Surge

Surge Post workout Puzzle 11/05/2007 23:02:01

In short, the period of time surrounding your weight training workout is the ideal time to take in a lot of muscle-building nutrients. This could very well be the "secret" of adding muscle mass without excessive fat gain: get in all those carefully chosen calories around your workout time. All mass, no fat ass!

Reasons why post-workout nutrition is important.

After an intense workout:

1. Glycogen stores are low

2. Protein breakdown is increased

3. Muscle protein balance is negative

Immediately after a workout protein building either stays the same or goes up, but protein breakdown goes way up. This leads to a negative muscle protein balance and a loss of muscle.

As a result, and unless action is taken, there are potential consequences:

1. Prolonged muscle soreness and fatigue

2. Poor subsequent performances in the gym

3. Staleness

4. Lousy muscle mass gains

5. Potential loss of muscle mass

So what we need to do after a workout is quickly:

1. Replenish low glycogen stores in muscle

2. Decrease muscle protein breakdown that occurs with exercise

3. Force increases in muscle protein synthesis

Under normal conditions, the body restores itself and recovers (gets into a positive protein balance in anywhere from 8 to 24 hours, depending on a variety of factors).

That means a lifter can potentially be in a negative protein balance for up to a day after a workout. That's 24 hours' worth of losing muscle!

HOWEVER, proper post-workout nutrition can shift your muscles to a positive protein balance within a single hour. Over the relatively short term, this leads to increased performance and hypertrophy.

To do this, you need 3 things:

1. A proper ratio of Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)

2. High blood levels of essential amino acids

3. High blood levels of insulin

Let's briefly talk about these. Study after study has shown that BCAAs play a big part in recovery and the increase in protein synthesis after a workout. However, you need to quickly shuttle those amino acids and BCAAs to the muscle, so you need to initiate a large release of insulin.

High insulin levels, along with high levels of amino acids, increases protein synthesis over 4 times that of normal post-workout amino acid and insulin levels.

So to create these conditions, you need a fast acting protein like whey hydrosolate. You also need something that's been shown to maximally stimulate insulin, like maltodextrin.

But say insulin is present but leucine isn't. Protein synthesis can't be maximally stimulated. If leucine is present but insulin isn't, protein synthesis again can't be maximally stimulated. If both are present, you've got a muscle-building party going on in your muscles.

Futhermore, certain specific amino acid combinations are far more effective than others in increasing insulin release, as the leucine example above illustrates.

So let's look at your chocolate milk, no doubt served in a Brownie the Clownie mug.

Certainly chocolate milk contains sugar, which will surely elevate insulin levels. It has a minimal amount of milk protein (casein), with the small amounts of BCAAs that are inherent to milk. However, the amounts of BCAAs and amino acids in general are negligible, hardly enough to work synergistically with the sugar in elevating insulin levels, and thus impotent in driving its meager compliment of proteins to muscle cells.

While the casein in the milk is a good, anabolic protein, it's not close to being as fast acting as whey. Besides, the total amount of protein is negligible compared to what you need. These flaws alone eliminate chocolate milk as a viable post-workout drink.

Post-workout, you need protein and BCAAs and you need them fast!

Lastly, and here's the bugaboo, chocolate milk contains lactose. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the population is at least a little allergic to lactose, whether they know it or not. That slight allergy is enough to drive up levels of cortisol, which, as you know, ain't too good for building muscle.

But let's take a look at Biotest's Surge, which is used by each of our established strength coaches.

Surge contains large amounts of whey hydrosolate, which is absorbed within minutes. The only faster way to get protein to your muscles is to hook up an IV.

Surge also contains maltodextrin, which, along with a precise blend of BCAAs — including leucine — works synergistically to drive up insulin and thus ferry the BCAAs to your muscles.

To be specific, Surge has around 14g of branched-chain amino acids per serving, along with 3g of glutamine and phenylalanine. All of these amino acids, especially the BCAAs, occur in precise amounts that were determined through painstaking research. They've been definitively shown to have a positive effect on boosting recovery and muscle mass. (Again, skim milk only contains a fraction of these amino acids.)

I could also make the argument that the extra sodium and potassium in Surge are beneficial because those nutrients help the amino acids and carbs get into your muscles, but there's no need to turn this into a biochemistry lesson.

But let's look at the comparative cost, just in case your friend at the gym is a cheap bastard and thinks he's saving money.

Surge has 25g of protein and 46g of carbohydrates per serving. Each serving costs roughly a $1.90. To get a similar protein and carb content without using fractions, you'd need 3 cups of skim milk with one tablespoon of chocolate syrup. Through the wizardry of math, that comes to about $0.85 per serving.

So if you're interested in counting pennies, without regard for anything else, you'll save about $1.05 if you go for the skim milk/chocolate syrup option. If you train 3 times per week, this equates to a savings of $3.15 each week.

Never mind that the chocolate milk doesn't work, my question is this:

How important is saving $3.15 per week? Hell, let's say you cut coupons and upped that number to $4 per week. Does it make a difference to your financial status? If it does, stick with the skim milk and chocolate syrup and the gummy bears and crack open a Harry Potter book.

I'll finish with this, your friend just wants an excuse to drink chocolate milk (with his cookies?) and he's apparently given himself one, misguided as it is.

1) Half a serving of Surge immediately pre-lifting, but after general warm-up.

2) Half a serving of Surge sipped during workout.

3) Half(w/sweet treat) or Full(No extra treat) serving of Surge immediately post-workout.

The other thing that needs to be addressed with Surge is how quickly it shoots up (and subsequently drops) blood sugar levels. While we really want this big insulin spike, you might need to have some other kind of carbohydrate to consume within half an hour of drinking Surge; otherwise your blood sugar could drop too quickly and you might not feel well.

1) Surge has the highest glycemic carbs available. This facilitates better glycogen and creatine storage and helps enhance muscle protein synthesis.
2) Whey hydrolysate is rapidly absorbed for maximum stimulation of protein synthesis. This makes it optimal for multiple post-workout meals and the first meal of the day. With hydrolysate there's no worry about having a post-meal catabolic state, unlike using pure amino acids.

3) Whey isolate has relatively poor absorption and is too costly to warrant purchase.
4) Surge contains extra amino acids that have been shown to directly stimulate muscle protein synthesis, in addition to their presence within whey hydrolysate.

5) You might need to have some other kind of carbohydrate to consume within half an hour of drinking Surge; otherwise your blood sugar could drop too quickly and you might not feel well.

Well, the experts say it's basically impossible to store these "quick" carbs as fat during this critical time period surrounding resistance training. (Remember, the hormonal surge — primarily insulin — caused by workout drinks is there to drive the nutrients provided by the drink deep into the muscle cells.) The anabolic and anti-catabolic benefits are simply enormous, and the carbs, fast-acting protein, and BCAAs are put straight to work repairing and rebuilding your muscles (in grossly simplified terms).

"Yes, the whey and Gatorade approach is better than nothing, as is low-fat chocolate milk.

But one thing many people overlook is that Surge is much more than a carb/whey drink. It also contains buckets of added BCAA on top of what's naturally found in the whey.

I believe these aminos are a huge part of the "magic" behind pre-, mid-, and post-workout drinks. And you just don't get near enough BCAA with the cheapo concoctions like Gatorade/whey or chocolate milk.

Those who say that Gatorade/whey is the "same thing" as Surge are delusional, or at least mislead. Or just mad they can't afford the good stuff. For them, the better-than-nothing stuff is, well, better than nothing. But those Hyundai drinks ain't a Ferrari."