22g High EAA (6g) Protein + 36g CHO Pre- / Intra-Workout Boost Fat Oxidation & PWO Resting(!) Energy Expenditure

I don't doubt that you can do that, too!

It does sound awkward: If you mix Twinlab: Amino Fuel (22 g protein - 6 g essential amino acids | L-phenylalanine: 633 mg; Lvaline: 781 mg; L-tryptophan: 133 mg; L-threonine: 679 mg; L-isoleucine: 565 mg; L-methionine: 292 mg, L-histidine: 282 mg; L-leucine: 1350 mg; L-lysine: 1449 mg) with a regular  sports recovery drink that contains 36g of simple sugar, down half of the resulting 800ml serving of whatever you want to call this mix immediately before your workout and consume the rest during the rest periods between sets, this will have measurable effects on your resting energy expenditure and fat oxidation.

From long-term to short time effects

At first, it does questionably sound counter-intuitive that the ingestion of an EAA + carbohydrate mixture before / during would increase the resting energy expenditure and rate of fatty acid oxidation after your workout. On the other hand, if you think about the long-term effects of corresponding supplement regimen, you don't have to look far, to find evidence that they can promote both, muscle gain and fat loss (Bird. 2006).

You can learn more about protein intake at the SuppVersity

Are You Protein Wheysting?

Cod protein for recovery

Protein requ. of athletes

High EAA protein for fat loss

Fast vs. slow protein

Too much ado about protein?

Kyle J. Hackney, Andrew R. Kelleher, and Lori L. Ploutz-Snyder from the Syracuse University speculated that the highly beneficial changes in body composition Bird et al. observed in their study participants over the course of a 12-week strength training + EAA & CHO supplementation that after "[t]hese adaptations may be related to the acute energy expenditure and substrate utilization responses in the postexercise period." (Hackney. 2013)

Figure 1: The changes in body composition (in kg) in response to 12 weeks of resistance training + placebo, CHO, EAA or CHO + EAA supplementation in 2006 study by Bird et al. "inspired" Hackney et al.

Against that background, it was only logical to conduct a study to examine how multiple bouts of resistance exercise with and without the strategically timed intake of amino acids affect the resting energy expenditure (REE) and respiratory exchange ratio (RER). The results could after all explain if the long/er) term effects on body composition that have been observed in previous studies using chronic training and supplementation regimen are maybe nothing but necessary consequences of repeated acute increases in REE or decreases in RER (you hopefully remember that a decrease in the respiratory exchange ratio signifies an increase in fatty acid oxidation).

Experimental design and results

To this ends, the researchers recruited 10 young (mean age: 23.4y) recreationally trained male participants. All of them had been participating in general resistance training exercise for a minimum of 3 days per week for at least 6 months.

Figure 2: Changes in resting energy expenditure (kcal/day) and comparison of training volume in 58g CHO (black bars) and EAA + CHO (white bars) trials (Hackney. 2013).

As you can see in Figure 2, Hackney et al.'s original hypothesis that "intake of amino acids with each resistance exercise session would lead to greater perturbations of REE and RER" (Hackney. 2013) does unquestionably hold for this population of average (rookie) gymrats.

Whether the scientists "main finding" (Hackney. 2013), i.e. the 3.61% increase in resting energy expenditure (REE) will be similarly pronounced in advanced trainees is yet as questionable as the real-world effects of this artificial value. Despite the fact that Hackney et al. are right, when they say that our resting energy expenditure "represents the largest component of [our] total daily energy expenditure (60–85%) and has been implicated as a major contributor to overall body mass management " (Hackney. 2013), I am not sure how "major" an increase of only 66kcal per day actually is... I mean,  if this pathetic increase in resting energy expenditure was the actual driving force we would need almost 100 days to shed a hilarious pound of body fat (note: the reason I use the flawed 3,500kcal = 1lbs of fat rule of thumb here is that the whole REE calculations would be pointless if you didn't put at least some faith into the "energy in vs. energy out" hypothesis of weight loss - right?)

SuppVersity Suggested Read: "Fat Loss Principles That Work: 10g+ of EAAs W/ Every Meal. Do Energetic Costs of Protein Synthesis Trigger This Effect?" |  read more

Bottom line: It stands out of question that your training success can benefit from a high EAA protein source and some carbs you consume before and during the exercise session. Whether the fat loss benefits are actually brought about by the marginally increased resting energy expenditure (REE) is yet something I doubt - it certainly helps fat loss, but clearly isn't its main motor.

Don't get me wrong, this does not imply that you will benefit from this type of "peri-workout" supplementation. And let's be honest, the end most of you probably don't care about the exact underlying mechanisms, as long as your body composition keeps improving, right?

References:

• Bird, S. P., Tarpenning, K. M., & Marino, F. E. (2006). Independent and combined effects of liquid carbohydrate/essential amino acid ingestion on hormonal and muscular adaptations following resistance training in untrained men. European journal of applied physiology, 97(2), 225-238.
• Hackney, K. J., Kelleher, A. R., & Ploutz-Snyder, L. L. (2013). Amino Acid-Carbohydrate Intake Combined with Multiple Bouts of Resistance Exercise Increases Resting Energy Expenditure. ISRN Nutrition, 2013.

DS Craze - An Obituary Notice From the Lab: Highly Variable Amounts of "Amphetamine-Like" Compounds in DS Craze & Gaspari's Detonate. Plus: Phenetylalamine in MP's Assault

2013's fitness craze was about Craze

Let me first get this straight: I have no intention whatsoever to comment on the reasons of the "amphetamine contamination" of Driven Sport's flagship pre-workout product Craze - I'll leave that to better informed gossipers.

I guess, I would even have let the whole issue rest forever, if Mahmoud A. ElSohly and Waseem Gul hadn't published a peer-reviewed paper earlier this week that contains much more information than the previous short lab report ElSohly sent back to his clients over at Thermolife who had commissioned his lab to test a sample of DS Craze for amphetamines and decided that it was in everyone's best interest to publicize the results immediately.

Craze is not alone, Detonate & Assault join the party - but you already knew that, right?

The paper was published under advanced access in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology on December, 15 and the main result, i.e. the fact that the researchers "found an amphetamine-like compound that's not disclosed on their labels and puts athletes at risk of being banned from competition" (USAToday.com) did even make it into the online edition of USAToday.

What is phenethylamine? Phenethylamine (PEA) is a natural monoamine alkaloid that belongs to a class of chemicals with many compounds of known psychoactive and stimulant effects (Glen. 2005). It functions as a neuromodulator or neurotransmitter (Sabelli. 1976) with similar actions as amphetamine: Norepinephrine + dopamine release (Parker. 1988; Paterson. 1993). PEA and its substituted forms NDP and ETH is rapidly metabolized when taken orally (Shulgin. 1995-2009).

I guess by now few of you will be surprised that Craze was not the only supplement, of which  ElSohly and his colleague, Waseem Gul, from the University of Mississippi found that it contains "undisclosed amounts" of "amphetamine like substances".

