Student Athletes Details
When do you look at Starting a Supplement Cycle?
We started in middle school because of the amount of stress our son was putting on muscle. This is when most sports start using weight training. I use the word "he" but girls gain from using the proper supplements also.
Planning Your Supplement Cycle
It takes discipline to establish a proper supplement cycle. In our home it is a team effort and part of our lifestyle. We do all we can to establish a structure that encourages following the established supplement cycle at all times. Plan ahead so that you already have a supplement cycle modification in place to go with changes in training and unplanned schedule changes that cannot be helped. You may say how do I plan for unplanned schedule changes? You will understand what I am talking about by the time you finish reading this information. This cannot be a seat of the pants project if you want to get the full benefits of adding supplements to your diet. That first year of church camp after establishing my son's supplement cycle. I found out quick that I was not prepared as I had no modification plan in place. Now when things like this come up we modify his cycle to what is manageable for him to fit the situation in advance. I am sure that all of you will have vacations, or trips to grandma's house where you need to plan ahead. Then there is those things that will come up unexpected. You need to plan in advance what you will do when these things happen. In most cases we establish a minimum maintenance cycle when things like this come up. It has to be something that he will continue to follow or it is a waste of time...and money! A minimum maintenance cycle will consist of keeping protein levels up and cutting out the products that you do not need if you are not training.
Must Have Open Communication
There needs to be a lot of communication in this process between you and your child. They need to be assured that you are getting them what they need. You need to make sure that they are taking the right products at the correct dosage. I have heard kids say that they did not tell their parent that a product made them feel sick. Why? Because they were afraid that their parents would not let them take any supplements and they have seen first hand that they work. With open communication the parent could have had the chance to either cut the dosage or change products. It is important that you keep open communication with your doctor. Share why your child is on the supplement cycle you have him on so that he can understand how it will help him reach his goals. My son has always had problems with high blood pressure. This changed when we added supplements to his diet. This was not advertised to help with high blood pressure on any of the supplements we added to his diet. The only explanation our doctor had for this was that in adding the supplements that he needed to helped stressed muscle recover. That this helped his body take care of this problem naturally by helping his body get into the proper balance. Explain to your child what each supplement is supposed to do for him so that he can understand why he takes it when he does. My son thought at first I was being mean by making him come home after a football game before he went out with his friends. When I explained his supplements needed to be taken within 30-90 minutes of his game to help recover stressed muscle he understood. Remember that some of these items do not smell or taste good to your child. Everybody has a different tolerance level when it comes to taste and smell. Do not base your supplement cycle just on what is in it. If your child feels that you are forcing them take a product that makes them sick to smell or taste...he will not want to stay with the established cycle you are trying to put in place. For that reason stay away from buying supplements in bulk until you know what products fit your taste. This is another reason communication is important.
Training & Supplements
Your supplement cycle needs to be based on your training cycle as well as your social life. This becomes more important as you add supplements to your cycle. You do not want to be in a loading phase of a supplement like Creatine when you are doing two a days in the heat. It is hard enough to stay hydrated during that type of training. If Creatine is part of your supplement cycle there are plenty of products that do not require a loading stage and will provide you with what you need. This is part of that research I was telling you about in planning ahead. Our kids know that we are setting up a customized supplement cycle based on their needs and this encourages them to not feel the need to try other products. As I said before, the key to making this a success is open communication. You need to encourage your child to have open input to this process.
Positive Relationship Tool
One of the great things we discovered in establishing a supplement cycle for our children is that it provides us another common area to bond. As your child gets older they get to thinking they know everything. Part of this is due to how little communication that they allow you to have with them. The need for open communication regarding their supplements helps keep an additional door open in the communication process. Since we supply supplements to our friends. We see that they have noticed how much more at ease their child is in talking to them. More then other kids that their parents do not help them with setting up an established supplement cycle.
