MASS GAINS

HOW TO BUILD MUSCLE

There are a number of supplements used by weight trainers in an attempt to increase either strength or mass gains. Although the CKD is probably not the optimal mass gaining diet, many individuals choose to use these supplements to maintain strength and muscle mass while dieting and they are discussed here.

Glutamine

Glutamine is one of the most popular supplements on the market right now. Glutamine is typically considered a non-essential amino acid (AA) since it can be made within the body. However, in times of high stress, it may become essential . 

Glutamine is involved in maintaining the immune system and low glutamine levels have been linked to overtraining in endurance athletes . Weight training is a form of stress and, although not directly studied, glutamine supplements have been suggested to help deal with the stress of training.

A majority of glutamine research has focused on its effect in critically ill individuals and burn patients. It is a major mistake to extrapolate from pathologically ill patients to healthy, weight training athletes although many authors in the field of nutrition have made that mistake.

Outside of its effects on immune system function, oral glutamine has also been shown to elevate growth hormone levels in the bloodstream, which may be useful for fat loss . The primary problem with oral glutamine supplementation is that glutamine is a major metabolic fuel for the small intestine. As well, high doses of glutamine tend to be absorbed by the kidney with the end result being that little of the glutamine ingested actually gets into the muscles .

A possible solution is to take glutamine in small doses throughout the day. Doses of 2 grams may not activate absorption by the kidney  and it should be possible to keep blood glutamine levels high by taking it in this fashion. However, a little known effect of glutamine is that it inhibits ketogenesis in the liver .

Many individuals have found that glutamine supplementation prevents them from establishing ketosis. However others have not found this to be the case and, as with many supplements, experimentation is the key. Glutamine probably has its greatest potential during the carb-up period of the CKD.

Creatine Monohydrate

If there is a single sports supplement that has been shown to work under a variety of conditions, it is creatine. Recall from chapter 19 that creatine phosphate (CP) is used to provide short term energy for exercise lasting approximately 20-30 seconds. Numerous studies have shown that supplementing with creatine monohydrate can increase muscular stores of CP and enhance high intensity exercise performance (for recent reviews of the effects of creatine .

Improvements are primarily seen in short duration, high-intensity activity such as sprint performance as well as weight lifting . However, creatine has not consistently been shown to improve longer events, which rely on other energy systems. The improvements range from the ability to maintain a higher performance level prior to fatigue, the ability to perform more

repetitions with a given weight, and some studies suggest that creatine supplementation may increase maximal strength (1 repetition maximum). Additionally, creatine typically causes a large initial weight gain of 5 or more pounds, although the majority of this weight is water.

Whether long-term creatine supplementation causes significantly greater gains in lean body mass is still under research.

Creatine is typically loaded first to saturate muscular stores. Although the optimal dosage can vary, most studies suggest consuming 20 grams of creatine in divided doses (typically 5 grams four times a day) for 5 days to saturate muscular stores. An alternate method is to take small (3 grams) daily doses of creatine, which results in similar loading over a period of a month .

Some individuals find that high doses of creatine cause stomach upset, and lower doses may make loading possible while avoiding this problem. Although maintenance doses have been suggested, there is some debate as to whether or not this is truly necessary . As long as red meat is an integral part of the diet, as it will most likely be on any form of ketogenic diet, muscular CP stores will stay elevated for long periods of time.

One concern regarding creatine and the ketogenic diet is that research suggests that creatine is absorbed most efficiently if it is taken with a high glycemic index carbohydrate .

Thus the low-carbohydrate nature of the ketogenic diet raises the question of whether creatine supplementation is useful. What should be remembered is that the early creatine studies used coffee or tea, without carbohydrates, and creatine uptake was still fairly high. Simply more creatine is absorbed if it is taken with a carbohydrate.

There are several strategies to get around this problem. The first is to load creatine before starting a ketogenic diet, so that it can be taken with a high glycemic carbohydrate. Once loaded, the high intake of meat on a ketogenic diet should maintain muscular stores. Additionally, creatine uptake is higher following exercise so that a maintenance dose could be taken immediately after training. Finally, many individuals have had success taking high dose of creatine (10-20 grams) during the carb-load of the CKD. As well, creatine could be taken around workouts on a TKD.

Creatine has no known effects on ketosis, nor would it be expected to affect the establishment or maintenance of ketosis.

Other mass gaining supplements

Weight trainers and bodybuilders are bombarded daily with advertisements for new supplements purported to increase strength and mass. As a general rule, there is little human data to suggest that these substances offer a significant advantage in terms of strength or mass gains.

Along with this, individuals constantly want to know if a given supplement will work on a ketogenic diet, or how it will affect ketosis. In all of these cases, there is simply no data available, and individuals will have to experiment to find what does and does not affect the diet.