Supplement Series: Tier 1 | Episode 22

0:00Today we are talking about tier one supplements. Not only is creatin the most effective erogenic supplement in the history of mankind, it is the safest. Whey protein, regardless of what scale you use to assess protein quality, whey protein is at the top of virtually every scale. There's a reason caffeine has been around for a long freaking time. It is the most reliable performance enhancer out there in terms

0:26of an acute setting. What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Dr. Lane Norton podcast. I'm your host, Lane Norton, and today we are talking about what everybody loves to talk about, supplements. This is going to start my supplement series where we are going to go through my tiers of supplements. And today we are talking about tier one supplements. This is my Mount Rushmore of supplements. And I have to be very specific here because people are I'm going to get a bunch of whatabouts. What about? What about? What about? These are my tier one supplements for body composition, strength, and exercise performance. So, erogenic supplements. This is my top

1:11tier. And the reason that's important is because people will say, "Well, why didn't you say things like, for example, fish oil or something like that?" Well, I think fish oil has some great applications for health, but it's not really a performance supplement. So, my tier one supplements, I'm just going to list them off right now. So you know ahead of time what we're talking about, what my Mount Rushmore of supplements is, and those would be creatin monohydrate,

1:36whey protein, and caffeine. Yes, I know you're all very bored with those choices. But as I have said many times, there is a reason that these things have not fallen out of vogue or out of style in the last 30 years. Because the stuff that works doesn't go out of style. It stays. Whereas things like pyuvate, ectosterone, colostrum, HMBB, I don't want to say that those things absolutely do nothing whatsoever, but they certainly aren't worth the money. And any kind of application they have is going to be in very, very limited

2:16populations. But the reason that those things come out as new is because you guys don't realize 25 years ago when I got into bodybuilding and I was buying all the bodybuilding magazines, everything I just listed off, pyuvate, ectosterone, HMBB, colostrum, those were all being promoted as new. They they might have been back then, but the supplement industry isn't really

2:46that imaginative. And so every 5 to 10 years, companies take these zombie supplements and resurrect them to try to sell you something that is new. When in reality, these things, they have their popular phases. They go into style. Most people figure out they don't actually do anything, and then they go out of style. And then the industry waits until you forget about it or until, quite frankly, there's a new crop of people in it. and then they try to resell them again because the average lifespan of people's interest in fitness I think in terms of like they looked at competitors a while back it's like less than two years

3:29people get chewed up and spit out in this industry they get into fitness and then they get out of it and so you've always got fresh uh people coming in and as they say a sucker is born every minute not that people are suckers I was a sucker at one point too it's just that you don't know any better So I have created a framework for you so that you can hopefully understand what the best supplements are for the money, why they are effective, how they work, and how to take them. Now I want to go through my criteria of why these fit in my tier one. So tier one

4:08supplements, one, they have to have a consistent measurable effect. Meaning not every single study but the vast majority of studies show benefit. The most tightly controlled studies show benefit. Both industry funded and non-industry funded studies have similar outcomes. And these outcomes are repeated over the course of multiple decades in multiple countries in many different labs across hundreds if not thousands of studies. Those are my requirements for tier one. And that's why right now I only list three supplements in tier one of erogenic supplements. Now before we dig in, I do want to disclose my conflict of interest. I own a

5:01supplement company, Outwork Nutrition. And yes, the supplements we discuss today are supplements I sell. And as we go through the tiers, many of the supplements I discuss, I also sell. Now, you can look at that as, well, of course, he's going to say positive things about them. He sells them. But here's what I'll say. I was saying these positive things about these supplements,

5:28most of them, for many, many years. Particularly my tier one. I've been saying the same thing for 20 years, way before I ever even thought about having a supplement company. And so, of course, they're going to be in my supplements because I believe in them, because the research backs it up. Just one example of why I am not a slave to what I sell. I previously had a different supplement company that I was an owner in that I partnered with bodybuilding.com for and this came out

5:58around 2015. And in one of those supplements, one of the ingredients was branch chain amino acids which I had promoted for like 15 years. And that supplement company lasted a couple years and then we closed it. And when Outwork was being launched in 2020, one of the discussions was, are we going to include branch chamino acids in my products? Because heck, my PhD thesis is about leucine, one of the branch amino

6:27acids. And I said, no. Based on the evidence I've seen over the last five years on branch chain amino acids, supplemental branch chain amino acids, I can no longer in good conscience recommend them as a dietary supplement. I just couldn't defend it. I still think that they have some like small narrow window limited applications, but there's no way they'd fit in my tier

6:54one or tier two. And so I just couldn't justify putting them in my supplements. Even though people wanted them in there, even though I could make money off of them, even though I had said for 15 years, hey, I think these are worth taking. I had to change my mind because of the evidence. Now, I also want to disclose that I'm also an investor in David protein. Now, they're a protein bar, but it contains whey protein as well. So, I think it's important that I disclose that. I am also an investor in a company called Pioneer Pastures. And Pioneer Pastures makes a readyto-drink protein shake that is 30 grams of protein and

7:37it's from what's called A2 milk. Now, most milk out there is what's called A1. And many people have digestive sensitivities to A1 protein in milk. And so A2 protein is produced differently. And they find in research studies that for people who are sensitive to milk protein that it is much easier to tolerate. And so again,

8:06whey protein is part of milk protein. Therefore, I feel I need to disclose those investments to you. Now again, if you think that that makes me unfit to talk about this stuff, that's fine. What I will tell you is you probably need to worry less about the people who actively communicate and disclose their biases to you than the people who act like they don't have bias. There is no more biased person than the person who tells you that they are unbiased. There is not an unbiased person on the planet. Everyone has formed personal beliefs based on their own lived experience

8:45and own values. that inform how they view and interpret data. That is why I think it is much more important to disclose what your biases are than pretend they don't exist. I'm a protein guy. I like protein. I'm a supplement guy. I like some supplements. I think most are a vast waste of money, but I've had a passion for researching supplements ever since I got into bodybuilding. I think it kind of goes with the territory. So, with all that out of the way, let's get into my tier one supplements. First up, creatin monohydrate. Creatin is the first supplement I ever took. I can still remember going into GNC when I