Things Witnessed
Since everybody does not have the same body type or metabolism you can expect different reactions to what supplements do for the individual. There are some basics that work for almost everybody. It is that almost factor that you have to be aware of. We have had people who did not know they had allergies. They started to get a negative reaction to some products when it became established as a part of their diet.
We have seen people that buy the newest advertised supplements and complain because they have not seen any positive improvements after a months time. While talking to them we discovered why. They bought the item and just gave it to their child. They did not supervise dosage or when the product was taken. You have to establish a supplement as part of your diet on a set cycle. There are some products that you take to get a one time result but most are to be used over a certain time frame to make an inpact. Different supplements have to be taken differently. We have people that just ignore that their supplement of choice is not to be taken within one hour of eating. These products will attach to food being digested instead of being absorbed into your body. If you ignore this all you have done is supplemented your waste. Other products need to be taken with food so that they are part of the digestive process. I do not know how many people that are taking the wrong product expecting it to help in a specific area that it is not designed to do. Advertising usually is the cause of this.
School Physical / Doctor's Advice
Each school requires that your child has a physical before playing sports. This is a great opportunity for you to take the first step in making sure your child's health is what it should be. Where I live the local doctors provide free screening to help support the team. This is a minimum screening to meet the requirements of the school sports form. Do not let this be the only physical your child gets. Parents of kids who want to be serious athletes should not base their health on meeting a minimum requirement of the school. Most insurance companies will pay for one complete physical a year. Go to your doctor and get your child a complete workup. I have heard stories of kids who had heart defects and other health issues that were missed by the sports physical. These problems might have been caught during a complete physical. You do not want to find out there is a problem during practice, or a game. I cannot stress that your main objective must always be good health over sports performance. Always remember that your doctor should be part of the supplement / exercise process. We have found nothing but positives from adding supplements to our child's diet. If done properly I believe that this will be true for you. You will learn that your supplement cycle will have to be modified from time to time as I mentioned briefly before. Some of our modifications have been based on recommendations made by our doctor. If your child gets sick. (Measles, Mumps, flu etc...) stop taking all supplements until you talk to your doctor. When our body is sick it is out of balance.
Calender
Taking supplements properly requires a lot of discipline. We found a tool that helps us as a family to maintain this discipline. This is where you make sure that the supplement cycle fits the training and social calender for your family. For my son this lets him know that we are on top of everything to fit his needs. We are adding a calender to our shopping cart that has space to put your information on it. There is no guess work for our son as to what supplements he is supposed to take for each day. On his calender we detail what our son is supposed to do each day to include what supplements he is to take. We note what his workouts are for each day to include all of his sport events. For example if you looked at one of our calenders you may see weight training every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We decided to make Sunday the day where we post his body weight and measurements. His favorite thing that we put on his calender is his max lifts. Twice a month he sees just how much he can max and we post it. He laughs now as he looks back. By putting all of his workouts, games, trips, and extra events on the calender we can modify his supplements at the beginning of each month. The best part is we can tell which supplements provided him with the best results This is a key tool in helping to establish a supplement cycle that works while being able to map your progress. Just remember that this is not the military but your child. The cycle you establish needs to be one that he can follow without burning out. I have taken this to extremes in the past and it becomes torture for him and me. Always be prepared to be flexible if something comes up unexpected. Did I mention that open communication with your child in this process will make this work better for everybody?
Product Types:
Protein
If you were to tell me that you were only going to add one supplement to your child's diet...This is the one I would suggest. All of the research I have found shows that at every age your body can use protein to help heal itself. My 89 year old grandmother uses the protein powder and bars. When we added this to her diet she started to have more energy then she had in years. Did you know that the human body needs to take in one gram of protein a day per pound that you weigh? For an athlete in training this number goes up to a recommended 1 1/2 grams per pound minimum to 3 grams per pound.
