Performance supplements: what's science and what's snake oil? Ft. Brady Holmer transcript

If you're the kind of runner who's tried a beat shot before a race or wondered whether that bottle of ketones is actually doing anything, you're going to love this week's episode. Today's guest is Brady Homer, sports science writer and author of the popular newsletter, Physiologically Speaking. And he's here to cut through the noise on which supplements are actually backed by research and which ones are just really good marketing.

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Shop altitudesports.com and use promo code shakeout 2026 to get up to 20% off your first order. Conditions apply. You'll find all the details and the link in the episode description. You hear the marketing team at any number of different sports supplement companies tell it. Your next personal best is just one sip, slurp, or shot away. Whether it's the latest superfood concentrate, the greatest powdered potion, or maybe even a new topical gel, the market for performance supplementation is a crowded one with each new product promising some combination of performance buzzwords like optimal recovery, reduced blood lactate, greater muscular endurance, or delayed onset fatigue.

But with so many options out there, is there really one silver bullet when it comes to maximizing performance? And where does good old-fashioned hard work fit into the mix in the age of performance stacking supplements? In the second installment of the Shakeout podcast series on running buzzwords, we're joined by sports science writer Brady Homer to help us cut through the hype and understand the science behind some of today's most talked about performance hacking supplements.

From beetroot and by carb to ketones and creatine, Brady has not only applied his background in human performance to understanding the science behind the supplements, but has put them to use in the real world as a highle marathoner himself. This week, we're taking a deep dive into the science of supplements to help you figure out how these supposed performance boosters work, how they measure up against their own claims, and what's really worth your time and money when it comes to maximizing performance.

Brady, welcome to the Shakeout Podcast. >> Hey, John. Thanks a lot for having me on. >> Really excited. As I mentioned off air, longtime listener, first- time caller, you've been someone whose newsletter has been of great interest to me for a long time. really your ability to to cut through the noise and tackle some of the questions around performance boosting supplements and technologies uh is something I've really appreciated because it can be a pretty opaque world to wade through.

There's so much out there. Um and to my mind, it really feels like in the last couple of years especially, we've been living through sort of a revolution in sports science for the masses. We're seeing all of these new products come to market seemingly every month. And by the time you have the opportunity to try something new, there's new research that something even greater or later has come along. Um, it almost feels like we're back to that super shoe revolution of the late 201s where suddenly the science is taking off and performances are going crazy and being attributed to these um really interesting but sometimes misunderstood supplements.

And so with that, I guess first question for you is what's your perception been from within the scientific community in terms of this sense of rapid innovation that we seem to be living through right now. >> Yeah, we I think you put it perfectly like we are in this rapid period of at least performance evolution where we're just seeing I mean I feel like it's every week at this point. You're seeing some record broken in the endurance sports realm.

I mean, you're seeing that in running. You're seeing it in cycling with just these ridiculous power outputs and stuff like at the tour to France. So, the performance revolution is certainly here. And then I think, yeah, everybody is searching for like the explanation, you know, what's going on here. Is it is it the technology? Is it the shoes? Is it the training? Is it the supplements? Of course, the the correct answer is it's probably all three.

But I have seen a lot of attribution to supplements. You know, I think five or so years ago it was, okay, these shoes, the super shoes are making all these dramatic advances. I almost think that that's slowed a little bit. I don't know if we're hitting like a a shoe technology plateau a little bit. You know, there's only so light and so, you know, cushiony that these shoes can get. Whereas with supplements, there's always something new.

There's always something supposedly that's going to be helping. And so, I'm seeing a lot of the performance stuff attributed to supplements. Um, and I guess I wouldn't include, you know, like the high carb revolution kind of in there, but that's certainly, I would say, being um, given main attribution as to these performance like evolutions. You know, the high carb fueling and athletes are fueling better. But yeah, supplements, you know, there are a few probably two or three supplements out there that are being given a lot of credit.

Um, and it's very interesting to observe to obviously like partake in as an athlete. You can test these supplements yourself. So yeah, it's been very interesting just to kind of see what all the talk is about and see what people are um attributing which supplements that people are attributing these various performances to. >> You know, you talk about us reaching kind of this homeostasis or leveling off in the super shoe revolution uh going back to the mid20s, Nike the first to market with their breaking two and the 4% and a lot of companies playing catch-up.