9:25was 16 years old, getting into lifting and looking through the different types of creatin. And this is when like EAS had phosphagen and muscle techch had Celtech and all these different products. And you know what? Actually, for my first purchase, I ended up making a pretty good purchase. I purchased what I still use today, plain old creatin monohydrate, which is what's in my

9:51recovery product for Outwork Nutrition. And I remember bringing the bottles of creatin monohydrate powder home and my mom saw it and they had like my parents had like an intervention for me thinking I was on steroids. And this is a popular misconception a lot of people have. And before we move any further, yes, I'm going to pronounce it creatin and creatine. Both are fine. Most scientists I know of say creatin. I used to say creatine when I was younger, and now that I'm more scientific and refined, I say creatin, but sometimes my inner bro comes out and I say creatine. Both are

10:29fine. Deal with it. So, what is creatin? Creatin is a combination of three different amino acids, arginine, glycine, and methionine. Your body produces it naturally, and the vast majority of it is stored in your skeletal muscle. Now, what does it do? It is a high energy phosphate donor. So, when creatin gets into your cells, it forms phosphocreatin. So it combines with a phosphate molecule forms phosphocreatin or creatin phosphate and it helps with ATP reynthesis during highintensity exercise. Now what does all that mean? Well ATP or adenazine triphosphate is your body's energy currency. It is the primary form of energy your body uses to power virtually every cellular reaction. So any enzyme,

11:29anything that is energetically unfavorable that requires energy, your body uses ATP in order to drive that. Now how does that work? Well, ATP adenazine triphosphate, it is an adenazine molecule with three phosphates on it. Those three phosphates make the molecule relatively unstable and it wants to get rid of one of those phosphates. The hydraysis of that phosphate, the cleaving of one of those phosphates is very energetically favorable and the cleaving of that phosphate liberates energy and that

12:04energy is used to drive these reactions. So like for example skeletal muscle contraction the cross bridging between actin and meosin that requires ATP. So you have to hydrayze an ATP molecule in order to make that happen. That hydrarolysis then produces a free phosphate and adenazine diphosphate or ADP. Now the way creatin works is creatin phosphate can then donate its phosphate molecule to ADP to reynthesize ATP and it can do that under anorobic conditions meaning when there's no oxygen present or limited oxygen present. So you have kind of your stored

12:50pool of ATP which is extremely small. As you start exercising, as you start doing high-intensity work, that ATP starts to get depleted. Creatin phosphate can donate some of its phosphate to ADP to reform ATP and you can keep it going. And I'm going to tell you, creatin monohydrate is the single most effective erogenic supplement ever created or I guess ever discovered since we

13:22didn't synthesize it out of nowhere. Your body produces it. And we're going to go through the benefits on the front end. Mechanistically, it enhances your capacity to do highintensity work. And this in addition to other things leads to improvements in various things that we care about. The first being body composition. So when creatin is combined with resistance training, it consistently improves lean mass compared to people who just do resistance training plus placebo. Now that appears to be through both an increase in lean mass and also a slight reduction in fat mass. If you look at the meta analyses, there does appear to be a loss of fat mass with creatin. Now,

14:10why would that be? Is creatin actually a fat loss supplement? No. But what's likely happening is people who can train harder end up expending more energy and lose fat because they are training harder and performing better uh compared to not taking creatin. So, I don't think creatin a fat burner. I don't think it's going to magically increase fat oxidation, but secondarily through improved training can improve body composition and part of that is through reduction in fat mass. Now, how does it increase lean mass? Well, there's a few different proposed mechanisms, but let's go with the most obvious. First of all, it makes you stronger. So, people who

14:51take creatin have better strength outcomes and they perform better. So, they can do more reps and more sets at a given load. increase their work capacity. So they can create more mechanical tension because they can do more work and that is going to create more progressive overload and probably create more hypertrophy. You get a greater training stimulus over time. Now the second thing creatin does is creatin is what's called an osmolite meaning water follows it. And we have shown that especially the early gains in creatin

15:27supplementation are mostly due to water. So water is drawn into the muscle tissue following creatin and that registers as an increase in lean mass because water is lean mass. Now people will say well you know the the the lean mass from create or the muscle from creatine it's all just water weight. Well, muscle is 70% water.

15:54Water is muscle. It is muscle volume. And actually, there is some evidence that if you increase the fluid content of muscle, it actually makes it more anabolic overall, improves anabolic signaling. I used to say a hydrated cell is an anabolic cell. Probably too broad of a claim, but still um in general, it's probably a relatively accurate statement. And there's some evidence that having more hydration in the cell actually improves the

16:25contractability of the muscle fibers. So yes, it increases the water, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, if I was very dehydrated, if I stripped all my water out of my muscle cells, what it would look like is like really soft, spongy tissue. In fact, you could think about this like a water balloon. If I fill up a water balloon as much as

16:56I possibly can, what does it look like? It looks very tight. It looks very full, very volumized, and the skin or the um the the covering looks very thin, right? What happens if I drain all the water out of it or very much dehydrate? Looks flabby. It looks soft. That's muscle tissue. So, actually, when you have hydrated muscle cells, your skin actually looks thinner. In fact, we could get into this with contest prep, which is one of the reasons when I was prepping a lot of bodybuilders for shows, I did not have them dehydrate because it's actually a stupid thing to do. But that's a story

17:35for another time. But putting water inside of muscle visually makes that muscle appear larger. it is not nonfunctional because it may increase the contractability as well. And there's also some evidence that creatin can increase uh satellite cell number or fusion. Um it may activate some anabolic signaling as well. So yes, the early gains are from water, but creatin may have some independent anabolic effects as well. So it appears to be kind of a three-pronged mechanism. You have the the lean mass from fluid, the improved performance which drives more greater training stimulus over time, and then possibly improved anabolic stimuli. And the gains aren't just from body