A lot of food has protein in it and you can go to our additional resource links to get this information. Did you know that when you work out that you are stressing muscle? It is not the stressing of muscle that helps make you stronger but it is the recovery of that muscle in this process that makes you stronger. For those of you that are lazy. I did not say you do not have to stress muscle to become stronger! This is why kids that take supplements gain more then kids that do not. When you read about supplements you see words like healing stressed muscle and muscle recovery. All of these things are important. You can go to web sites like Web MD to read about the benefits of adding protein to your diet. There are different kinds of protein but the one we use and advise people to try is the Whey protein. The reason is that it is easier for the body to absorb and it starts to work faster then other proteins because of this. Protein is different then most supplements when you take into consideration the amount you need to take in a day. For example a 200 lb person that is sports training would gain strenth and muscle mass if they took in 2 grams per pound a day or 400 grams of protein a day. The best protein powders have around 24 grams of protein per drink so you have to be really serious to get your protein levels up to that level. There are some bars that have around 30 grams of protein. One key to remember is that your body cannot absorb a lot of protein at one time. If you try to load up on protein at one time you are probably going to loose most of it as waste unless you add enzymes or amino acids. Most proteins have some enzymes added to them. In our research we found that every study has different results regarding the total amount of protein a body can absorb at one time. The best rule is to add protein to your diet several times during the day either with diet or supplementation.
Do not stress if you look at your protein intake and you are only adding 60 grams a day above your normal intake. Most middle school kids start by adding a protein drink at breakfast and another one after working out. With this small increase in protein trainers tell me you can see positive results in as little as two weeks.
In our home we like to make smoothies with the protein powder. We sometimes add fruit, crushed ice, and yogurt. We use a protein drink to start our day. This can be used with breakfast but at our house it has become instant Breakfast. There are no morning people here and so putting a scoop of protein in a blender bottle with skim milk is breakfast on the run. Whey protein absorbs fast. It really works well to help heal stressed muscle if taken within 30-90 minutes of your workouts. It starts to work that fast. My son started taking whey protein four times a day. He did this because he worked out at school and at the local gym almost everyday. You can even use protein to help with your weight gain or weight loss goals. It is all about getting our body in balance. My son takes his protein with skim milk to help keep off the weight. It was his choice but he started to bring a blender bottle with a scoop of protein and 1/4 cup of oatmeal in it to school for lunch. He loved it as it helped him feel better while getting more protein into his diet. He drinks another protein drink after working out at school and then another one after working out at the gym. He takes other supplements but the key to all of our supplement cycles is protein. When you are looking at the items you want for your child please remember that a lot of these products are in drink form. Get the big picture in choosing your supplements.
Protein / Weight Gain
One of my son's friends needed to gain weight. There are weight gain protein products. There are also protein products that have more calories to them. When looking at weight gain products you will notice that they come in smaller containers then the protein and that you have to take three times as much for a recommend serving. It can get expensive to use the weight gain products at the mixture they recommend. Also be careful as some of these products are loaded with sugar. We have found you can mix one scoop of weight gain with one scoop of regular whey protein and get results for a lot less money. You can also add items like peanut butter, fruit, icecream and oatmeal to name a few when looking to put on pounds.
We have a student that the parents asked us to take under our wing on helping him set up a supplement cycle. He needs to gain weight. A problem he has is that he loves to train in the gym. In truth he over trains. How can you tell someone that committed to quit? He is constantly overworking his muscles so we have to find a way to help him recover so he can get bigger and stronger. The solution we came up with for him was simple. We put him on the same protein as our son, who needs to lose his baby fat. We add one scoop of weight gain product to this and mix it with low fat Chocolate milk. He starts off his day with this protein drink and breakfast. Two hours later he eats a protein bar. This keeps his protein up during the day and provides him with a burst of calories. He eats his school lunch and then eats another bar two hours later. After practice he drinks another shake and then he takes another one after going to the gym. Before he goes to bed every night his mother mixes ice cream with protein and weight gainer. Sometimes she mixes it with pudding. You can mix it with anything according to your taste. One of the things I love about protein is that it comes in different flavors to keep you from getting burned out. For the first time this young man is putting on weight while building muscle. His strength gains had stalled until these changes were made to his supplement cycle. The reason was that he was stressing muscle more then he was able to recover with his normal diet. Adding these supplements allowed his strength to improve to dramatic levels. Now he is gaining strength weekly. It is all about muscle recovery. The two boys I mention here are the two strongest boys in their school. Both were recruited to play college football. Because of this a lot of our football team has added these same supplements to their diet. The other school coaches want to know how our guys got so much bigger and stronger from last year as this is a new school and they played varsity ball with no seniors their first year. The answer is right here!
