, and swimmar says he swimms. Maybe ALA for some reason would only have a posotive effect on those who weightlift???
And as far ALA not being sport team sponsors, well not a whole lot of people have even thought of ALA as a weight loss supplement until just recently. I mean r-ala JUST came out like a month and a half or 2 months ago. Dont judge it based on that.

 

[monkeyballs]

Can you post how much you took, your age, bf, weight, height, what you ate, your routine, and where you got the ALA form. These things would be helpful.
You mentioned you run, and swimmar says he swimms. Maybe ALA for some reason would only have a posotive effect on those who weightlift???
And as far ALA not being sport team sponsors, well not a whole lot of people have even thought of ALA as a weight loss supplement until just recently. I mean r-ala JUST came out like a month and a half or 2 months ago. Dont judge it based on that.

No, sorry I'm not going to give you all of those stats. Too much time. I guess I'm just too selfish at the moment. It's late.

All I will say, is that my variables were in controll. My diet has been regimened for the past four years, and so has my training schedule.

Okay, next topic. No. I don't run. But if I did, then anything that would have a benifit on weightlifting would also have a benifit on running. Creatine is perfect example. Weightlifting and running (sprinting) aren't all that different in terms of kinesiology. Also, every anerobic athlete weightlifts, so the idea that ALA would only help weightlifters doesn't have much merit...

As for the issue of sports team sponsership, let me clarify-
I'm not talking about the denver broncos and EAS here, I'm talking about the dutch or north koreans...etc. State funded sports machines. And whatever we know about, they have studied and used for a good decade or so. Creatine was used by amature athletes as early as the late 70s. The earliest I saw it on our shelves was in the early 90's (could have been earlier...I don't know). Chances are nobody here has used (or maybe even heard of) gene therapy to augment their training.

ALA is known about by these various institutions, and to my knowledge, none use it.

I would like to add this. I'm about to hit up a 17aa cycle if my source issues ever work themselves out...I will use ALA as an anti-oxidant and liver protectant. So in this case, yes, ALA does help athletes.

me sleep now

 

[luto199]

well get back to me on that, i'm really interested in ala and would like to know everything about you since you say it didn't work.

BTW, just found this article at bodybuilding.com stating "Scientific evidence CLA burns fat" http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/david22.htm Whats the relation between CLA and ALA?

 

[Elapid]

MONKEY BALLS:

Lets hear about your 17-aa cycle-I'm curious as to how sprinters and other similar athletes cycle drugs.

 

[fhg43]

I want to chime in here....
My guess is that the whole purpose of this thread is that "swimmar" want to swim faster.
So the essence of your question is this, will ALA supplementation help my times.

The anecdotal evidence that I can provide- not at all.

I'm not a swimmer, but I am an athlete who is only concerned with the bottom line of moving as fast as I can from point A to point B. As for my own experience, ALA will not help the bottom line, and contrary to many people's experience, I gained a small ammount of bodyfat during the course of my use. All other variables in my training were identical, so I'm virtually convinced that ALA was the culprit. Yes...I could be wrong. I'm open to suggestions, but I feel fairly certain that ALA is not usefull in helping the athlete achieve the bottom line. Every national sports machine agrees with me as well. Not one (none) uses ALA as a team sponsered supplement. Athetes, like BB's, are concerned with the "real world" results that everyone here is raving about, and In the "real world", ALA has not been shown to help athletes.

Now as for a ketogenic diet, I can't imagine a worse Idea for an athlete than to deplete his body of fuel in an attempt to get rid of fat. You are a sprinter, so am I. Your training will go to shit pronto if you follow a ketogenic diet. Even though your a sprinter, your body will still need carbs for a whole slew of reasons in order to function at its peak ability. While in ketosis your recovery will suck, therefore you training volume will suffer, and ultimatly your training intensity has gone to the shitter as well. The end result is slower times. Bottom line.

You mentioned Lance Armstrong earlier...he consumes up to 5000 calories a day, 60% of which is carbohydrates, many of them simple. Yes, it has been shown that his body uses fat for fuel more efficently than just about anyone on the planet, but the word "ketosis" isn't anywhere in his vocabulary. Nor is it in that of just about any elite athlete. Elite is the key word here. I'm sure high school sprinters can get away with a ketogenic diet, and depending on what level your swimming at, you may too.