What's the cause of the random fluctuations in "amphetamine-like" compounds

If you take a look at the data in Table 1, it does however become obvious that the total amount of "amphetamine-like" compounds in one cap of Gaspari Nutrition's fat burner / energy supplement Detonate is significantly lower than the varying amounts of N-ethyl-a-ethylphenethylamine aka ETH and phenethylamine aka PEA (also b-phenethylamine, or phenylethylamine) in a 5.5g serving of the tested LOTs of DS Craze - in the worst (or best?) case the latter contained ~80mg of either one or a combination of both agents.

Table 1: List of the analyzed products + ETH, phenethylamine & N, N-diethylphenethylamine contents (ElSohly. 2013)

If we compare the different lots of Craze, it does also become obvious that both, the ratio of ETH : phenethylamine, as well as their total value varies. There does yet not appear to be a distinct pattern, like ever-increasing or decreasing PEA levels. It's thus unlikely that someone changed the formula purposefully. Rather than that, the following explanations come to mind:

• 

  On a side note: A big belly is a greater threat to our brains than Craze | more

  The source of "contamination" is actually a source of contamination, i.e. PEA and ETH occur randomly in some batch of raw ingredients DS got from God knows where in China.
• The assay the researchers developed is not accurate, or at least not as accurate as their (albeit sophisticated) tests would suggest, i.e. the day-to-day variability was significantly higher than the 9.8%, and 3.1% the researchers measured using a low and high dose control sample.
• Someone at DS was super smart and thought: "If the effects of these ingredients are similar, I will just randomize the exact dosage, to make sure that it looks as if it was accidentally contaminated".

I guess you could come up with more speculations, but actually those three are already more than I had intended to present. I will thus close this somewhat inglorious chapter of supplement history with a brief hint on the red circle in the utmost right column of Table 1.  The circle indicates that the two known suspects, i.e. Detonate and Craze were not the only PEA offenders; and I wonder, if MusclePharm knew that, when they suddenly reformulated their best-selling preworkout product Assault a couple of weeks...

What? Oh, yes, I start gossiping, again. Sorry! But that's just human; or, as R.I.M. Dunbar from the University of Liverpool has it, it's evolutionary preserved and an "important a component of human interaction" and displays "a mechanism for bonding social groups, tracing these origins
back to social grooming among primates." (Dunbar. 2004)

PEA Alternatives: "Theanine or Caffeine? Soda, Black or Green Tea? What's Going to Get Your Brain Going?" | more

Bottom line: As the last lines of today's SuppVersity article tell you, it's just human that there was such a craze about Craze. If we are honest with ourselves, it's "much ado about nothing", anyway.

As far as I know nobody got physically harmed and the amounts of PEA and ETH in Craze are not exactly so high that you'd have to be afraid that you could have killed a couple of brain cells with it. And unless he or she found a way to inject the PEA equivalent of ~100g of Craze right into his /her veins, it's unlikely that he or she'd die (the figure is calculated based on the LD50 in rodents, so I would not rely on its accuracy; cf. Lands. 1952 ;-) ...

Don't get me wrong, I don't intend to play the whole case down, but let's not get carried away, here.

References:

• Dunbar, R. I. (2004). Gossip in evolutionary perspective. Review of general psychology, 8(2), 100. 
• ElSohly, M. A., & Gul, W. (2013). LC–MS-MS Analysis of Dietary Supplements for N-ethyl-α-ethyl-phenethylamine (ETH), N, N-diethylphenethylamine and Phenethylamine. Journal of Analytical Toxicology, bkt097.
• Glen, R., Hanson, P.J., Venturelli, A., Fleckenstein, E. (2005) Drugs and Society.9th edition. Jones and Bartlett Publishers: Sudbury, MA. ISBN 978-0-7637-3732-0 Retrieved 2011-04-19. 
• Lands, A. M., & Grant, J. I. (1952). The vasopressor action and toxicity of cyclohexylethylamine derivatives. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 106(3), 341-345.
• Parker, E. M., & Cubeddu, L. X. (1988). Comparative effects of amphetamine, phenylethylamine and related drugs on dopamine efflux, dopamine uptake and mazindol binding. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 245(1), 199-210.
• Paterson, I. A. (1993). The potentiation of cortical neuron responses to noradrenaline by 2-phenylethylamine is independent of endogenous noradrenaline. Neurochemical research, 18(12), 1329-1336.
• Sabelli, H. C., Mosnaim, A. D., Vazquez, A. J., Giardina, W. J., Borison, R. L., & Pedemonte, W. A. (1976). Biochemical plasticity of synaptic transmission: a critical review of Dale's Principle. Biological psychiatry, 11(4), 481-524.
• Shulgin, A., Shulgin, A.Erowid Online Books: ‘PIHKAL’ - #142 PEA. Transform Press: Berkeley, CA. < http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal142.shtml > (20 Dec 2013, date last accessed)

Adelfo Cerame - Road to The Wheelchair Nationals '12: Back From Thanksgiving and in Better Shape Than Ever!

Image 1: Some people just know how to improve their physique even when pigging out on thanksgiving. Or can you see any collateral damage the turkey, the pie and the pie and the turkey from last week have done?

Assuming that all of you have eventually overcome the physical and psychological consequences of your thanksgiving festivities, you should be about as ready as can be to kickstart the last three serious training weeks of the year. It alway amazes me how long some days (especially those without lectures and tons of paper work in the office) appear to be, when weeks and months fly by like nothing. I remember back in the day, when I first contacted Adelfo on behalf of the Suppversity Student Spotlight and we came up with the idea for this series, I was thinking to myself: "Damn, 2012? That is a going to be a hell long series of blogposts! Let's hope people will like it..." And now? Well, the title of the email I just received from Adelfo is "2 months down! And 3 1/2 more months to go!" And the positive feedback we are receiving week by week is overwhelming (keep it coming ;-). So what more can I say? I guess I better say nothing and let just Adelfo tell you what he has been doing the last days to make sure to pocket his pro-card at the 2012 Wheelchair Nationals...

Time flies by! 16 weeks out and keepin' it rollin'!

I am 16 weeks out from my show. Man! Am I glad that I started my prep 2 months ago, because it feels like the next 16 weeks are going to fly by. Today is the first of December and, as I mentioned in my last blogpost,  I have cut back another 200kcals from my diet and am now at daily caloric intake of only 1600 kcal. I actually have already the first day with 1600kcal under my belt, and it felt.... it felt like this is going to be a walk in the park! Although my carb-, and with the latest cut, even my fat-intake are pretty low, now (160g protein/ 50g CHO/ 75g fat per day), I still manage to get my schoolwork done, help my clients throughout the early part of the day and still have tons of energy to burn when I train later in the afternoon. Two years ago I would’ve been dead tired by the time 4 o’clock pm came around and would have just gone through the motions at the gym.

Figure 1: Adelfo's current macronutrient breakdown. Since December 1st, he is at a 1600kcal/day level.