Energy Products
You do not want to trust the advertisements as your reason for taking a product. Their goal is to sell their products. One thing you have to remember is that every body type has different needs. This is the first product type that I was forced to confront with my son. My son was training with older boys. As parents we all have fears of our child expermenting with illegal drugs. Every time you turn on the news you hear of drugs being found in the school systems. I never thought I needed to worry about off the shelf sports supplements. There are several products of this type available. The popular fad right now is the energy drinks. Some schools have these in the vending machines. In the gym locker rooms a lot of boys take these in a pill form. If you look at this product's label you will find warnings on not abusing this product. My son was provided some of these pills by an older boy. He read the label and took the recommended dosage. He told me that he felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest about 30 minutes later. The boy that provided these bought them with his own money at a GNC store. You can even get this type of product at Walmart! His parents were not even aware that he had them. Things like this are what causes parents to fear supplements with good reason. If he had taken these to enhance his game or during outside training it could have been very dangerous. We have all heard in the news of cases where this has caused death in athletes. Taking a product like this improperly to enhance their game is stupid. A professional baseball player died because he took three times the recommended dosage of a product like this before a game. This was an adult so please do not just leave it to your child to supervise themselves when taking a product like this!
In my research I found that these products have shown that they can help increase focus, strength, and endurance in weight room training. There have been many blind studies that all show positive impact to strength training while using these products. I have parents that want their kids to use the energy products properly. They tell me nothing but good things about them and how their son is able to have more pump in their workouts. The key if you are going to use this type of product is to use it properly.
Key Points To Supplement Use / Energy Products
Going back to my original advise on taking supplements applies here. Always use your child as the thermometer of what works for them. Do not just follow the directions on the label but use it as a guide. These products are meant to help with weight training. So only take it on weight training days. If it is in pill form and they advised a dosage of three pills. Then only take one pill for two weeks. If after two weeks you have had no problems you can increase the dosage by one pill. If you do not like the way you feel after adding a pill then go back to taking only one pill per day. Always use two weeks to establish a level before moving up to a higher dosage. If there are no problems after two weeks then you can be sure that your body is acclimated to this product. If you want to go up another pill until you reach the dosage recommended on the label...the two week method is the safe way to do this. In using the recommended dosage as a baseline does not mean you should ever take more then the advised dosage. You do not want to take these every day as you will build up a tolerance to the product and it will not provide you with the positive impact you are looking for. Even if you work out in the gym everyday I would not take this type of product more then three times a week. Let your child know that you do not have to take the recommended dosage to get the positive impact of the product. Remember your body is what you should use to decide dosage of any off the shelf product...no matter how old you are.
Bromelain
Most of the protein drink products have enzymes in them to help your body absorb all of the protein instead of it going to waste. It has a lot to do with how much protein you add to your diet. If you go to the local GNC store they will tell you that you need to add a sports enzyme to your diet to make sure that you are absorbing all of the protein you take. If you look at the sports enzyme products you will find that the active ingredient in most of them is Bromelain. You can save about $20 if you just buy Bromelain. We recommend to all of the parents that buy protein that they take Mega Bromelain Caps from Twin Lab. Being a capsule it absorbs as fast as the Whey protein which is important. We take this with the first shake of the day and the one following their last workout of the day.
