SFH Expands Their Endurance Line
Stronger Faster Healthier's Endurance Formula is NOW Three Formulas + Recovery:
As many of you noticed our original Endurance Formula was taken out of our product line about six months ago. We created this product and tested it on a group of professional triathletes out of Florida roughly four years ago. We realized in the last year that this formula was not a one size fits all and it could be better. Some people loved it just the way it was and had great results, such as professional triathlete, Felipe Bastos who achieved 44 career wins while taking the product.
Following a year long period of research, formulation testing and human testing Stronger Faster Healthier is pleased to announce the introduction of a Suite of Products for Endurance Athletes. SFH realizes that one supplement cannot address all the needs of an athlete due to many different factors. Daily training, pre-event (race) prep, in-race fueling and post race recovery are all different. Each activity requires a different supplement strategy.
The goals of these products are to:
Increase the power and strength of muscle fibers and bundles
Optimize available energy for training and events
Energize and fuel the athlete without insulin spiking
Utilize both long chain fats and high efficiency fuels, such as medium chain triglycerides, allowing the athlete to burn a combination of glycogen, fat and endogenous sugar for longer periods of time
Decrease muscle acidification and prolong the time and capacity for our muscles to work efficiently
Address inflammation in multi-mechanistic manner anchored with a global anti-inflammatory treatment using our SO3 Fish Oil
An Endurance Athlete is defined as an athlete who is involved in constant exercise exceeding one hour in duration such as a marathon, triathlon, long distance biking, etc. Athletes in this class have different supplement needs than a high intensity, short duration athlete.
For best results taking our Endurance Line, we encourage athletes to eat clean (good protein, good fat, low carbohydrate & minimal sugar). For optimal success, this type of diet needs to be in place at least one month prior to an endurance event if taking SFH's products. A low carbohydrate/ low sugar diet will cause the athlete’s body to adjust its biochemistry away from preferentially using sugar and high glycemic carbohydrates as fuel to a hybrid model where the athlete’s body burns a combination of stored glycogen, sugar from gluconeogenesis (sugar made by our body rather than ingested), long chain fats from store fats and medium chain fats from supplements (coconut fat).
By eating a low carbohydrate diet, the athlete’s body is trained to burn 4 fuels simultaneously rather than burn through the fuel possibilities sequentially. This is a key point to understand. Simultaneous use of all 4 fuel types will extend the energy of the well trained athlete and increase endurance.
Sequential burning means that glycogen is burned first. The liberation of sugar units and the metabolism of glycogen, increases basal insulin and shuts down fat metabolism. After the glycogen is utilized, then protein (from muscle stores) starts to break down to amino acids that are processed back to sugar to provide energy. Thus for a period of time the body will continue to generate energy but at the expense of muscle break down. Protein supplements can be used to slow muscle breakdown but protein supplementation alone is not optimal. Eventually, as a last resort the athlete will begin to burn fat stores as long as no external source of sugar and high glycemic products are used. However, most athletes supplement themselves during an event with “energy drinks” or "goos" that are primarily composed of sugar and carbohydrates. Drinking energy drinks or taking goos that delivers sugar or high glycemic carbohydrates will release insulin and this will prevent fat metabolism. We do not recommend supplements that deliver sugar because when they are used our bodies can not use all available fuels for energy.
SFH products are designed to allow the athlete to burn all major fuels and to work at a higher level longer in an endurance race.
In the absence of sugar and carbohydrate loading, our body’s biochemistry will adjust and be prepared to burn a combination of glycogen, sugar from gluconeogenesis, long chain fats from our fat depots and medium chain fats from our supplements.
Four Products for Endurance Athletes:
This product should be used daily when the athlete is preparing for the BIG EVENT. A key ingredient is beta alanine. Beta alanine combines in our bodies with histidine to form sarcosine that concentrates in our muscles and acts as a proton buffer. This means that our muscle become acidic at a slower rate and optimal muscle contraction (power generation) can continue for a longer period of time, i.e. endurance is increased. Muscle acidification will slow muscles responses and eventually cause the muscles to cease to function (bonking). Beta alanine can cause flushing and an unpleasant feeling of tingling. We avoid this side effect by using a lower dose and recommend that the athlete take our product daily while preparing for the Race.
Arginine is used in this product as well. Arginine via nitric oxide increases blood flow to our muscles and helps to re-distribute lactic acid. This means that muscle soreness after the exercise period will be minimized and that one will start the next exercise period with a lower threshold of lactic acid. Arginine, in this sense, helps our muscles recover from lactic acid.