I feel that I have been able to perform efficiently throughout the day and train optimally in the gym ever since I realized that my body prefers fat as a better fuel source than carbohydrates. I also feel that my body has adapted to using fats more efficiently, the reason why I really don’t get affected when I have to drop my carbohydrate intake. Since my body is now adapted to being a fat burning machine, it does efficiently utilize its own body fat stores as a source of energy, when carbohydrate and dietary fat intakes are low. And while I have deliberately not gone all the way, now, i.e. I have not yet dropped my carbohydrate to zero and my fat intake to similarly low levels, this may still happen in the last week(s) of the prep and I am confident that, even than, I won't be the walking Zombie I have become in the course of classic high-carb preps, where your energy levels plummet when you eventually have to drop the carbs to get stage ready.

Intermittent fasting gives me balance - physiologically and psychologically

In that, I am convinced that the high(er) fat approach aside, my decision to switch to an intermittent fasting protocol also has a lot to do with how smooth my prep and dieting has been going so far. I honestly can say, that I rarely feel hunger pangs, if any at all. I’m not pre-occupied with what I’m going to cook or eat next. My mind is not distracted with thoughts of food. I can even go a whole day without eating and I feel fine. When I take a look back, it’s amazing how much my diet controlled my everyday life. Don’t get me wrong, I love the science of nutrition, eating smart, making healthy food decisions and preparing for bodybuilding shows, but when you start getting OCD and letting the diet determine and control how you live your life. Dieting sometimes even goes so far that it starts to alter your personality! And this is, when you should now: It's time to make a change!

Natural hormone optimization - a new asset in my portfolio!?

Video 1: Mike Mahler's "Hormone Optimization" seminar on YouToube (click on the navigation on the right to see all parts). Big kudos to Mike for sharing so much great information for free!

So far everything from diet and training is going great. The one thing though that I’ve noticed that needs improvement in my prep is sleep. For some reason I’ve been having trouble sleeping…while searching for a solution to my issue and trying to find a reason why my sleeping patterns were so out of whack, I ran into a YouTube video by Mike Mahler, where he discusses hormone optimization in quite some detail. Leptin, insulin, adrenaline, cortisol, ... he covers them all and I thin that I may have found possible reasons for my suboptimal sleep patterns. In particular, I realized that my cortisol and adrenaline levels might be too high during the night. I try to get 7-8 hours of sleep but most of the night I’m tossing and turning. I don’t necessarily feel that it’s from stress, well nothing negative at least. I do think about a lot things at night though… like I said nothing negative, more like thoughts of future endeavors, excitement to compete, how I can make my business successful, ways I can improve training and nutrition… like thoughts of that nature.

Eventually I found myself digging deeper into this subject of hormones and hormone optimization trying to learn and educate myself on a topic I know nothing about, but yeah… anyway, I think I’ve found a subject that peaks my curiosity and will probably keep me busy for a couple of weeks trying to learn as much as I can and will most likely distract me from my school work ;-)

End of November: 4 weeks paying off...

A pros pos work, it's also time to evaluate where a hell lot of hard work in the gym has gotten me in the past couple of week. So here are some recent progress pictures that I took yesterday, as well as comparisons from the beginning of the month.

Image 2: Picture on the left hand side was taken on November 15, 2011, and the picture on the right hand side was taken yesterday on November 30, 2011 (photos by Adelfo Cerame, 2011).

As you can see with the most recent picture, the 2-day Thanksgiving holiday feasting I engaged in last week did nothing to hamper my forward progress.With the front pose, I definitely can see a difference especially my abdominals. Since I don’t have the luxury to weigh my self often, I always use my abdominals as marker to gauge and monitor my progress… and I advice that you should do so, too. Don’t get too pre-occupied on scale weight. The smaller your waist gets, the lower your body fat gets. Losing body fat and maintaining lean muscle mass is what’s important, not what the scale reads.

... yet a still not at my short-term goal of outperforming my friend Duong ;-)

To be honest from looking at the comparisons, I feel that I certainly could afford to stay at 1800 calories and still make some good progress by the end of December. In fact, I was tempted for about 5 minutes, but then I reminded myself of  the short-term goal that I set for myself, which is to achieve or better outperform Duong's already phenomenal physique by Christmas, which also happens to be the 12-week mark in my contest prep (sorry Duong, just my competitive nature ;-)

Supplement reviews: Since this past weekend there was a black Friday/Cyber Monday sale online @ TFSupplements (by the way, although I do not even get a discount there, I still want to mention that this is a very cheap place to shop for supps ;-) I picked up a bottle of Liquid Clenbutrx by VPX (yeah I know… the name sounded pretty sketchy to me also!), and a tub of Anadraulic State by LG Sciences. Both were at a very affordable price compared to retail.

Note: I just started on both supplements this week,
so you’ll have to wait until I finish them for a full review.

Image 3: VPX Clenbutrx, a solid product with a more than questionable name, which will yet have to showcase its fat burning magic in the weeks to come.

Liquid Clenbutrx: My initial thoughts were…  name and bottle alone of the VPX product (with the little injection dispenser) looked and sounded suspect to me. I mean look at the name… rhymes with clenbuterol right? And look how they make the bottle look all-pharmaceutical like with the injection dispenser to the side… "It looks like it can be illegal, so I guess it must work!" *rofl* Even with all the signs directing me to stay clear, the price was right, the majority of the reviews were positive (on a side note… when I read supp reviews I take into consideration the physique of the one making the review. You usually can find their profile picture on the left hand side of reviews), and even Mr super-critic Dr. Andro considers VPX among the most reputable companies in a business, where shady names of obviously have become part of the game...

• Taste: Tastes like shit and Nyquil mixed together! It’s gotta work if it tastes this bad right?
  
• Energy: So far for the past 3 days since I’ve been taking it… my energy is literally through the roof. In fact this elixir kept me up all night for the first day, because I took the 2nd dose to late in the afternoon… and I guess taking anadraulic state 30 minutes after does not help either - though this is actually a "non-stim" pre-workout product. I am, by the way, curious on how long these potent effects are going to last and whether they will have worn off before I will have gone through the whole bottle. Keep checking back for more info in the posts to come.
• Fat Loss: Don’t know yet, until I finish the bottle, but I get a good sweat in the gym.
• Side notes: So far no jitters throughout the day or while I workout. And so far it hasn’t ramped up my metabolism in the Ferrari-like way it claims to do. But hey - should I really have believed that? I guess no. So, not a bad product, so far.

Image 4: LG Sciences' Anadraulic State GT - for the 14$ I would hardly have gotten the 720g of ingredients in bulk.

Anadraulic State: My initial thoughts… Another pre- workout supplement that’s worth a try because 720g for $14 and a really sound ingredient profile, this was obviously a bargain!

•  Taste: Strawberry lemonade, well at least that is what the label says. I guess it's a good thing that it does not taste as if it was mixed with battery acid, though ;-)
• Energy: I did not buy it for the energy factor. It's a non-stim and with the potent effects of the Clenbutrx I really can't tell if you would feel some kind of energy rush from Anadraulic State, as well.
• Pump/ vascularity: I can’t really tell either because my body gets a good pump or gets pretty vascular even when I don’t take pre-workout supplements.
• Strength/ performance: So far it’s all me. But given the fact that the ingredients are meant to do their magic over time, I did not expect to notice it until being on it for at least 2-3 weeks.
• Side notes: Nothing to really report or rave about yet.  