18:23composition. And again, if the increase in water was just what creatin did, we would not expect to see some of these performance benefits. Again, this goes back to the improved contractability, but we see improvements in strength. So, this is a very consistent effect in the literature that people get stronger and not just with reps. Their one rep

18:48max strength is better. Now, why does that happen? One, the reynthesis of ATP ensures that their work can keep going. Now, that's more for reps, doing reps. So, how does it increase one rep max strength because you're not depleting ATP on on a single rep? Well, you also get again possibly better contractability and you are getting higher quality training because you can do more reps, get more stimulus, and over time that is going to increase your one rep max compared to a placebo. So, it's not magic why it works. It doesn't make like one set just completely superhuman. But when it comes to strength, I think what I saw at least in

19:35untrained people when they start taking creatin, it's like a 8% improvement in one rep max strength compared to placebo. And um for reps, fatigue ability, it's like a 14% improvement. So it's it's pretty impressive. Many people ask me what supplements I take, and that's easy. I take the supplements that I formulate and created for my supplement line, Outwork Nutrition. You see, I started Outwork Nutrition because I was frustrated by the lack of transparency in the supplement industry. So many companies were using proprietary blends to hide the fact that they were drastically underdosing their products. And as a research nutrition scientist, I know what having a proper dosage means when

20:20it comes to these ingredients. And I knew that many of these companies were just ripping people off. That's when I decided to create my own line of science-based supplements that were good enough to support my training. As someone who has won five national titles and two world titles in powerlifting and set two world records in powerlifting and trains for 2 to three hours a day, I needed supplements that would support my hard intense training and recovery. All Outwork Nutrition products are based on the latest scientific evidence and every ingredient is included at the proper

20:54clinical dose for maximum effectiveness. We provide links to all the scientific research and ingredients and claims on our website. So, you don't have to take our word for it. You can read it for yourself. No proprietary blends, no BS marketing hype, no empty promises, just sciencebacked supplements to support your hard work. Click the link in the show notes or head on over to outworknutrition.com and sign up for our email list to get 10% off your first order. And the other thing to point out is the effects of creatin are cumulative over time. You don't just take it once and go into the gym an hour later and

21:30all of a sudden all these benefits are there. That's not how it works. Um it takes time to build up in muscle cells which we will get to here in a little bit. But it's it's not really an acute acting thing. Although uh when we get into the cognitive portion of it, um there may be some acute effects. So we have improved body composition through increased lean mass, decreased

21:51fat mass as well as increased strength. And also just uh to point out a lot of people said, well, should I take creatine when I'm cutting? I hear this a lot from women in particular. Well, I don't want to take creatine. It'll make me look bloated. Creatine increases your intracellular water. That is a good thing. That is not what makes you look bloated. And yes, you should take it because during a calorie deficit, it's actually even better because it's going to help you better maintain your performance, your strength, and your lean mass. And oh, by the way, it appears like it actually

22:26helps you indirectly lose fat. In fact, the effects of creatin on fat mass in research studies is more potent than most of the fat burner ingredients on the market. I could make a stronger case for creatin being a fat loss supplement than I could for virtually any fat loss ingredient in supplements for fat burning on the market. Okay? And it's not just strength as we talked about. Uh it improves performance as well. Even if you're not a gym bro meatthead like me, uh if you're an actual athlete, it improves repeated sprints, power output, and highintensity sprint work. So if they look at repeated sprints, people who are taking creatin

23:14perform better uh power output and short duration highintensity performance, they see better performance uh even in soccer players. So people who are kind of you know soccer players will have you know periods in the game where they are or the match sorry the match where they are kind of jogging but they will also need to periodically push the pedal down and sprint and they've shown that creatin supplementation in soccer players even though we might think of them more as endurance athletes it improves their performance. The next part of how creatin helps, and this is some of the more recent interesting literature, is cognition. So, muscles aren't the only thing that use creatin

24:00in the phosphocreatin system. Your brain uses it, too. And I used to call this emerging evidence, but now there's quite a few studies that demonstrate that creatin supplementation improves cognition under various conditions. Now there's some evidence it improves cognition kind of at baseline in healthy people appears to be kind of a modest effect but it really shines when there's some kind of deficit or your energy demand is stressed. So like sleep deprivation uh mental fatigue or like high cognitive workload where you are having to like think a lot and hard or people who have like low baseline creatin such as meat intake. In fact, I didn't touch on that and that's

24:45important to point out. Some people will say, "Well, I can just eat meat and get creatin." You could, but I think I calculated you need to eat like over a kilo of beef to get creatin. And oh, by the way, you'd have to eat raw beef because cooking destroys about 50% of the bioavailability of creatin. So, if you're eating cooked beef, you got to get about 2 kilos, which is almost 5 lbs of beef in a day. Now, the carnivores out there might say, "Well, I've got that covered." That's cool. But for the rest of us who have a brain, creatin

25:17supplementation can be uh very helpful. So, it seems for cognition to work best when some kind of deficit is present. The benefits in healthy people are a little bit more modest. But there is discussion about whether or not cognitive benefits require a higher dose. the the study that looked at memory and cognition after sleep deprivation, I believe they used a

25:38dosage around 30 grams at one sitting. Might have been 20 grams, 20 or 30 grams at one sitting, which is a big dose, but that doesn't mean that's what's necessary. I don't know if we have the dose response studies yet. It would be interesting to see if they dose it at 5 10 15 20 so on grams if they still see kind of a linear effect or if there's a threshold effect or if you still get the benefits at a lower dosage. The other thing that creatin's been looked at for which is very interesting is traumatic brain injury, concussions, not just recovering from them but possibly helping to prevent them or

26:14reduce the risk of them. So that's that research is still very new, but it's very interesting. And they've also shown uh that creatin might have a beneficial effect for depression. In fact, there was a study that they looked at either therapy alone or therapy with creatin supplementation. And these were in people who were like moderate to severely depressed on the depression scale. And the people who got therapy, it slid them back into moderate depression, so a little bit lower on the scale. And the people who did creatin plus therapy, it got them down to, I think, just mild

