Supplements for athletes
A guide to what supplements actually work
What is a supplement?
A supplement is food, food component, nutrient, or non-food compound that is purposefully ingested in addition to the habitually consumed diet with the aim of achieving a specific health and/or performance benefit.
Supplements are nothing new
The use of supplements or ergogenic aids is not a new concept.
For many centuries, humans have sought out novel nutritional aids for performance. This trend will never cease to exist, therefore, I am going to better inform you what supplements may be worthwhile!
The global supplement market is valued at an astonishing $140 billion, with a lot of the products aimed at athletic populations. Despite its popularity, this huge market has many flaws which awareness is needed on:
- Many do not contain the ingredients listed or vary from the amounts stated
- Many are contaminated with banned substances that pose health risks and adverse findings on drug tests. Athletes, are you listening?
- It is a relatively unregulated industry whereby extensive trials are not required before releasing to the public.
- Of those extensively researched, very few supplements actually work!
This document covers a select few supplements that can boost exercise performance (and are safe and legal to take!). But first things first, let’s assess the need to supplement!
Should you take a supplement to aid performance?
The best way to answer this question is to use the supplement decision chart. This helps come to a logical decision about whether a particular supplement has any potential benefit for you.
Ergogenic Aids
An ergogenic aid is any substance or treatment that directly improves exercise performance.
Not all supplements are ergogenic aids and that is why I want to move away from the term performance supplements at this time.
An ergogenic aid is a supplement that improves performance, recovery, or body composition! Most supplements are purported to be ergogenic but the evidence is often lacking or when they do work they are often illegal.
When it comes to supplements a little wisdom goes a long way.
- If a supplement is not banned, it probably doesn’t work.
- If a supplement works, then it is probably banned.
- There are some exceptions, however, albeit very very few…
Caffeine
Caffeine is a stimulant that possesses well-established benefits for athletic performance. Caffeine is by far the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world, found in coffee beans, tea leaves and (cocoa beans) chocolate and cola nuts.
How does it work?
There are many ways that caffeine works on the body. The most prominent are competing with adenosine at receptor sites; by acting on the central nervous system; increasing endorphin release; altering fuel use during exercise and improving glycogen synthesis post exercise.
Who and what does it work for?
- When sleep deprived, caffeine can improve vigilance and alertness during exhaustive bouts of exercise.
- Caffeine supplementation enhances maximal endurance exercise and enhances time trial performance by way of making exercise “feel easier”.
- Caffeine enhances maximal intensity actions of prolonged duration but only in trained persons.
- The jury is still out on the significance of how well caffeine aids strength and power performance! If you feel it helps, go for it!
How should you take it?
3–6 mg/kg of body mass (BM), in the form of pill, powder or gum, consumed ~60 min prior to exercise.
Caffeine levels tend to peak around 15 to 45 minutes after ingestion hence why it is taken around 60 minutes prior to exercise.
Alternatively, consume a 2x Doubleshot espresso coffee using the same time bound protocol.
Creatine
Creatine is a naturally occurring, non-essential, amino acid compound made in the human body. It is also found in red meat and fish. 95% of stores are found in the skeletal muscle and creatine plays an important role in the maintenance of energy availability.
How does it work?
Our muscles use adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as its energy currency and when we exercise, ATP gets broken down to ADP. ATP then needs to be regenerated or else fatigue will become limiting.
Creatine combines with Pi to create phosphocreatine (PCr). ADP combines with PCr to make new ATP to continue high rates of exercise.
Supplementation of creatine saturates total muscle creatine levels, boosting both free creatine and phosphocreatine levels. The result of this is more rapid ATP regeneration and a time lag to allow for glycogen breakdown and glycolysis to reach the required rate, boosting performance!
Who and what does it work for?
Creatine has both acute and chronic effects.
- Acute benefits include: improved performance of both single and repeated bouts of high-intensity exercise, especially in tasks lasting <30s. Think of sprinting, jumping, throwing, power movements in the gym, repeat sprint sports.
- Chronic benefits include include lean muscle gains and improvements in strength and power by way of an increased ability to maintain higher training quality (i.e. completing more work)
How should you take it?
- Loading phase (faster saturation) – 20 grams per day split into 4, 5 gram doses evenly across the day for a period of 5 to 7 days. This is then followed by a 3 to 5 gram daily maintenance phase.
- Non-loading phase (gradual saturation) – 3 to 5 grams taken daily. This is the easiest option but the time frame until a benefit is seen is extended.
Nitrates
Nitrate supplementation, generally from the consumption of concentrated beetroot juice, enhances nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability and thus plays an important role in skeletal muscle function.
Nitrates improve type II muscle fiber function, reduce the ATP cost to produce muscular force (in other words movement), and also increase mitochondrial respiration (the powerhouse of the cell). There is an increase in skeletal muscle blood flow from the increased NO!
fits.