I will keep you updated on the impact these two have on the results I am seeing in the mirror, as well as the gym in the future installments of this series. Every Thursday, right here at the SuppVersity - remember that ;-)

Image 5: Not exactly hitting the macro ratio is an issue only OCD bodybuilders will worry about... and as Dr. Andro likes to say "The stress due to too much thinking about what to eat and what not to eat is much worse than the one wrong food choice you could make".

If you want to know how this little precontest-contest turns out, I suggest you come back next Thursday and see how far I've gotten already, because, for today, that is all, folks! And with the supplement feature being this week's special, I will skip the weekly recipe and just leave you with a picture of 2 big ass turkey legs from the last of my holiday leftovers that I’m about to eat before I begin my fast.

I usually like to track my macros and actually don’t mind doing it, but since my last meal before I start my fast and hit the sack are P+F meals. It’s usually pretty easy for me to eye it and guesstimate my macros. My macro meal split for my protein and fat are around 50g protein, and 25g fat. I’m guessing these 2 turkey legs are a bit under my protein and fat, but I’m not too worried about it... buon appetito!

Arginine Blunts Growth Hormone Response to Resistance Training: Will the -41% Reduction in Post-Workout Growth Hormone Release Hamper Your Strength & Size Gains?

Arginine-based pre-workout products are more popular with guys than with girls. Could this be the reason that only women complain about unlovedly rapid muscle gains? ;-)

No, this is not a typo! The verb in the headline of today's SuppVersity article really is "to blunt", as in "to neutralize partially" (OED Online 2013). I have to admit that I was also surprised, when I spotted the study over in the "ahead of print" section of the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. Unless Forbes, Harber and Bell, of whom you will learn later that they've already conducted another 'arginine study', messed up, the results of their most recent experiment do yet leave little doubt: Arginine, an amino acid that is used to test the function of the GH-releasing somatotropic cells within the lateral wings of the anterior pituitary, does - when it is administered at a dosage of 0.075 g·kg-1 body mass right before an acute bout of resistance exercise (3 sets of 8 exercises, 10 repetitions at ~75% 1RM) attenuate the post-workout growth hormone surge in strength trained individuals (Forbes. Nov 2013).

You want more details? Here you go...

With ~5-6g of arginine being taken before a workout that consists of 3 sets of 8 classic strength training exercises that are performed for 10 repetitions and at an intensity ~75% of the personal 1RM of the 14 strength trained men [age: 25±4 y; body mass: 81.4±9.0 kg; height: 179.4±6.9 cm; and training experience: 6.3±3.4 y], the researchers from the Faculty of Physical Education & Recreation at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada designed an experimental setup which comes "shockingly" close to what the average and extraordinaire gymrat is doing, when he or she is hitting the grind.

Figure 1: Level of arginine, GHRH and IGF-1 at T = 0, 15, 30, 60 min of rest-recovery + integrated area under the curve for growth hormone (iAUC GH); all values expressed relative to placebo control (Forbes. Nov 2013)

Against that background the question whether you and the rest of the millions of hobby athletes who spend hundreds of bucks on pre-workout products every year have been hampering their own progress is, as hilarious as it may sound, not a totally unwarranted one. I mean, we can hardly ignore the statistically highly significant -41% reduction in total growth hormone secretion in the one hour "anabolic window" after the workout, Forbes and his colleagues measured - can we?

What do we make of these results?

Most of you will probably remember the often referenced results of West & Phillips, whose 12-week resistance training intervention in the course of which the researchers from the Exercise Metabolism Research Group at the Department of Kinesiology of the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,  made the following observations (West. 2012):

• 

  Suggested Read: "Anabolic Workouts Revisited!" | more

  No correlations between GH, testosterone or IGF-1 and the lean mass gains of their 56 recreationally active young men, who were not actively participating in any weightlifting
  activities <8 months before the study.
• Significant correlations between GH and the increase in type I (slow twitch, oxidative) muscle fibers, but no correlation between testosterone, IGF-1 and cortisol.
• Significant correlations between GH, as well as cortisol and the increase in type II (fast twitch, gylcolytic) muscle fibers, but no correlation between testosterone and IGF-1.

Unlike Forbes, Harber and Bell in the study at hand, West and Phillips measured the hormone levels for up to 2h after the workout. It is thus possible, but in view of the progression of the GH levels in the Forbes study relatively unlikely, that we'd see a rapid increase in the 2nd hour of the rest period and thus an increase in the total amount of GH that's released in response to the combination protocol (arginine + exercise).

Is the decrease the result of a previous GH "overload"?

With respect to the possible involvement of an auto-negative feedback, which is another, previously suggested explanation for this phenomenon, of which I had to realize during my research for this article that it has been covered in the literature before (Kanalay. 2008), Forbes et al. remark that their data would basically exclude the possibility that "the GH suppression was not due to a GH or IGF-1 induced autonegative feedback loop." (Forbes. Nov 2013)

It may not be the perfect muscle builder and maybe not even something you want to take in the vicinity of a workout, but there is still promising data on the metabolic effects of arginine esp. for (pre-)diabetics | more

In other words, Forbes et al. exclude the possibility that the subjects experienced a rapid increase in growth hormone as we would see it in response to the intravenous injection of arginine (10x increase with 20g/m² surface area of the 12 normal men in a 1996 study by Rahim et al.) that would then have shut down the GH production just as the exogenous administration of steroids would shut down your natural testosterone production.

If we focus on the available data, the conclusion of the researchers from the University of Alberta is certainly right. If we do take into account that we are talking about post workout supplementation and remind outselves that "the somatotrope is also known to have a refractory period" (Kanaley. 2008), it should be obvious that post-workout measurements, alone, cannot exclude the possibility that the GH spike that's responsible for the auto-negative feedback occurred during, not after the workout.

In other words: Instead of focusing exclusively on the post-workout GH levels, Forbes, Harber and Bell would actually have had to measure the pre & intra-workout GH response, as well. The GH spike that would cause the auto-negative feedback could after all have been caused by a sudden drop in blood glucose in response to the insulin sensitizing effects of arginine and the 'glucose hungry' strength training session.

Auto-negative feedback is still possible, but isn't there something else?

An alternative explanation for the lowered growth hormone response may come from a closer reading of the 'prequel' to this study. In January, Forbes et al. published a paper with the same supplement, but a different exercise protocol. Instead of hitting the weights, their 15 aerobically trained male subjects cycled for 60 min at 80% of their personal VO2_max - again, immediately after ingesting 5-6g of l-arginine (0.075g/kg body weight).

Is there anything arginine is good for, if it's not a muscle builder and it's effects on nitric oxide are overblown? There is a previous SuppVersity article that would suggest so: "Arginine a BAT Building WAT Killer & Repartitioning Agent?" | more

Contrary to the strength training routine, the (relatively) high intensity cycling had identical effects on the hormonal, metabolic and cardio-respiratory markers of the subjects, the two things that differed, though, were

• the rate of fatty acid oxidation at the onset of the workout, which was reduced in the l-arginine group, and
• the levels of the sugar alcohol glycerol at the 45-min time point, which were slightly, but significantly increased

These observations stand in line with the effects McConell et al.  observed in a 2006 study in response to the infusion of l-arginine.