26:54depression. So, and if I recall correctly, they were kind of on the borderline of not even being depressed. Now, I want to be very, very clear. I'm not saying that created monohydrate is a cure for depression. That is not what I'm saying. But it does appear that creatin supplementation may have very global benefits, not just for muscles and performance, but for cognitive health and possibly health overall. Now, let's let's talk about health and safety because there's a lot of myths out there with regards to creatin. And the first one that has been pared for 30 plus years is that creatin hurts your kidneys. And this is an

27:35artifact of the fact that if you take creatin, it will tend to elevate your blood levels of creatinine. Now, creatinine is a metabolite or byproduct of creatin metabolism. And creatinine is typically elevated in people with kidney damage or kidney failure or renal disease. Just because you have elevated levels of creatinin does not mean that you have kidney problems. It does not equal renal damage. It just indicates that you're

28:10having increased turnover of creatin. But unfortunately, we have medical professionals out there who some of them become so dogmatic in how they read labs that if there's a value outside of norm, they press the alarm button. It's very normal to have elevated levels of creatinine when using creatin. It does not mean that you have kidney damage. If you are concerned, then have further testing done such as uh measuring your GFR uh or doing an ultrasound, those sorts of things. But there is no evidence that creatin harms a healthy kidney. And in fact, we have uh quite a bit of long-term research data showing that it does not. I am very comfortable

28:56in saying that not only is creatin the most effective erogenic supplement in the history of mankind, I'm also confident in saying it is the safest. There was just a recent metaanalysis published that we covered uh in one of our study deep dives on this podcast that demonstrated that doses of up to I think the longest study was like 10

29:20grams per day for eight years. Um and there were some studies that were up to 14 years long, some as high as 20 gram or 30 grams per day. And in those studies of over 25,000 people, there was no difference in any side effect with creatin supplementation compared to placebo. So yes, people getting creatin reported side effects, but not more frequently than people who got placebo, which means any side effects are likely psychosmatic. Now, I will say it does appear that it might be a gut irritant for some people. This is a pretty steady anecdote. Although I could argue that people with high levels of anxiety,

30:07which is very highly correlated with irritable bowel syndrome. Uh if they know they're taking something and they think it could cause an effect, that that psychosmatic could actually cause them to experience an effect. Uh people misread the placebo or they misunderstand placebo. They think placebo means that they're lying or making it up. No, placebo means you can still experience a side effect or an effect. It just means it's your experience because of your belief, not necessarily because of anything that the thing you're taking is doing. Yes, your brain is that powerful. You can believe something into actual physical pain, discomfort, or an experience. Now, let's talk about how to take it. Now,

30:51first off, I want to be very clear. Creatin monohydrate is the form of creatin I recommend. Yes, it's what I sell on my supplements. But here is why I recommend it. It is by far the most tested. It by far has the most safety data. It by far has been shown to be consistently effective. Other forms of creatin at best are equally as effective as creatin monohydrate, but cost two to four times

31:22as much. Take something like creatine ethylester. Straight up less effective than creatin monohydrate in research studies. It's actually worse and it costs more. Uh buffered creatin is hilarious to me because creatin is actually stable in stomach acid. You don't need to buffer it. It appears to be as effective as creatin monohydrate gram per gram but um

31:46it cost again two to four times as much. And then creatin hydrochloride, same story as buffered creatin. And you could throw any other form of creatin in there. They are either as effective or less effective, but they cost significantly more, which is why I recommend creatin monohydrate. Any other form of creatin, in my opinion, is a scam and just trying to figure out a way to overcharge you for something that is either less or only equally as effective as monohydrate. How do you take it? Well, the standard dose is 3 to five grams a day. I recommend five grams per day. Uh now you can load it. That was a a

32:27popular thing to do and that is uh 20 grams per day typically split into four five gram doses. So you can do that for like 5 to seven days and that will saturate your muscle cells with phosphocreatin uh pretty rapidly and saturating them with phosphocreatin meaning getting them to 100% capacity of their creatin phosphate stores is what

32:49you're targeting. Which again, creatin monohydrate saturates the muscle cell 100%. You can't get better than 100%. Why are we talking about these other forms of creatin? But I digress. After you're saturated, you can do a maintenance dose of 3 to 5 grams per day. My recommendation, I don't load. I just take five grams per day every single day. That will saturate you within a few weeks. If you want to get saturated faster, you can. Uh, it's important to point out again people with like gut irritation from creatin supplementation, they may benefit from not loading. They may also benefit from splitting up that five gram dose into multiple smaller

33:27doses per day. People will ask me, "When should I take it?" It doesn't really matter when you take it. What matters is getting your muscle cells saturated. You can take it first thing in the morning, you can take it pre-workout, you can take it post-workout, you can take it with meals, you can take it before bed. Um there was uh I think a meta analysis that showed like a small advantage if you take it around training, but that is

33:49likely not a I guess real effect. Insulin does help with creatine uptake. So perhaps if you're people are eating a higher carb meal or they're because they're more insulin sensitive around training, maybe that's helping a little bit. But overall, just take it when you will take it consistently because if you take it consistently every day, you will saturate your muscle cells and you will get the benefits of

34:13creatin. Now, what about people who are non-responders? I get asked this a lot. Well, I took creatin. I didn't notice anything. Well, I think first of all, some people are expecting like steroid like results. Creatin is not going to do that. on average, it's going to give you couple pounds of lean mass. That's not

34:33going to just turn you into the Hulk. It's going to make you a little bit stronger, perform a little bit better, recover a little bit faster. So, if you're expecting, you know, to look like an IFBB Pro or The Rock, you know, within a couple weeks of starting, yeah, you're going to be disappointed. But there are people who do appear to not respond to creatin. And what's cool about this is if you don't respond to creatin, I have good news for you. It's because your muscle cells are already saturated with creatin. That is likely why you're not responding. So if you're not responding, hey, no big deal. You