How does it work?
Our muscles use adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as its energy currency and when we exercise, ATP gets broken down to ADP. ATP then needs to be regenerated or else fatigue will become limiting.
Creatine combines with Pi to create phosphocreatine (PCr). ADP combines with PCr to make new ATP to continue high rates of exercise.
Supplementation of creatine saturates total muscle creatine levels, boosting both free creatine and phosphocreatine levels. The result of this is more rapid ATP regeneration and a time lag to allow for glycogen breakdown and glycolysis to reach the required rate, boosting performance!
Who and what does it work for?
- Enhances endurance exercise performance by improving time to exhaustion and improves endurance performance in time trial events lasting <40 minutes.
- Enhances muscle contractile function and as a result, improves high-intensity sprint and power actions in team-based activity settings lasting from 12 to 40 minutes.
- Benefits appear to acutely benefit untrained more than trained but chronic supplementation may aid trained persons.
How should you take it?
- By consuming high nitrate-containing foods such as spinach, rocket salad, celery and beetroot on a daily basis.
- Acute performance benefits are generally seen within 2–3 hours following the consumption 310–560 mg. “Beet It sport” supplements contain 400mg.
Beta Alanine
Beta-alanine is an amino acid that is produced endogenously in the liver. Additionally, it can be consumed in the diet from animal-based proteins. There is nothing special about beta-alanine itself but rather its ability to act as a precursor for carnosine.
How does it work?
Beta-alanine improves the intracellular buffering capacity by increasing the amount of carnosine in the muscle cell. This helps combat the accumulation of protons that are generated during exercise, which is dependent on the intensity and duration.
When exercise intensities are high and prolonged, proton accumulation is higher and the buffering capacity of the muscle is tested. Excess proton accumulation and slower buffering result in quicker rates of fatigue. Therefore by increasing the carnosine content, the buffering capacity is improved and exercise performance is enhanced.
Who and what does it work for?
- There is a meaningful benefit with supplementation on both singular and repeated bouts of high-intensity performance efforts lasting from around 30s to 10 minutes.
- Therefore the supplement would be of benefit for a number of populations like power & field sport athletes, long-sprint distance athletes (200 to 400m) and middle distance track runners 800 to 3000m) and so on.
How should you take it?
- 65 mg per kg of body mass daily, for example an 80 kg athlete, 80 X 0.065 = 5.2 grams daily for 10 to 12 weeks
- The dose can be split up across the day in 3 to 4 doses as people do appear to get “tingling” sensations when taking beta-alanine. This is normal. But it can be uncomfortable.
Sodium Bicarbonate
Sodium bicarbonate is an alkalinizer that improves extracellular buffering capacity (as opposed to intracellular buffering as seen with beta-alanine supplementation).
How does it work?
As exercise intensity increases and intracellular buffering is working hard, not all protons can be buffered by intracellular means. Therefore, there is an efflux of protons into the circulation.
Sodium bicarbonate works by increasing the buffering of protons in the blood (not the muscle), aiding with pH regulation by raising extracellular pH.
This increase leads to a further efflux of protons an lactate from the working muscles.
Who and what does it work for?
- There is a meaningful benefit with supplementation with enhanced performance of short-term, high-intensity sprints lasting ~60 s and then with a reduced performance benefit as the effort duration exceeds 10 minutes.
- Therefore the supplement would be of benefit for a number of populations like power & field sport athletes, short and long-sprint distance athletes (200 to 400m) and middle distance track runners 800 to 3000m) and so on.
How should you take it?
- Option 1 includes a single dose of 0.2–0.4 g/kg BM, consumed 60–150 min prior to exercise
- Option 2 includes a split dose protocol of 3 to 4 smaller doses with the same total amount taken of 30 to 180 minutes.
- Option 3 involves taken 3 to 4 smaller doses across a 2 to 4 day time period prior performing.
- Split doses may be better as gastric discomfort is very common with sodium bicarbonate supplementation. Always trial it before a big event.
Safety First
While a supplement can be heavily researched, effective, and safe, that does not necessarily mean that all batches of that “supplement” from each supplier are safe.
There is a simple mitigation strategy that you can use to offset the chances of getting a contaminated supplement and a poor-quality supplement.
That is the “Informed Sport” certification process!
Informed Sport
“To make certain our certified products are safer for athletes and drug-tested personnel, we test every single batch for banned substances before being released to market”
Although this does not test the true quality of the supplement, the fact that a company would go to these lengths and costs tends to sway the mind to agree that the quality is likely high!
The next time you are buying your supplements, check to see if the supplement is batch tested. It will contain this logo on the packaging!
Alternatively, visit and search their website for the supplement you are thinking of buying. It includes 325 brands sold in 127 countries.
The Content Cook 2026