The arginine infusion increased the glucose uptake and blunted the increase in nonesterified fatty acid and glycerol concentrations during 120min of cycling at 72% of the VO2max which were followed immediately by a 15-min "all-out" cycling performance bout (McConell. 2013). Whether it also changed the GH response is however something I can't tell you, because reseachers from the The University of Melbourne did not measure the effect the arginine infusion had on the growth hormone levels of their study participants. I would yet guess that it will have been similar to the one on the cycling study Forbes did. This, in turn, would suggest that the effect depends on (a) duration and energy expenditure, or (b) the substrate utilization during the workout (lifting weights = glycolytic; cycling = rather oxidative). In the end both of these are related to the reliance on fat, not glucose / glycogen to fuel the energetic demands of your workout and as you all know the acute provision of  glucose is the prerogative of glucocorticoids (i.e. cortisol), not GH.

There may be another reason arginine does not make you "big": It's one out of three amino acids that have an especially pronounced satiety effect | learn about the others!

I can't exactly tell you why, but I can tell you that... I openly admit that I was surprised by the results of the study at hand. I  surprised that I missed this (side) effect of arginine, before, but I am not worried that the arginine supplements you may be or may have been taking are / were  hampering your training success.

 If that was the case one of the many "real-world" arginine supplementation studies, where the study outcome wasn't some funky hormonal marker of which we still don't know whether / to which extent it actually affects skeletal muscle hypertrophy, would have shown a trend for decreasing performance, lean mass and strength gains with arginine supplementation - this, I can assure you was not the case.

In fact, those of you who remember one of my posts on the 'arginine powered' VPX preworkout products (learn more), will remember that the scientists observed, if anything, opposing, i.e. beneficial effects from complex preworkout products as most of you will be using. A somewhat different picture emerges for the 'arginine only studies' where "only" three out of five acute supplementation and four out of eight chronic supplementation studies showed measurable, but in many cases negligible performance gains (Alvares. 2011). And the null-effect the authors of the other papers observed is no reason to be concerned, either.

References:

• Álvares TS, Meirelles CM, Bhambhani YN, Paschoalin VM, Gomes PS. L-Arginine as a potential ergogenic aid in healthy subjects. Sports Med. 2011 Mar 1;41(3):233-48.
• "blunt, v.". OED Online. September 2013. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/20664?rskey=iZQVcA&result=3&isAdvanced=false (accessed November 19, 2013).
• Forbes SC, Harber V, Bell GJ. The acute effects of L-arginine on hormonal and metabolic responses during submaximal exercise in trained cyclists. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2013 Aug;23(4):369-77. Epub 2013 Jan 8.
• Forbes SC, Harber V, Bell GJ. Oral L-Arginine Prior To Resistance Exercise Blunts Growth Hormone in Strength Trained Males. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2013 Nov 13. [Epub ahead of print]
• Kanaley JA. Growth hormone, arginine and exercise. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2008 Jan;11(1):50-4. Review.
• McConell GK, Huynh NN, Lee-Young RS, Canny BJ, Wadley GD. L-Arginine infusion increases glucose clearance during prolonged exercise in humans. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2006
• Rahim A, Toogood AA, Shalet SM. The assessment of growth hormone status in normal young adult males using a variety of provocative agents. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 1996 Nov;45(5):557-62.
• West DW, Phillips SM. Associations of exercise-induced hormone profiles and gains in strength and hypertrophy in a large cohort after weight training. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 Jul;112(7):2693-702.

The Dendrobium Craze, Or What Happens if You Ignore the Obvious Difference Between "A" and "B" - Latest Study: At Best Trace Amounts of "Meth Analog" in DS Craze

DS Craze was not the only dendobrium containing supplement that disappeared from the market, when "the craze" about meth in dietary supplements broke lose.

You will certainly remember the craze about Craze and other dendrobium based pre-workout supplements. In an article published in Drug Testing and Analysis on October 14, 2013, scientists from Harvard Medical School and NSF International, a respected third-party testing organization, reported the presence of the "methamphetamine analog" N,α-diethyl-phenylethylamine (N,α-DEPEA) in three samples of Driven Sports' flagship pre-workout product "Craze" they purchased from various retailers.

Using what they considered established reference standards and sensitive analytical methods, Cohen et al. found what they thought was N,α-DEPEA at concentrations ranging from 21 to 35 mg per serving in the supplements (Cohen. 2013)

Citrulline is another pre-workout ingredient - a 100% safe one ;-)

Citrulline prevents muscle catablism more than leucine

Arginine & citrulline for blood lipid control

EAA, BCAA, or citrulline for anti-catabolism?

Glutamine not citrulline to heal the gut?

Citrulline to ignite fatty acid oxidataion?

High & low dose arginine ineffec- tive NO boosters

The results from this the study Cohen et al. conducted in 2013 were later officially confirmed by researchers from the Korean Forensic Service who found 0.40 and 0.44% N,α-DEPEA, respectively — the equivalent of roughly 23 mg per serving in their samples of Craze (Lee. 2014).

Now, N,α-DEPEA is only one out of several phenylethylamines aka "PEAs", of which even Cohen et al., whose paper started the whole craze say that the spectrum of PEAs "range[s] from benign compounds found in chocolate to synthetically produced illicit drugs" (Cohen. 2014). In that, minimal structural differences determine, whether we are dealing with a harmless ingredient of chocolate or a methamphetamine analog like N,α-DEPEA with the difference in the chemical structure of the agents being small, in some cases marginal (Lee. 2014).

Figure 1: Different phenylethylamines (PEAs) with different degrees of structural resemblance
and different physiological effects (Wahlstom. 2014)

In this context, it's important to know that N,α-DEPEA is not the only isomer of diethyl phenethylamine. Next to N,α-diethyl phenethylamine (the N,α isomer), there are also N,β-diethyl-phenethylamine (the N,β isomer), and N,N-diethyl-phenethylamine (the N,N isomer). Three agents of which Dallas Wait writes in a recent issue of the AHPA Report that specifically the...

"[...] N,α and N,β isomers have very similar chromatographic characteristics and are difficult to resolve unless the test method being used is optimized to properly separate both isomers" (Wait. 2014)

This similarity makes the two DEPEA isomers very difficult to distinguish. More importantly, the existence of the N,β isomer implies that anyone who analyzes dietary supplements for N,α-diethyl phenethylamine runs the risk of generating false positive  - yet unfortunately, this is exactly what Cohen et al. (2013) and Lee et al. (2013) and before them Mahmoud A. ElSohly & Waseem Gul (2013) obviously did.

My previous Craze article is now obviously obsolete | read more.

"As such, the alleged presence of the N,α isomer may actually be the N,β isomer, or a combination of the two.