35:10happen to naturally make more creatin or consume it through your diet or a little bit of both. So fantastic news. You're good to go. Now, there are are there people that should be worried about creatine intake? I mean, if you already have a kidney issue, again, creatin isn't shown to worsen kidney function, but you know, there isn't really many studies in this population. So, I'd recommend talking to your nephrologist if you have high levels of creatinine normally, it doesn't mean you shouldn't use it. It just means you may need to understand when your creatinine levels come back high why they're high, that it's not necessarily a danger. And one more thing

35:51to point out, uh, this was a myth that, you know, steered athletes away from using creatin, which is, oh, it causes dehydration and cramping. Uh, no, it actually hydrates muscles and it will not cause cramping. And there's several controlled studies to demonstrate that it does not cause dehydration or cramping. Moving on. Whey protein. Regardless of what scale you use to assess protein quality, whether it's pedicaus, diaas, uh, NPU, net protein utilization, bioavailability, regardless of the scale you use, whey protein is at the top of virtually every scale. And my scale also includes leucine content because that's what my thesis was on was how the leucine which

36:45is an amino acid the leucine content of proteins typically predicts the anabolic effect of said protein. Well, whey protein is one of the highest natural sources of leucine out there. So whey protein naturally contains around 11 or 12% of its total amino acid content from leucine. That is very very high. Poor sources of leucine are collagen. I think

37:15collagen is like less than 2% leucine. Uh wheat is around 6 or 7%. You get in the most plant proteins they're around 7 or 8% leucine. Most animal sources of protein are around 8 8 and 12% leucine. Eggs are 9% leucine and then you have whey kind of outside of everybody else at like 11 12% leucine. The one kind of weird outlier is if you isolate protein from corn, corn protein isolate is like 12% leucine but it's also frank deficient in other essential amino acids. So whey is not only high in leucine but it is very bioavailable extremely digestible and overall high essential amino acid and branch chain amino acid content very

38:03high quality. Now why is that important? Well whey has been shown to maximize muscle protein synthesis at a very low dose. I mean you'll maximize muscle protein synthesis in young with whey protein around 15 20 grams and in the elderly around 30 grams you can maximize their muscle protein synthesis you know and this is one of the things I showed in my research which was in rats but rats are actually a really good model for human protein metabolism and all of my studies that I conducted in rats were later validated in humans and what we showed was that at lower or modest intakes of protein at a meal uh soy

38:41protein was far superior to something like wheat protein or soy protein, but at high protein intakes, when you got it high enough, uh you capped out the effect and some of those lower quality proteins could be as good as whey, but it took a lot more protein to get to that level. So, whey protein, it's not magic. It's high in leucine, high in essential amino acids. It supports muscle protein synthesis. But

39:09does that actually equate to outcomes? Well, in research studies, when they give whey protein and have them resistance train, they see increases in lean mass versus just training alone. There's also evidence that in a deficit, it can help, uh, improve possibly satiety, adherence, uh, and also help preserve lean mass. It's not a fat burner, although people do tend to get improvements in body composition that may include small losses in fat mass as well. It also appears to help with strength. Now, not in the way creatin does, which may have some mechanistic ways it helps with strength, but whey protein helps improve recovery, helps support muscle repair and muscle mass,

39:55and that can lead to better strength gains. Whey protein isn't magic. If you're getting enough total protein, you don't need to supplement with whey protein. If you're up around the old one gram per pound of body weight, you don't need to supplement with whey protein. You're getting enough overall. But whey protein, especially for people who have a hard time getting enough protein, uh I'm thinking about people who are elderly, who don't like to chew as much, uh or people who just naturally have a hard time eating protein. Whey protein is a great high quality protein source that's very affordable and it's just an efficient way to hit

40:37your protein target. Now I want to frame it appropriately. Your total daily protein intake is the most important thing when it comes to protein. Your timing is less important than that. Although probably good to spread it out in multiple doses over the course of a day. And then your source is also less important because if your total intake is high enough, even inferior protein sources can maximize muscle protein synthesis. But again, whey protein inexpensive. Some people will argue with me on this, but per gram of protein, it is very inexpensive

41:14compared to other sources of protein. Whey protein is inexpensive. Generally, the protein supplements taste good. Whey actually naturally kind of has a a pleasant taste to it, even without flavoring. And it's very bioavailable, very digestible. Some people have sensitivities to it, which we'll talk about in a minute. It's just it's just an easy, readily available, efficient way to hit your total protein intake. Now, there is some evidence it improves performance, but it's not an acute effect like say caffeine. Not really a mechanistic effect like ATP reynthesis like we have with creatin. Uh the performance benefit is if you are taking enough protein in or enough whey

41:54protein in consistently, you have uh better recovery capacity. Um you could recover better from your workouts because you're less sore. It decreases soreness and you can sustain your training volumes and intensity better. Now, when it comes to cognition, no real case for whey protein being a cognitive enhancer. It may help with dietary adherence. So if you lose weight, if you lose body fat, that can improve cognition, but that is a very indirect effect of whey protein. So I I wouldn't list it as something that it actually does. And then when it comes to health, uh there's no evidence that protein harms a healthy kidney. I know people

42:33will say, well, look at these studies of animal protein versus plant protein. Those are cohort studies. In the human randomized control trials, whey protein and protein in general, animal protein in general does not harm healthy kidneys. Whey protein actually appears to improve uh glycemia, improve blood lipids, and may actually decrease inflammatory markers. Additionally, it may also reduce systolic blood pressure. Now, these aren't massive improvements. These are small improvements, but they're still improvements. So again, I look at whey

43:08protein as kind of a health supplement. Now, let's talk dosage and is there anybody that needs to avoid whey protein? And let's talk about types of whey protein. Let's touch on that. There's three main forms of whey protein. And to understand them, let's talk about how whey protein is made. So milk protein is 80% whey. So 80% of the protein in milk is whey. The other 20% is quasian. What happens is they take milk,

43:38they centrifuge it to get the fat off. So centrifuging is where you take it and you spin it really fast and that causes heavy stuff to go to the bottom and light stuff to go to the top so that the fat is at the top. Take the fat off. Then you add acid. There's other ways to do it too, but this is the most common way to the proteins. What's called isoelectric point. the isoelectric point of quasian if you get it there the case will precipitate out of the solution meaning it becomes a solid so what will happen I've done this in a lab in a test