And now we've reached this stage where it seems like every running brand worth its salt has a pretty comparable model on the market. We're no longer in this age of incredible disparity. But to your point that doesn't exist yet in the world of supplements. And as we kind of continue ramping up this revolution, is there anything that comes to mind immediately? You talk about excluding high carb from the mix. I think that's a conversation for another day.

But outside of that, is there anything that comes to mind as kind of an equivalent to the Nike 4%, let's say, in terms of a first in commercialf facing product that really got the mass market thinking about, hey, maybe I can be taking something that's going to help me tap into my maximum potential on race day or in hard training sessions. any product that comes to mind as kind of the first one to kick in the door and really start the supplement revolution we find ourselves in now. >> Yeah, I think I think that um would go to bicarb probably.

I mean sodium bicarbonate and specifically like bicarbonate isn't new by any means. I mean people sodium bicarbonate it's probably one of the most researched sports science uh supplements actually um and it works but you know in regards to endurance running it's relatively new and sort of Morten has come in and sort of revolutionized the whole bicarbonate packaging system because if anybody has you know used bicarbonate or heard about you know the potential downsides of it there's a lot of gastrointestinal distress there that can be associated with it and that's just due to how it you know reacts with within the body.

Um it can be kind of nasty. So Morton comes in, introduces this new hydrogel technology where basically you can package the bicarbonate in these little like gel type balls, put it in this gel, and then athletes can sort of you can take it in multiple different routes, but you know, you ingest it, it doesn't react with stomach acid, it sits better in the stomach. It's kind of like a more delayed kind of release type of thing.

So that technology has allowed athletes to use it um tolerate it better. And I definitely think that um I would attribute now I'll clarify here. I would attribute kind of the technological revolution as being maybe analogous to the super shoes whether it's actually helping with the performances though and maybe this is something we'll get into. I'm a little bit more skeptical of that um just because as I mentioned all of the research there on by carb and even the physiology of um sodium bicarbonate itself suggests that it's good for like 15 minutes or less of very high intensity exercise.

We don't have any idea how it's actually affecting the marathon. There's a lot of speculation out there um that I've been you know listening to over the past year or so. Um, so yeah, I would I would probably put bicarbonate up there, you know, to draw that analogy that you were referencing. >> I'd love to spend some time on bicarb. I I knew this was going to be a topic that would come up. At its simplest, sodium bicarbonate, essentially baking soda, the same compound found in baking soda.

And I think back to my early days competing on the track of guys taking their own DIY home brerew of baking soda. And it was kind of a 50-50 chance of you might run a PB, you might end up running to a portaotti because it was so volatile and explosive in some senses of the word. You mentioned that GI distress that it can cause. And I think that the way that Morton came in with this new hydrogel technology where it was encapsulating the sodium bicarb, the actual active agent in something that was easier to digest so that you weren't getting the GI distress is something that we'll see throughout some of these other supplements that we touch on later.

It's something that I want to bear in mind as we proceed is that there are some real risks associated with some of these not necessarily in their long-term effects but the performance potential sometimes is offset by the potential for GI distress or mistiming so that it actually has a negative impact on performance. I think of like something like a caffeine crash. High carb fueling too I think you know that's something to think about when we're talking about high carb fueling.

It all seems good and well which I think it is. I mean, more is better until it's not. When it comes to high carb fueling, it's like you if you never fuel a run and then you just decide to take 100 grams uh per hour on race day, that's probably not going to end up too well because your your GI system can't tolerate that much. You have to train the gut. So, I think there's a lot of uh you know, an analogy can be drawn there too as well.

It's like yes, high carb is good and if you go from 60 to 80 to 90 to 100 grams per hour, so long as you train to do that, that's good. Um, but you can, you know, are the ben are the uh benefits greater than like the risk that you may experience GI distress and if you have to use the portaotti during your marathon because you were fueling over fueling quote unquote over fueling, you know, that might not be worth the two to three minutes you hope to gain by fueling, you know, very very aggressively.

So, there could be potential downsides to all of these supplements that we're going to talk about. >> Yeah. and important to recognize like any modality that someone's going to be incorporating into their training. Important to experiment with it before the big race. Just like you're not going to try a brand new pair of shoes before race day. Probably not the time to crack open by carb for the first time the morning of your marathon or half marathon or track race.

I'd love to spend a little bit of time. You mentioned that by carb works directly on our body's lactate producing systems. Could we spend a bit of time clarifying what we're talking about when we're talking about lactate production as it relates to lactic acid and the positive and negative effects that that has on performance? >> Yeah. Yeah. I'll I'll try to do that without doing like an entire physiology lecture because we could be here like all day.