Creatine
In buying supplements you will find that several companies like to mix their products together. You will find protein products that already have Creatine added to them. Not to mention energy products, and NO2 products that do the same. With middle school athletes I do not like this. I want more control of the dosage of the supplements my son is taking. There is also a lot of speculation in if you should start taking a product like Creatine at this age. Creatine is made in your body naturally. Consult with your doctor before using this type of product. If you decide you are ready there are some other things you should know. Look at the different types of Creatine and research which you think will fit your needs. Each type and mixture has different dosage requirements according to their label. There are two different schools of thought regarding how to take Creatine. Some people take it before sporting events and workouts. Some companies try to get you to take it before and after workouts. Of course their goal is to sell product. To me the entire concept of building strength and strong muscle has to do with recovery and healing of stressed Muscle. I did not come to this on my own as I talked with several trainers and professional supplement experts on this topic.
Creatine is not for everybody. Several studies say that women should never use Creatine of any kind but I know several women that take it. At a body building competition I was told that in smaller doses that it helps women with recovery just like the men. So once again you have to do your own research and consult your doctor regarding your specific needs. You can use our additional resource links to get their opinion as well. Creatine works in helping to heal stressed muscle by aiding in recovery. In doing so it pulls fluids and nutrients from your body to your muscle. That is why some people argue that Creatine only makes muscle look bigger because it draws fluid to the muscle. I can tell you that added to a workout cycle that Creatine helps build stronger muscle. I want to warn you that Creatine can cause damage to your kidneys if not taken properly. Creatine comes in different forms. You can take these in a powder to mix with water, in a pill, and even in a liquid serum that you drink.
If you are thinking of adding Creatine to your child's supplement cycle then you should consider this. Does your child have the discipline to drink one gallon of water a day? If the answer is no...then I would not let him take Creatine of any kind. Adding water with the Creatine helps the Creatine work without fear of getting kidney stones in the future. I allowed my son to take Creatine in middle school but it was regulated very closely. We did a lot of research and found a product that was in a pill form that did not require the loading phase that some Creatine products require. This product had less Creatine in it but was mixed so that it allowed more of the active product to be absorbed into muscle. This type of Creatine is called Esterified or Ester Creatine. Like all of the products we use we started below the recommended dosage and worked up using the two week dose method that we shared with you before.
Endothil CR
This product does not fit into any category as there is only one company that has the rights to it. We added this product to our supplement cycle during middle school for several reasons. First, it provides a little burst of energy to help with workouts. Second, this product has tons of medical research in showing what it can do to help muscle where people have injured in accidents. I even read a study based on hospitals using it for people who have been in a comma for muscle rehab. In the last few years this product been changed to a lower dosage to help athletes. Third, this product is all natural and legal in all sports. In everything we read on this product it shows that this works as a transporter of supplements in the body to stressed muscle that needs help. Since most workouts are designed for one area of the body this is perfect for the athlete. It works as part of a supplement cycle because your other supplements can catch a ride on this train to the part of the body that needs it the most. This company even supplies a suggested workout regiment you can follow while using this product. This workout starts off easy for the person just starting and then advances to work the athlete in your family. This product has a money back guarantee. We have sold tons of this product. Not one box has ever been returned but I have received several compliments of how this product helped. I recently gave a box of this to a local women body builder to see what she thought of it. Her response was to ask for more. The key is that you have to work one specific muscle until stressed complete muscle exhaustion to get the max benefit. One of the boys that works out with my son tore his ACL during football practice. He was able to continue to play football without causing any more injury to his knee. Not just did he play but he won State Awards for outstanding football play. The part that impressed me most is that after his surgery he continued to take the product with therapy. He got his full release to train with the football team one month earlier then he was scheduled to before his operation. His doctors wanted more information on this product based on these results.