44:14tube what'll happen is you spin off the fat take what's left add acid until kasian precipitates out and then you can just literally pour off the supernant which is the liquid portion which is whey so it's the soluble portion of milk protein now that we whey A is then concentrated because there's other stuff in there. They concentrate it and that is what's called WPC or whey protein concentrate. Now whey protein concentrate still has things like lactose. There's still some residual carbohydrate. There's still some residual fat in there. There are some benefits to whey protein concentrate. Uh it appears to have possible beneficial effects from the intact lactalumins

44:57possibly an antioxidant effect. There are some benefits to whey protein concentrate. That being said, a lot of people have issues with gastric sensitivity or digestive sensitivity to whey protein concentrate for those folks. A whey protein isolate can be very helpful. So what's a whey protein isolate? Well, a whey protein isolate is where they take whey protein concentrate and run it through micriltration. And that micro filtration gets rid of things like lactose, uh, a lot of residual carbohydrate, a lot of residual fat. And so that's what's in Outwork Nutrition's build whey

45:35protein. It is a whey protein isolate. And we did that because most people can tolerate a pure whey protein isolate. It's not that whey protein isolate is more anabolic or anything like that. It's just that more people tend to be able to tolerate it digestively. There are some people who have actual sensitivities to the lactalumins in whey which are the proteins in whey. For those folks a whey protein hydraysate may be beneficial. So WPH is where they take digestive enzymes and add it to whey protein isolate and that chops up those proteins so that they no longer cause these sensitivities. So the the whey protein hydraysate is

46:21essentially predigested whey protein and there have been a bunch of claims made about whey protein hydraysate. It's not more anabolic than the other forms of whey. Uh it's not more beneficial. It's just if you have any kind of sensitivity, virtually anyone can tolerate a whey protein hydraysate. The the downside is it costs more and typically doesn't taste as good because the the predigestion

46:45uh just makes it taste more bitter. But those are the forms of whey protein, the the basic forms. Uh I personally use a whey protein isolate. Uh most people tolerate a whey protein isolate. I think bang for buck. If you have any kind of digestive issues, whey protein isolate is your best bet. If you don't have any digestive issues and you don't mind a little bit more carbohydrate and fat in your whey protein, then a whey protein concentrate's fine. If you're somebody who has a lot of digestive issues, then maybe you stick with a whey protein hydraulicate. Now, let's talk about dose. Uh most proteins out there, most

47:17whey proteins are around 20 to 25 grams of protein at a serving. That's perfect. That'll get you your two to three grams of leucine, which is the kind of trigger to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Um some people take in more. I can tell you that 40 grams of whey protein for damn near anybody is going to max out muscle protein synthesis. So if you're worried, you can always take a little bit more, but for the vast majority of people, 20 to 30 grams of whey protein is going to max out that anabolic response. So again, timing and distribution aren't as important, but uh muscle protein synthesis in my research

47:50is maximized by uh more even protein distribution. So I recommend three to five protein feedings per day of high quality sources of protein, hitting, you know, at minimum that 30 gram number because that is going to give you uh for most protein sources maximize the anabolic response. If you want to go higher, fine. um post-workout, it's fine to take it. It's a rapidly digesting protein, but it's not mandatory, and you certainly don't need to like be in the gym with your bag of whey protein or your can of whey protein and scooping it into your shaker bottle right after your workout finishes. Um that's just absolute

48:30overkill. You don't need to do that. People ask about like what to eat before sleep, and some people have said casein. Um because casein is slower digesting. I don't think it makes a big difference. I don't think it really make a big difference. It's the total protein intake that really makes a big difference. If you're worried about I'm going eight hours, I want a steady strip of amino acids into my bloodstream while I'm asleep. Okay, Caseian, fine. But, uh, whey protein typically beats casein in almost every study I've seen in terms of muscle protein synthesis. Um, so I recommend whey. If you want to use casein, that's fine, too. Who needs to

49:07worry about whey protein? Well, very few people, but if you have a lactose intolerance, then whey uh concentrate is not going to be a pick for you. Weey isolate typically very well tolerated. Virtually it either has no lactose or virtually no lactose. Um most people I know who are lactose intolerant easily tolerate a whey isolate. Again, with kidney health, no evidence of harm in healthy individuals. If you have some sort of kidney disease, then talk to your nephrologist. But I will say they have done studies supplementing with whey protein in people with kidney disease and they have seen that it it doesn't really make it worse at least at

49:43like a single serving per day. Uh there's some evidence that maybe whey improves appetite but I think whey probably improves appetite compared to like sugary foods or um you know like some simple carbohydrates, fats, but probably not compared to like intact protein sources. And then there's the people like, well, whey is ultrarocessed. The who cares if it's processed? The reality is whey protein improves body composition, improves strength, improves markers of health, decreases

50:18inflammation. Who gives a if it's processed? It is a health food. So Lane, if weighs not magic, why is it on this list? Because it is readily available. It is highly tested for safety. It is highly tested for effectiveness. and it is relatively inexpensive and we just have repeated data showing that it has benefits. So that's why it's on my

50:40tier one. You've probably heard me talk about my app, Carbon Diet Coach. That is because it is the best damn macro tracking and nutrition coaching app on the market. I use it and so should you. I have packed all of my one-on-one nutrition coaching experience and my PhD knowledge into one simple app that will help you build muscle, lose fat, all for just a few dollars a week. It's so simple how it works. All you got to do is track your macros, weigh in regularly, and then check in every week in our customized nutrition coaching algorithm. We'll give you personalized macronutrient adjustments tailored to your goals and

51:22individual metabolism. No fat diets, no BS, just simple science that is guaranteed to work. Millions of pounds of fat have been lost and thousands of lives have been changed with carbon. So, what are you waiting for? Go to joincarbon.com/mpodcast to take the guesswork out of your diet. My final supplement for tier 1 is d