But, you know, unfortunately, lactate kind of has this um this history in sports science where it got a bad rap for a long time. And that's sort of reversing. Um essentially you know when you are exercising especially if that exercise is high intensity where you're burning a lot of carbohydrate your body is producing lactate because when your body breaks down sugar when it breaks down glucose it forms a molecule called pyuvate.

Pyuvate is then transformed into lactate. So lactate is a is a byproduct I think waste product. It's sometimes been called a waste product but it's certainly not waste. um our body can actually use lactate as a fuel. Um that's potentially hinting at another supplement we could maybe talk about later that people are using. Um so the body produces lactate not just during highintensity exercise, not just not just during quote unquote anorobic.

That's another kind of myth about lactate is that oh it's when your body is starved of oxygen then it's producing lactate. No, it's producing lactate all the time. You and I talking here our body is producing lactate albeit at a low level. The reason that you can't detect it in the blood is because it's being cleared at the same rate that we are producing it. So you produce lactate during exercise. The higher the intensity, the more lactate you produce.

That's just because you're burning sugar, burning glucose at a higher rate. So your body has producing more pyuvate, more energy production, and more lactate as a byproduct. Um, as I mentioned, you know, your body can then recycle though that lactate into glucose via this process called the Corey cycle. Um, so you can use lactate as a fuel. your body can actually use it and recycle it. Um, the problem then becomes not the lactate itself, but what's kind of associated with lactate production is hydrogen ions.

Those are also produced when lactate is produced, just the process of metabolism. And these hydrogen ions, they're basically very acidic. So, the more of those that you produce, the more acidic your blood becomes. And that interferes with muscular contraction. And that's really the one of the major sources of fatigue. So you don't get fatigued, you don't feel that burning sensation because your body is flooded with lactic acid.

Um you get that burning sensation because of the hydrogen ions. Your blood is physically becoming more acidic, chemically becoming more acidic and that's interfering with muscle contraction. You cause your muscle to fatigue. That's why you get that burning. Um and so that's really the result of that higher intensity exercise and why high intensity exercise burns so much. And so where does bicarbonate come in? Bicarbonate essentially the best way that I can describe it is it sort of mops up or soaks up it acts like a sponge for those hydrogen ions.

So it buffers them. So it prevents your blood from becoming too acidic and it thereby prevents you know that fatigue or that burning sensation that you're going to experience when you're really really exercising at a high intensity. And that's the reason why by carb has had such such success in like middle distance exercise research because if you're running an 800 a 1500 you're just producing so much hydrogen ions and so your blood's becoming so acidic.

So if you can buffer that you're going to get a big performance improvement >> and I think important to reiterate that a lot of the sports science especially early on in the by carb revolution focused on these middle distance events. anything kind of from the 2 to 10 minute range where in maybe old-fashioned speak now, people were producing a lot of lactic acid and getting that lactic burn. Um, and we now know that that's not actually what they're experiencing necessarily, but rather their by carb [clears throat] is working to help them tap into that lactate source as a fuel source longer instead of getting overflooded with the hydrogen ions.

Staying in the realm of lactate, lactic acid, even though maybe we've clarified that is a bit of a misnomer when we talk about performance. I want to shift now to the next supplement on our list and it's one that we've featured on this show in the past. Uh but it's having a bit of a moment particularly in the last year or so and that's Nomio, which is a broccoli based lactic acid adjusting supplement, but it works in an entirely different way than something like by carb.

I think a lot of times it's misconstrued as an alternative to by carb, but we're seeing that it actually has a different physiological response in the body. Tell us a little bit about Nomio and how it works on the same lactic production system. >> Yeah, I will say it first. I think even the the science the company itself on their page, they they they claim that they don't precisely know even how it works. It does lower lactate, but they're actually not quite sure how it does that, which is kind of interesting and one of the reasons why, you know, I've used Nomio several times with I would say like reasonable success and I'm very interested in it, but um my skeptical hat always goes on with with any supplement, I think, even ones that I use myself.

So, yeah, Nomio, it's it's the broccoli sprout extract. Um and the main compound in it uh is something called isothiocyanates. And these are essentially um they're just compounds. They're they act as like signaling molecules in the body. They kind of cause this pseudo like stress response. They activate something called NRF2. It's kind of our body's inflammatory response uh one of our body's these proteins that signal the inflammatory response in the body.