That's my .2$.

I'd also like to add that this is a great post with a very healthy debate going on; A debate which I would like to see stay as constructive as possible. And for those of you who think that this thread is has too much "fancy book learnin", there are plenty of other posts for you to read, let the text nerds enjoy this one.

I have to agree with monkeyballs. Like I posted earlier I specifically used ALA w/ECA and killer diet to reduce fat-I got nothing. But as soon as I quit the ALA I lost my stubborn fat. I used very good ALA as well; Jarrows pharm grade, 900mg/day, one before each meal. Jarrows is probably 50+% r-ALA. Bottomline like MB said ALA didn't make me faster. That is the gold standard by which atletes measure supplements-does it make me faster, stronger, or increase endurance?

Anyway, like MB, I to am a highly trained athlete (not to say that nobody else is but...) and my diet is 60% carb, 25% pro, 15% fat. No way I want to go into ketosis! Each athlete has different needs. BB'ers definitely have different dietary needs than swimmar, monkeyballs, and myself. ALA may be beneficial for BB'ers and not endurance (or sprinter) athletes. Thats what our discussion is pointing to.

FHG

 

[macrophage69alpha]

FHG,

difference between ala and r-ala is significant.. the increase in plasma insulin that a racemic will cause is probably not beneficial for atheletic performance..

though cannot say conclusively that r-ala would be either.. merely that they are different in several aspects with respect to physiology..

btw- when using racemic during bulking.. definitely noticed greater fat gains as well.. have not used r-ala thus (at least not with such high cals) so cannot comment.. yet..

 

[fhg43]

Can you post how much you took, your age, bf, weight, height, what you ate, your routine, and where you got the ALA form. These things would be helpful.
You mentioned you run, and swimmar says he swimms. Maybe ALA for some reason would only have a posotive effect on those who weightlift???
And as far ALA not being sport team sponsors, well not a whole lot of people have even thought of ALA as a weight loss supplement until just recently. I mean r-ala JUST came out like a month and a half or 2 months ago. Dont judge it based on that.

r-ALA isn't anything new. Plenty of really good ALA supps have existed. The fact that someone is marketing it maybe new.

BB'ers and lifters have a totally different standard for a supplement and if it works-does it make me skinny, does it make my muscles bigger, does it make me look good? There's nothing wrong with this criteria if your goals are low BF and big muscles. And ALA may help fat loss if you are engaged in a keto diet. Anecdotal evidence seems to support this. But the above criteria doesn't really apply to aerobic/anaerobic athletes.

FHG

 

[macrophage69alpha]

r-ALA isn't anything new. Plenty of really good ALA supps have existed. The fact that someone is marketing it maybe new.

FHG

yes... it is.. never before has the pure R enantiomer been available for anything but research.

all of those "prettygood" ALA sups were RACEMIC.. the cheaper manufacturing process used creates chiral enantiomers (mirror images) one with a right orientation and one with a left orientation .. half of each.. the left oriented molecule does not exist in nature (the right oriented one is produced by the human body).. the response in many aspects is considerably different

but again as far as athletic performance.. cant say definitively that r-ala will improve performance (at least directly).. obviously some of the anti-ox effects over time will affect performance..
there probably should be some improvement in fine motor control.. especially in older atheletes..

 

[Lumberg]

Here is my reasoning (sort of an educated guess I have formulated after reading a lot, both studies and anecdotal evidence) about how ALA can help people lose fat.

Many people have questioned just how ALA can help BURN fat. Well, it doesn't.

Most fat deposition occurs when more carbs than the body can burn are consumed in one meal. The excess glucose circulating, along with the high insulin levels, cause the fat cells to store the excess energy as fat.

Well what ALA does is reduce or even prevent this from happening. The body goes through its usual cycles of burning and sotring fat. However the storage cycle is attenuated, and the time it takes to get into fat burning mode is decreased (ie blood glucose levels fall faster when a meal is taken with ALA).

JC