51:45caffeine. So what does caffeine do? Well, it's part of the xanthine family and these things are what's called adenazine receptor antagonists. So the the adenazine receptor when adenazine binds to it, it decreases your wakefulness. um it makes you sleepy and what happens is as ATP is used throughout the day you get sort of a buildup of adenazine which then begins binding to the adenazine receptor which is part of your natural rhythm of your body winding down and and why you get sleepy at night. Caffeine or zanthines are similar structure to adenazine and actually compete with adenazine for the receptor. So caffeine will compete for that active site of that receptor and by

52:39keeping adenazine out of there it increases wakefulness, alertness um and reduces your perceived exertion. Now, we'll talk about dosing later, but but most of the performance benefits are at a pretty high dose of caffeine. For cognition and alertness, you can get by with a lower dose, but for actual performance benefits, you're around 3 to six milligrams per kilogram, which is a pretty high dose, which is why in my pre-workout, we have, you know, around, depending on your body weight, 3 to four

53:13milligrams per kilogram as a dosage. There's 300 milligrams of caffeine in it because that consistently has been shown to improve performance and strength. So now that we know the mechanism of how caffeine works, what do we actually see in terms of outcomes? Well, when it comes to body composition, we do tend to see like small changes in fat mass. Caffeine does increase energy expenditure. It does appear to increase resting metabolic rate, but it's a pretty small amount that probably doesn't lead to measurable changes in body composition

53:46or fat loss. But caffeine does tend to improve body composition slightly, but that's probably because of better workout performance. So again, kind of like with creatin, caffeine improves workout performance, decreases fatigue, you perform better, and therefore you can uh have better training stimulus, and uh that may help you slightly increase muscle mass and decrease fat mass. Now, unlike creatin or whey protein, caffeine actually has an acute effect, meaning you take it one time and it makes a difference. Creatin doesn't work that

54:25way, at least not for performance stuff. So they've shown that caffeine improves max strength and also improves power. Not only that, but it lowers your perceived exertion. So essentially, if you have two people do the same sort of training, the person who's using caffeine will feel less fatigued. And if they push them to do the best they possibly can, the person doing caffeine, all things being equal, will perform better. So you get improved neural drive, improved arousal and uh when it comes to submaximal lifts. So if they measure the velocity of like using the same weight, uh people who use

55:10caffeine will move the weight faster. And again, there's a reason caffeine has been around for a long freaking time. It is the most reliable performance enhancer out there in terms of an acute setting. Uh it'll improve endurance. uh it improves repeated sprints uh anorobic tasks. So unlike creatin which doesn't improve endurance, caffeine does and that's because caffeine is more operating on the central nervous system whereas creatin is more so operating on

55:43your muscles. So improving contractability, improving uh ATP reynthesis, actually providing energy. Whereas caffeine is reducing your perception of fatigue, making you more alert, more aroused, and improving your neural drive, which is very important. So, actually, caffeine and creatin, great combo, great combo. Some people say don't take them together. I'll touch on that here at the end. You can get habituated to caffeine. It doesn't mean it stops working. It just means that you don't notice it as much because you're kind of used to it. I think people think they'll take a supplement and they'll take they take caffeine once or twice and they're like, "Wow, that was like this." And they just

56:27expect it to keep getting better and better. No, it's going to it's going to your baseline's going to move from here to here. For those who are listening, I'm I'm moving my fingers to show different baselines. And that's now your baseline. So you'll keep performing at that baseline, but it's not just going to keep linearly improving indefinitely. And if you're habituated, you won't feel it as much. But they even show people who are habituated to caffeine intake still benefit from caffeine intake when it comes to performance. So, uh, timing wise, you know, again, 3 to six milligrams per kilogram about an hour before a workout. I think the the you

57:11really start to see a big rise in plasma levels of caffeine around like 45 minutes. So, it it gets into your bloodstream pretty quickly. Um, and then I think the halflife is anywhere from like around 6 to nine hours. Um, and we'll touch on the what it does for sleep or doesn't do for sleep here in a

57:28minute and why timing can be important. Uh let's talk cognition. So personally I take caffeine every day uh because it improves vigilance, attention, and reaction time. So that's just that cognitively. Uh especially if you're under fatigue or sleep restriction. Uh caffeine can help kind of offset some of that. It doesn't fix sleep. It doesn't fix sleep deprivation. But if you're sleepd deprived and you have caffeine, you will perform better than if you don't have caffeine and you're sleep deprived. Ideally, you're not sleepd deprived at all. But if you are, caffeine can help. Now, let's talk health. People worry about this. Now, coffee consumption is linked with lower all cause mortality

58:15and cause specific mortality. Now, again, this is a association, but this is a pretty consistent effect. Now, there are confounding variables. Coffee is not just caffeine. There's a bunch of other compounds in here that may be beneficial. They they've shown that there's some other compounds in coffee that may be beneficial, but they've also done cohort studies looking at just caffeine in general, and they see similar things, but it may not be for everybody. For highly anxious people or sensitive people to caffeine, um it can make anxiety worse. Uh it also disrupts sleep. Absolutely. Even if you consume caffeine like 11 hours before sleep, it can still negatively impact the quality

58:56of your sleep. What do I recommend? Well, if you work out in the morning, no big deal. You get up, you have your pre-workout or your coffee or or whatever it is, and you go and train, and by the time you're ready to go to sleep, most of that caffeine is going to be out of your system. It's not going to negatively affect you. But what if you

59:12train in the afternoon or the evening? Well, then you have a decision to make. What I personally would recommend is if you want to get the benefits of caffeine with minimal disruption to sleep, what I would recommend is if you are training like I like to train around like 100 p.m. 1 2 p.m. is kind of my sweet spot. I I love that. And I'll typically go to bed when I have to take the kids to school. I'll go I'll go to bed around like 10:30 or 11 p.m. And that puts me

59:40about 10 11 hours away from sleep. So, usually what I'll do is I'll start having my caffeine about an hour, hour and a half before I go in to train because then that stretches that bedtime out to about, you know, 13 hours. That gives the caffeine enough time for most of it to get through my system. What if you train in the evenings? What if