The next key ingredient is cherry powder. Cherry powder is very slowly digested to free sugar units which are absorbed by our bodies. The glycemic index and load factors are low when used as recommended. This means that insulin release is not stimulated. By generating a low level of sugar, fat metabolism is not shut down and glycogen is not preferential burned but co-burned with the small amount of sugar entering our bodies. Energy is sustained for a longer period of time.
We also add creatine, taurine and ribose to help sustain our energy levels by biochemically helping to sustain our cells’ ATP. ATP is the energy molecule that is responsible for our cells ability to function and survive. When ATP level remains high our cells are healthy and can repair themselves from the rigors of exercise.
In addition to these additives, Endurance Daily contains our high quality whey concentrate. This protein helps to protect our muscles from degradation, stimulates protein synthesis during rest periods, and participates in gluconeogenesis while exercising.
The goal of this product is to optimize the athlete’s biochemistry just before race time.
As in the case of Endurance Daily, beta alanine is added to this product to help maintain the sarcosine levels and muscle buffer capacity during the Race.
Aspartate is added to increase flux of molecules that are undergoing oxidation and reduction. What this means is that our mitochondria can oxidize more fat/time period and generate more energy
Carnitine is added to increase fatty acid entry into the mitochondria for oxidation (fuel burning). This is a critical ingredient and drives energy generation.
Coconut fat is added to start the medium chain fat oxidation process. Medium chain triglycerides are never stored, do not spike insulin and are burned, generate ATP and ketone bodies that can be used as fuels in our brains and hearts.
As with all of our products, high quality whey protein is added to nourish the muscles and to prevent excessive muscle breakdown during the race.
The athlete needs to experiment with the timing of taking this product. As a general rule, we recommend that this product be taken in a good hydration solution not containing any sugars. (No coconut milk or coconut water, these products contain too much sugar). Just use a good isotonic water.
During the race, the goal is to keep the supplementation simple.
Our In Race Fuel is 20% high grade coconut fat. This fat will burn to energy even in the event the athlete has not followed a low carb preparatory diet. If a low carb is not followed the athlete will be burning 3 fuels (coconut fat, glycogen and sugars). While we don’t recommend the 3 fuel approach (4 fuels burning simultaneous is more efficient and will prolong endurance) we recognize that the austere low carbohydrate diet may not work for all.
In addition to coconut fat, our In Race fuel contains high grade whey protein. This protein will help minimize muscle loss and keep the muscles healthy during the race.
Ideally 30 grams of this product should be consumed every 30 minutes as a dilute solution in isotonic hydrating water. This water should not be too cold. Cold water can cool the body but it slows the absorption and digestion of products delivered to the stomach.
Recovery (previously know as Post Workout):
Our Recovery product is important to ALL athletes not just Endurance athletes. This is also our most popular product we have in our collection. It was formally called Post Workout.
The purpose of a Recovery product is to rescue the athlete from an intense exercise. Intense exercise depletes our cells of energy. We define energy as Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). This is the high energy molecule that our mitochondria makes and it is essential for our cells to live and function. Intense exercise depletes ATP. Thus our Recovery product contains an ATP package (ribose, carnitine and Co-Q10). In medicine this combination of natural products has been shown to extend life in very sick patient in end stage heart failure. In this case their ATP levels are very low and their heart can’t function. The same principle also applies to the intensely exercised athlete.
Exercise is a root cause of inflammation! Inflammation will degrade muscles and prolong time to recovery from exercise. This is why we add glucosamine and chondroitin. Glucosamine has been shown to decrease the symptoms of osteoarthritis, an inflammatory disease. Glucosamine will decrease exercise induced inflammation. Chondroitin lubricates our joints and decrease wear and tear at pressure points in our bodies.
We also add a muscle building package of leucine, isoleucine and glutamine. Leucine and isoleucine are branch chain amino acids and they stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Glutamine is an amino acid that is widely incorporated in muscles and acts in time of infection as an immuno stimulant.
Taurine and creatine are fast recovery elements that help to restore energy fast, as ATP begins to build.
In addition to the above this product also contains high grade whey to build and nourish our muscle groups.
This product needs to be taken as soon as possible after a work out. It can be taken more than once, after every workout or taken 2-3x at 2 hour intervals after an Endurance Event.
PLEASE NOTE: Our Recovery product does not contain sugar or carbohydrates. This distinguishes us from the current fad of recovery products that advocate for a 4:1 ratio of protein to carbohydrates and sugars as a means to recover glycogen stores. This is not a sound idea from the perspective of designing products for fitness and health. Anything that stimulates insulin release excessively as these carbohydrate products will do is medically unsound.
Ready to try them out: http://www.strongerfasterhealthier.com/products/endurance_line