Unequivocal identifiation of the N,β and N,α isomers is particularly critical since the N,β isomer does not share the same structural similarities that N,α shares with methamphetamine (also alkylated in the α position, not the β position)." (Wait. 2014)

Needless to say that the existence of said structural difference does also imply that the agent won't fit into the corresponding receptor site or interact with the same enzymes N,α-DEPEA and "real" methamphetamies do. Accordingly, the biological activity associated with that compound are certainly different from those of N,α-diethyl phenethylamine.

What is phenethylamine? Phenethylamine (PEA) is a natural monoamine alkaloid that belongs to a class of chemicals with many compounds of known psychoactive and stimulant effects (Glen. 2005). It functions as a neuromodulator or neurotransmitter (Sabelli. 1976) with similar actions as amphetamine: Norepinephrine + dopamine release (Parker. 1988; Paterson. 1993). PEA and its substituted forms NDP and ETH is rapidly metabolized when taken orally (Shulgin. 1995-2009).

Obviously I wouldn't be telling you all this if it wasn't related to the (un?)surprising results of a recent study. Results a group of researchers from Q&Q Labs AB in Gothenburg, Sweden, published in issue #6 of the peer-reviewed journal Analytical Methods that is published by the Royal Society of Chemstry (Wahlstom. 2014).

In said paper, the authors, Wahlstrum, Styles and Hägglund present the results of an analysis of two samples of Driven Sports' pre-workout product Craze ("Candy Grape", batch # 1305323 and "Berry Lemonade" batch # 1303298) that was conducted with a new analytical method that can "reliably" identify and quantify the individual amounts of N,α-diethyl phenethylamine (N,α isomer), N,β-diethyl-phenethylamine (N,β isomer), and N,N-diethyl-phenethylamine (N,N isomer) in a sample.

Table 1: Amounts and relative standard deviations (RSD) for the two samples of
DS Craze with lot no. 1303298 and 1305323 (Wahlstrom. 2014)

Usually I would plot the results, but in view of the fact that the amount of N,α-diethyl phenethylamine that was previously reported to be in the milligram range is de facto in the nanogramm range (1/1000 mg = 1 µg = 1000 ng), I decided to stick to the tabular overview (Table 1) from the original publication by Wahlstrom et al. (2014).

Figure 2: Mean amount of N,α-diethyl phenethylamine (in ng) in one serving of Craze according to Wahlberg (2014) and Lee (2014) - mind the logarithmic scaling of the graph!

So what does all that mean? You don't have to be a mathematics professor to see that even with the calculated standard deviations of 6.6% and 8.9% we are miles away (103303% to be precise) from the previously reported 23mg of N,α-diethyl phenethylamine per 5.8g serving of Craze (Lee. 2014).

This does not necessarily mean that all the craze was for nothing, though. As far as I know it is likely that N,β-diethyl-phenylethylamine is harmless. Studies which would investigate its biological effects on rodents, let alone animals, on the other hand, are as of yet not available; and if we are honest this and not the presence of "structural analogs" of whatever should be what we as supplement users are interested in, right?

Assuming that Driven Sports was willing to pay not just for the study at hand which was "made possible", as the authors of the study say, "by support from Driven Sports Inc" (Wahlstrom. 2014), but also for an analysis of what exactly the major DEPEA compound in the product does, this may finally solve the whole conundrum. A safety analysis for the complete supplement is - at lest for short-term use - available, anyway (Kedia. 2014) | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Cohen, Pieter A., John C. Travis, and Bastiaan J. Venhuis. "A methamphetamine analog (N, α‐diethyl‐phenylethylamine) identified in a mainstream dietary supplement." Drug testing and analysis (2013). 
• ElSohly, Mahmoud A., and Waseem Gul. "LC–MS-MS Analysis of Dietary Supplements for N-ethyl-α-ethyl-phenethylamine (ETH), N, N-diethylphenethylamine and Phenethylamine." Journal of analytical toxicology (2013): bkt097. 
• Kedia, A. William, et al. "Effects of a Pre-workout Supplement on Lean Mass, Muscular Performance, Subjective Workout Experience and Biomarkers of Safety." International journal of medical sciences 11.2 (2014): 116.
• Lee, Jaesin, et al. "Identification and quantitation of N, α-diethylphenethylamine in preworkout supplements sold via the internet." Forensic Toxicology 32.1 (2014): 148-153.
• Wait, D. "The importance of reliable product chemistry data: A case study." In AHPA Report | The Official Publication of the American Herbal Products Association 29.10 (2014). 
• Wahlstrom, R., C. Styles, and G. Hägglund. "Reliable identification and quantification of three diethylphenethylamines in a Dendrobium-based dietary supplement." Analytical Methods 6.19 (2014): 7891-7897.

Pre-Workout Nutrition & Supplementation for Athletes - What Works, What Doesn't Work | Perfect Timing, Fast or Slow Carbs, Glucose & Fructose, Fats, Protein & More

For sedentary, video-game and smartphone addicted youths, it's they're the gateway drug.. ah, I mean drink to insulin therapy for full-blown diabetes. For athletes CHO + caffeine containing drinks can be very useful.

As Michael J. Ormsbee and his colleagues point out in their latest review, "[e]ndurance athletes rarely compete in the fasted state, as this may compromise fuel stores." The means by which means endurance athletes (and anyone who is about to embark on a long(er) workout) should (pre-)fuel their workouts is yet still debated.

Some swear by whole foods, others stick to special carbohydrate mixes, others again combine carbohydrates and protein and many simply grab the next best energy drink or supplement with an allegedly "science-based" formula. What is optimal, however, isn't just determined by the amount of energy it delivers. It's also influenced by the metabolic effects of the preworkout meal.

Learn more about carbohydrates at the SuppVersity!

Intra-Workout CHO 101

Spit or Swallow Your Carbs?

Peri-Workout Supp Update

PWO CHO or PRO Supplementation?

194 Bananas in 3 Weeks - Healthy!

The Fructose Scam: An Update!

Having a ton of fat, but no carbohydrates, for example, could steer an athletes metabolism away from carbohydrate and toward fat metabolism. For a sprinter this would be a disaster, for an endurance athlete, on the other hand, it could have certain benefits.

When I look at the tabular overview of the studies, Ormsbee et al. reviewed in their latest paper, there is yet another factor that appears to have an even greater impact on the benefits of pre-workout meals / supplementation and that's timing! In the discussion of their results, the South African researchers write.

Figure 1: Drop in glucose in well-trained cyclist on the onset of 30min cycling exercise after ingestion of 75g glucose or fructose or placebo (Koivisto. 1981)

"The timing of CHO intake influences its metabolic effects. Indeed, insulin and blood glucose elevations are positively correlated with CHO meal proximity to exercise (Moseley. 2003). Studies in which CHO is consumed 1–4 h prior to exercise often report glucose and insulin levels declining to near-basal levels prior to exercise (Coyle. 1985; Kotsiopoulou. 2002; Chen. 2009).