1:00:02you're training 5 6 7 p.m. at night? Well, um, then it becomes more difficult. What I would say is you could take that 3 to six milligram dosage, say 3, four hours beforehand, and you will still be kind of at that top end of that bell curve where you're getting most of that caffeine in your blood. But by the time you're getting ready for bed, it's probably not going to be most of it out of your system, all of it out of your system, but it's going to starting to go on on the downturn. you're going to be on the down slope and so that'll be a little bit better. But that's just

1:00:42one of those trade-offs you have to consider. Now, I already talked about the dose um 3 to six milligrams per kilogram. There was a recent study looking at 8 milligs per kilogram in competitive powerlifterss who were habituated to caffeine intake that showed 8 milligs per kilogram was effective improving their one rep max and their RP. Could they have gotten the

1:01:01same benefit with a lower dosage? Maybe. Hard to know. But again it does appear that you know if you want the strength benefits a high dose is helpful. For me personally I consume around uh on training days 4 to 600 milligrams of caffeine. Typically I will consume the higher end of that dosage when I have things like squats, deadlifts, things that are more like mentally,

1:01:28psychologically demanding for me. Whereas if it's a kind of an easier workout, I'll go on the lower end of that range. Lower doses like 1 to three milligrams per kilogram still improve alertness uh your perceived fatigue may improve performance slightly and uh are less likely to make you anxious. So if you're caffeine sensitive, you know, one of the things that we do with our Outwork Nutrition pre-workout is we have a caffeine-free version and that's for people who are highly sensitive to caffeine. You still got some performance boosters in there, but without the caffeine. But since it's two scoops for either the caffeine free or the the

1:02:07regular, you could also do a hybrid. So if you wanted to do a lower dose of like 150 milligrams, you could do one scoop of the caffeine free and one scoop of the regular. And so that's another option. And that's why we we made those that way. higher doses, side effects from those anxiety, uh gastrointestinal distress, sleep disruption, uh and going higher doesn't necessarily mean you'll get better performance, especially if it makes you anxious. So, your your plasma levels peak around an hour after ingestion and will stay up for a few hours. You can take it from capsules, coffee, coffee, a cup of coffee is usually around 75 milligrams of

1:02:43caffeine, maybe 100. Um, so it's not a super high dosage. Um, I tend to prefer it to get it from pre-workouts. I'll still have coffee in the morning. Um, but before my workout, I'll have some sort of pre-workout. Taking it late in the day can impair your sleep, uh, reduce your sleep duration, increase sleep latency, and reduce the quality of sleep. So, you got to decide how to how to weigh those two. Uh there are some studies showing that taking creatin with caffeine that they can kind of have a

1:03:15negative interaction. I I don't buy those and in fact it's not consistent. It's not a consistent effect. Some studies show that it doesn't have a negative interaction. I think what may likely be happening is both of those are gut irritants. And I think people who are having a high dose of creatin with a high dose of caffeine are likely having GI symptoms and that's impairing performance. And I mean, for many of you know, if you've ever taken a pre-workout with creatin and caffeine, uh, usually your next stop is the bathroom. So, um, I don't think it's a big problem to mix creatin and caffeine together, but you need to be aware of

1:03:53the GI symptoms. Uh, that's why we put it creatin not in our pre-workout because creatin is not an acute effect. So, it doesn't matter when you take it. We put it in our recovery product so people could separate uh, their caffeine intake from their creatin intake if they wanted to. I don't think you need to, but if you have GI symptoms or you're worried about a negative interaction, you can do so with our products or you can do so with whatever you choose to take. Uh, pregnancy, they recommend an upper limit. I I think it's I want to say it's around like 50 to 100 milligrams per day. It's like the

1:04:26equivalent of like one cup of coffee. I don't know that there's good data that, you know, high doses of caffeine are problematic for um fetal development, but I think just out of an abundance of caution of knowing it's a a stimulant, they recommend that women limit their intake. Again, if you're a habitual user, um it reduces the your perception of the effects, but the performance benefits are still there. Okay? You may not notice it perceptually as much, but you still get those benefits. It may acutely increase blood pressure, but in people who are habituated to it, it looks like that may be attenuated. So once your body kind of gets adjusted to

1:05:06it, those effects may be less pronounced. And there you have it, my tier one, my Mount Rushmore of supplements, creatin monohydrate, whey protein, and caffeine. And it's why those are in my products in OutWork Nutrition. I know I did a few plugs in here for those. Whether you buy these supplements from me somewhere else, or you choose not to use them, you don't need these supplements. But I think I'd have a hard time coming up with a reason not to take creatin anymore. I I really would. I think for most people just the cognitive benefits, the body composition benefits, the overall health benefits, I think you'd have to come up with it'd be

1:05:47hard to come up with an argument against creative monohydrate, especially given how how inexpensive it is for what you get. Uh whey protein, if you're getting enough protein in per day, come up with an argument against it. uh caffeine, you know, if you're if you're sensitive to caffeine, you don't like the way it makes you feel, or you're worried about sleep disruption, you're a high anxiety person anyway, then then maybe caffeine is not for you. But, um, those three supplements are extremely consistent, have a mountain of data to back them up, and are overall pretty darn safe. Those

1:06:21are my top tier of recommendations. And uh make sure you stick around for tier two because that is going to be some of the supplements that I think uh there's good evidence that they work well, but either there's less data, it's not as consistent, or it just hasn't been shown for as long a period of time, or isn't as in as many labs. Um and so that's kind of my wait and see tier where I think most of those will be able to move into tier one with time, but just haven't quite gotten there yet. So, hope you guys enjoyed my tier one supplements list. Uh, if you're

1:06:58interested in my products from Outwork Nutrition, the link is in the show notes. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please make sure you go and leave us a fivestar review. And if you're so kind to write a short review or feedback, I'd really appreciate that. Um, I love doing this stuff, bringing this to you guys. I hope you are enjoying it as well. And I will catch

1:07:19you next time.