NO2 Products
This is a product that is advertised to add more oxygen into your bloodstream and allows your body to build a better circulatory system. In our research we found all kinds of positives for the student athlete to use this kind of product. The problem we first found is that most of this type of product is sold mixed with other products like Amino Acids, Creatine, Caffeine, and even sugar. This product is sold in a powder that can be made into a drink, pill form, and even as a spray that you can apply to the skin of the muscle group you are working that day. The thing I noticed with the powders was that most of them added ingredients to give you a rush so that you would feel like you were gaining from using their product. We have sold just about every type of this product to parents of kids that we know. I did not get any negative feedback except for problems with leg cramps during football training in the heat because their item of choice had Creatine mixed with it. We got a lot of positive feedback regarding the spray on products. This is used before your weight room workouts as it increases blood flow to that area of the body. When we looked at NO2 products we found one that is listed in out specialty products pages. I have a son in the Army who introduced me to a product that is used to help by getting more oxygen into your body when working in higher elevations. This product is called Oxydrene. This is another one of those products that you cannot get everywhere. We sell a lot of supplements to our military in Iraq. Oxydrene is one of our most requested items. This is a great product. This product works in building a notable oxygen increase in your system. As with any product type we have several different products on our web site to choose from other then this one named here. The only downside to the Oxydrene is that it has to be taken on an empty stomach at least one hour before you eat. The other top seller of this type of product is NO-Xplode. We sell more of that then any product we carry.
Sports Endurance / Muscle Hydrate
There are hundreds of products that are advertised to meet this need. Just be careful that you are not getting a Creatine product mixed with what you are looking for. I have found people who may be taking two or more products that all have creatine mixed in them. There are some great products out there in a pill form but we kept away from them in middle school until our son got older. Most of these say to not take unless you are 18 years old. Fizogen has a product for this that the five time world Champion used in the UFC. We use this product with our older boys but not at the middle school level. It is a great product and there are tons of medical research on it. It was my decision not to use it based on keeping our supplement cycle simple while in middle school. All studies showed that it works well as part of a stack. The most accepted products of this type are sports drinks like Gatorade. We used to have a product in a powder that you mix with water called Accelerade. You can get this premixed but it is a little more expensive. We sold tons of this stuff to athletes, and people who work in the heat. Another company bought them out and we are working to add this back to our store. It not only keeps your body hydrated but it has additional protein in it. That magic product that I like for what it does to help stressed muscle. It also has ingredients in it that helps with maintaining your energy levels while keeping you hydrated. Not like some products that provide you a burst of energy and then leaves you feeling flat. There are several other products out there but for this age group this is the best that we have found...even if you cannot get it from us at this time. Keep checking our store as we will get this back if possible. We use this product before all outside sports training and games. Some of the kids did not like the taste of this product and used other hydration products that we carry. The main thing is to keep hydrated. If you know of a product that works better we would like to hear about it. In response to this I have had several e-mails about a product that is used by some NFL players and some college athletes. I will not name this product here because it is loaded with Creatine and should not be used with middle school kids for a hydration drink.
Summery
You can add vitamins and minerals that you feel will help your child with your supplement cycle. We added items that are advertised to help with joint support. While in middle school I advise most people to use the kiss method (keep it simple stupid) when adding supplements. As they get older, bigger, and began to stress their bodies even more you can look at adding stronger supplements to your cycle. Remember to keep good health as your goal to reach better sports performance. In high school we modified the Fizogen Mass Cycle after football season. We saw an increase in muscle mass and strength. He added four inches across his chest and shoulders. He also gained over 100 lbs in his bench during that 12 week cycle. We carry several supplement lines that have stacks set up to do the same thing to meet your taste. We still use the same rules to establish dosage when we added these new products. On most of these products we never got to the recommended dosage and we still got the results that we shared with you here. More is not always better! We will be adding advertised stacks to our web site during the next few weeks to help you with this process. You can always e-mail us if you have specific questions. When you order a complete stack you get a free ALERT t-shirt. You must e-mail us with the your size. During middle school stay away from products to help enhance hormone production unless your doctor advises these items are needed. We have found studies that show if products of this type are started too early that it may cause the opposite effect. Remember...Do not get burned by listening to expensive advertisements or paid endorsements. Read the labels and see which products actually have the most of the ingredients in them that you are trying to add to your cycle. Remember you can trust that you are always getting only first quality products from ALERT1.