Alternatively, when subjects consume CHO ≤60 min before exercise, insulin and blood glucose levels are reported to be elevated immediately prior to exercise (Koivisto. 1981; Chryssanthopoulos. 1994; Febbraio. 2000a,b)." (Ormsbee. 2014)

What both the 1-4h prior and the <60 min pre-exercise approach have in common is that they trigger an initial drop in blood glucose at the onset of the exercise period. Interestingly, the latter is more pronounced for shorter time-spans between the ingestion of the meal / nutrient supplement and the workout.

If we go by the general trend in the studies,Ormsbee et al. reviewed, it appears as if you'd better leave 60min between your last meal and your workout if you want to benefit.

Take home message T as in "timing": If you belong to the unfortunate few percent of people who bunk at the beginning of their workouts don't eat in the 1h-pre time.window. Other ways to at least reduce the drop in blood glucose are: (1) use fruits / fructose instead of glucose and (2) skip the pre-workout meal altogether ;-)

In general, it's not necessary to consume "slow" carbs. Chen et al. for example observed performance increases with high, but not with low GI carbs ingested 2h before a workout (Chen. 2009); what Ormsbee et al. don't mention in their overview, tough, is that this worked only, because the subjects supplemented 2h before and during the workout.

In view of the aforementioned problem with reductions in blood glucose it should be obvious that consuming high glycemic index (high GI) carbohydrates before a race may not be ideal.

Figure 2: When they are ingested 30 min before an endurance exercise bouts, slow digesting carbohydrates (LGI) from muesli have no advantage over fast digesting carbs (HGI) from instant mashed potatoes [please not that this study also shows that it doesn't have to be Gatorade or other sugar water]; on the contrary, the lactate levels after the workout were lower and the total work was higher (albeit not significantly) in the HGI trial (Febbraio. 2000a)

The experimental evidence, on the other hand, shows that when the high GI meal (instant mashed potatoes) is consumed 30 minutes before the workout, there are no negative effects on the exercise performance of 8 trained men who cycled at 70% peak oxygen uptake for 120 min followed by a 30-min performance cycle (see Figure 2).

Fat burning machines train low and compete high!?

Similarly, the evidence for the usefulness of high fat feeding immediately before a competition isn't there (Ormsbee. 2014). Rather than that many endurance athletes who follow a lowe(er) carbohydrate diet, "train low" and "compete high" - in this case "high" and "low" don't refer to the altitude, thought, but indicate training with a low carbohydrate intake and increasing the carbohydrate intake shortly before a competition. Some experts see this critically, though. Louise M. Burke, for example, writes:

"More recently, it has been suggested that athletes should train with low carbohydrate stores but restore fuel availability for competition (‘‘train low, compete high’’), based on observations that the intracellular signaling pathways underpinning adaptations to training are enhanced when exercise is undertaken with low glycogen stores. The present literature is limited to studies of ‘‘twice a day’’ training (low glycogen for the second session) or withholding carbohydrate intake during training sessions. Despite increasing the muscle adaptive response and reducing the reliance on carbohydrate utilization during exercise, there is no clear evidence that these strategies enhance exercise performance. Further studies on dietary periodization strategies, especially those mimicking real-life athletic practices, are needed." (Burke. 2010; my emphasis)

In an article in the Journal of Sports Sciences Burke wrote with John A. Hawley, Stephen H. S. Wong & Asker E. Jeukendrup, the authors accordingly classify the "train low, compete high"-principle as principle with "equivocal evidence" (Burke. 2011).

But what about fat adapation and keto-athletes? Obviously Burke's position stands in contrast to papers by Volek, Noakes and Phinney who have recently repeated their conviction that "the shift to fatty acids and ketones as primary fuels when dietary carbohydrate is restricted could be of benefit for some athletes" (Volek. 2014), even though they still cannot provide the scientific evidence that would turn the "could" in the previously cited sentence into a "can".

More recent research again suggests that we may not even be dealing with an "either or" problem, here. In fact, an experiment Murakamiet al. conducted only recently would suggest:

Could using fat and carbs, instead of fat or carbs increase performance even more?

The scientist from the Fukuoka University examined the performance effect of consuming either: (1) a high-fat meal 4 h pre-exercise + a placebo jelly 3 min before exercise (HFM + P); (2) a high-fat meal 4 h pre-exercise + maltodextrin jelly 3 min before exercise (HFM+ M); or (3) a high-CHO meal 4 h pre-exercise + placebo jelly 3 min before exercise (HCM + P).

The study was conducted after the subjects, eight  male collegiate long-distance athletes, who engaged in physical training almost every day, had consumed an isocaloric, high-CHO diet for three days (2562 ± 19 kcal). The isocaloric test meals (1007 ± 21 kcal) were consumed 4 h before a standardized exercise test consisting of 80 min submaximal runing on a treadmill at each runner’s pre-determined lactate threshold (LT) speed.

Post-workout muscle glycogen resynthesis with glucose or glucose + fructose (Casey. 2000)

What's the right starch for you? Unless you plan to work out for less than 20 minutes, you should prefer slow digesting modified starches (resistant starches) like WM-HDP over fast-digesting ones like Vitargo(R) in your pre-workout nutrition. When it comes to intra-workout nutrition, though, A mix of both fast and slow digesting carbs can yield additional benefits. The same holds true for post-workout supplementation, where the isocaloric replacement of up to 50% of the glucose with fructose can make the tons of sugar easier to handle for your stomach (Casey. 2000), and the addition of 0.4g/kg of fast digesting protein to 0.8g/kg carbohydrates can significantly increase the glycogen resynthesis after workouts (van Loon. 2000).

The endurance component was immediately followed by a time trial to exhaustion (TTE), where the HFM + M group were able to run 8% (8 minutes) longer than their peers in the HFM + P  and the 10% longer than the HCM + P group. As Ormsbee et al. highlight in their review:

"This suggests that CHO feeding subsequent to a HFM pre-exercise and three days of a proper CHO loading protocol can elicit an enhancement in the endurance performance of well-trained runners.[...] however, Murakami and colleagues did not include a HCM + M group, which raises questions about whether the HFM + M group performed longer primarily due to HFM [i.e. due to the extra fat] or rather as a result of the increased caloric consumption of maltodextrin immediately pre-exercise." (Ormsbee. 2014)

It appears likely that this methodological issue renders the study results more or less worthless, because previous studies have found more or less unequivocally that fat and fat & carbohydrate supplements don't increase the exercise performance of endurance athletes:

• 

  Figure 3: Next to changes in substrate oxidation (CHO ￬ | FAT ￪) the blunted growth hormone response was the only sign. difference Whitley et al. found when they compared a high carbohydrate to a high fat meal (Whitley. 1998)

  Whitley et al. (1998) who couldn't find a performance increase w/ 50g of carbohydrates, 14g protein and 80g fat during 90 min cycling 70% VO2max and a 10 km TT
• Okano, G., et al. (1996) who didn't find performance increases in response to the ingestion of a 30% carbohydrate, 61% fat and 9% protein meal 4h before an exercise test that consisted of cycling at 65% of the maximal oxygen consumption for the first 120 min of exercise, followed by an increased dose of 80 % V0_max,
• Rowlands et al. (2002) who found no benefits of consuming a high fat meal before a 50-km time trial, and
• Paul, et al. (2003) who found that even dosed at 1.3g/kg body weight a high fat meal has no effect on timetrial performance of 8 trained men.

Overall, the combination of fat and carbohydrates or the use of fat instead of carbohydrates does therefore appear similarly futile. What is important, though, is that having fats in your preworkout meal is not going to decrease your workout performance significantly. Moreover, it remains to be seen, whether the results differ in "fat adapted" athletes in future studies.

Caffeine & protein, the bodybuilder's darlings

Both caffeine and protein have been shown to be useful for endurance athletes, but only the former, i.e. caffeine supplements will lead to significant performance increases.

"Regardless of an athlete’s genetic disposition, a dose of 3–6 mg of caffeine/kg of body weight has been shown to enhance performance in most individuals, with no further benefit from higher doses." (Ormsbee. 2014)

For the latter, i.e. protein, the latest review clearly states that the contemporary evidence shows that

"[...] when carbohydrate supplementation was delivered at optimal rates during or after exercise, protein supplements provided no further ergogenic effect, regardless of the performance metric used." (McLellan. 2014)

What protein supplements can do, though, is to speed up the glycogen resynthesis and glycogen hypersaturation after workouts (Morifuji. 20045) and contribute and "enhance skeletal muscle remodelling and stimulate adaptations that promote an endurance phenotype" (Moore. 2014).

 Post-Workout Glycogen Repletion - The Role of Protein, Leucine, Phenylalanine and Insulin. Plus: Protein & Carbs How Much do You Actually Need After a Workout? Learn more about PWO supplements

Bottom line: Last week I've concluded that there is currently no alternative to carbohydrates, when it comes to intra-workout supplementation on long(er) duration endurance races. This week, the conclusion I will borrow from Ormsbee et al is not much different: "Consuming a CHO-rich meal [>0.8g/kg body weight] in the hours prior to endurance exercise appears to benefit performance."

The use of high fat supplements or additional fat in a pre-workout meal, on the other hand has no significant scientific backup that would suggest that it does anything, but shift the substrate metabolism from high glucose to medium glucose & medium fat oxidation. Protein and caffeine, on the other hand can help. Yet only caffeine (0.3-0.6mg/kg) is something that will have immediate performance enhancing effects, when it's consumed before a workout. Protein, on the other hand, should be consumed in the post-workout phase instead  | Comment on Facebook!

Ah, and yes: (A) You can use bananas, mashed potatoes and other whole foods instead of sugar drinks. And (B) These suggestions are also valid for strength trainees, who like their workouts (1) intense, (2) long (>35 minutes) and (3) with only 60s of rest between sets. If you are one of the "let's take a break" guys who spends 2h in the gym doing ten sets of bench presses and a lot of talking, you better spare yourself the carbohydrate load before the workout.

References:

• Burke, L. M. "Fueling strategies to optimize performance: training high or training low?." Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports 20.s2 (2010): 48-58.
• Burke, Louise M., et al. "Carbohydrates for training and competition." Journal of Sports Sciences 29.sup1 (2011): S17-S27.
• Casey, Anna, et al. "Effect of carbohydrate ingestion on glycogen resynthesis in human liver and skeletal muscle, measured by 13C MRS." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology And Metabolism 278.1 (2000): E65-E75.
• Chen, Y. J., et al. "Effects of glycemic index meal and CHO-electrolyte drink on cytokine response and run performance in endurance athletes." Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 12.6 (2009): 697-703. 
• Coyle, Edward F., et al. "Substrate usage during prolonged exercise following a preexercise meal." J Appl Physiol 59.2 (1985): 429-33.
• Chryssanthopoulos, C., L. C. Hennessy, and C. Williams. "The influence of pre-exercise glucose ingestion on endurance running capacity." British journal of sports medicine 28.2 (1994): 105-109.
• Febbraio, Mark A., et al. "Effects of carbohydrate ingestion before and during exercise on glucose kinetics and performance." Journal of Applied Physiology 89.6 (2000a): 2220-2226.
• Febbraio, Mark A., et al. "Preexercise carbohydrate ingestion, glucose kinetics, and muscle glycogen use: effect of the glycemic index." Journal of Applied Physiology 89.5 (2000b): 1845-1851.
• Kotsiopoulou, Christina, and Veronica Vleck. "The effect of a high carbohydrate meal on endurance running capacity." International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism 12 (2002): 157-171.
• Koivisto, Veikko A., Sirkka-Lisa Karonen, and Esko A. Nikkila. "Carbohydrate ingestion before exercise: comparison of glucose, fructose, and sweet placebo." J Appl Physiol 51.4 (1981): 783-787. 
• McLellan, Tom M., Stefan M. Pasiakos, and Harris R. Lieberman. "Effects of Protein in Combination with Carbohydrate Supplements on Acute or Repeat Endurance Exercise Performance: A Systematic Review." Sports Medicine 44.4 (2014): 535-550.
• Moseley, Luke, Graeme I. Lancaster, and Asker E. Jeukendrup. "Effects of timing of pre-exercise ingestion of carbohydrate on subsequent metabolism and cycling performance." European journal of applied physiology 88.4-5 (2003): 453-458.
• Moore, Daniel R., et al. "Beyond muscle hypertrophy: why dietary protein is important for endurance athletes 1." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 39.999 (2014): 1-11.
• Morifuji, Masashi, et al. "Dietary whey protein increases liver and skeletal muscle glycogen levels in exercise-trained rats." British journal of nutrition 93.04 (2005): 439-445.
• Murakami, Ikuma, et al. "Significant effect of a pre-exercise high-fat meal after a 3-day high-carbohydrate diet on endurance performance." Nutrients 4.7 (2012): 625-637.
• Okano, G., et al. "Effect of 4h preexercise high carbohydrate and high fat meal ingestion on endurance performance and metabolism." International journal of sports medicine 17.07 (1996): 530-534.
• Ormsbee, Michael J., Christopher W. Bach, and Daniel A. Baur. "Pre-Exercise Nutrition: The Role of Macronutrients, Modified Starches and Supplements on Metabolism and Endurance Performance." Nutrients 6.5 (2014): 1782-1808.
• Paul, David, et al. "No effect of pre-exercise meal on substrate metabolism and time trial performance during intense endurance exercise." International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism 13 (2003): 489-503.
• Rowlands, David S., and Will G. Hopkins. "Effect of high-fat, high-carbohydrate, and high-protein meals on metabolism and performance during endurance cycling." International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism 12 (2002): 318-335.
• van Loon, Luc JC, et al. "Maximizing postexercise muscle glycogen synthesis: carbohydrate supplementation and the application of amino acid or protein hydrolysate mixtures." The American journal of clinical nutrition 72.1 (2000): 106-111.
• Volek, Jeff S., Timothy Noakes, and Stephen D. Phinney. "Rethinking fat as a fuel for endurance exercise." European journal of sport science ahead-of-print (2014): 1-8. 
• Whitley, Helena A., et al. "Metabolic and performance responses during endurance exercise after high-fat and high-carbohydrate meals." Journal of Applied Physiology 85.2 (1998): 418-424.