And so as you correctly mentioned, you know, John, you said it's not it's not an alternative to like by carb because if it is if it is reducing lactate and the studies would suggest it it does reduce lactate at submax exercise, but um they don't exactly know how it's doing it, but it's yeah, it's working via this alternative pathway, this different stress response pathway. And that's why I think maybe it's more interesting to talk about in terms of an adaptive perspective maybe than an acute performance perspective.

Um because if it is activating that NRF2 pathway, you know, you could go one of two ways. It could go you're going to maybe kind of enhance this adaptive signal by causing a bit of extra stress after your workout and cause the body to adapt more. Maybe you're getting like more mitochondria or you're going to um increase your lactate threshold or your speed at your lactate threshold. On the other hand, you know, I have heard and maybe even expressed some concerns myself over, you know, there was a story a long time ago about antioxidants and you should take antioxidants after exercise because you want to reduce inflammation.

But then all these studies came out showing well you don't really you want the inflammatory response after exercise because you know that's kind of what leads to adaptation and if you blunt that you may actually reduce some of the adaptations. I don't think, you know, maybe something similar could be happening with this. And I just think we don't have enough data yet, you know, so it could could potentially help with long-term adaptations, could potentially interfere with some other ones, but again, I'm not I'm not quite sure given like the limited uh studies we have on that, but essentially that's how it's working.

And and it does reduce lactate during exercise. Again, not quite sure how. And this is where, you know, I'll express maybe a little bit of my skepticism on this this side of this supplement because if it is not, so if Nomio isn't acting like by carb, we know by carb works because it mops up those hydrogen ions. Well, if Nomio is reducing lactate, but it's not necessarily buffering the acidity during exercise, my question then becomes whether those lower levels dur lactate levels during exercise are actually a good thing.

Because you, as you and I just mentioned, lactate isn't bad, right? I mean, it's what it's associated with that is bad. So, lower levels of lactate during exercise to me indicates somewhat maybe my body's sugar burning system is actually downregulated a little bit. So, if I'm producing less lactate, maybe my glycolytic or my glucose burning output has taken a hit and I'm not actually able to burn as many carbs as I would if I were not taking it.

That's kind of something that recently I was just thinking about. Um, you know, because if we have this whole paradigm that lactate isn't necessarily bad, well, why do I want to why do I want to lower lactate during exercise, actually, it might not actually be that good of a thing. So, that's just one of the reasons why I'm I'm still like waiting on a little more data and a little more evidence to come out on this Nomio supplement.

A lot of athletes are using it. Anecdotally, they're reporting they're performing better. Even I just mentioned, you know, I've done a couple workouts with it and I'm like, "Oh, well, I had a good workout, but would I have had a good workout if I didn't take it?" So, to me, unfortunately, anecdotes aren't evidence for me that like this supplement is actually doing something beneficial because as I'm, you know, sure you're aware of the the placebo effect and expectations are a real thing that influence what how something affects us.

I mean, if I take I'm drinking a Diet Coke right now. If you told me diet coke improves my marathon performance, it might if I drink it, but that doesn't mean it's actually doing something in my body. It just means, you know, I'm believing in it so strongly that it's it's going to help. So, lot of anecdotes with this Nomio supplement lately. I think there is some science to support it. There's some mechanism, but it's one I'm uh definitely waiting a little bit on. >> Still early days in getting some conclusive research to confirm it.

I like that you bring up the element of placebo because I think that that's a important factor and not necessarily one that we should entirely dismiss right to recognize that if an athlete believes something is helping them that's already helpful in and of itself. You talk about using it for workouts and the times I've used it for workouts are typically the ones where >> I'm looking to get that bit of an edge, that silver bullet, so to speak.

And so there's other factors contributing to those workouts going well. Maybe I've prioritized my fueling, my carb intake, or maybe I've gotten a little bit of extra sleep before that session and I take the Nomio shot on top of it and I have a great workout. Tough to parse apart whether that's no meio, whether it's everything else, whether it's a little bit of both. Um, but important that we recognize that yeah, the placebo effect in and of itself could be part of the fold.

And you know, as we talk about shifting away from lactate as a fuel source and the potential downsides that come with that now that we have this recognition that actually we we want to be using all of these different fuel sources in order to maximize performance to be consuming glycogen or to be consuming or yeah consuming carbohydrate over the course of an event like the marathon. I want to shift to another supplement in the realm of the world of lactate which we've been spending some time in and that's something that's pretty new to the market at least new to my ears and that's lactate gels.

Talk to me about what a lactate gel means, what it is relative to the standard issue glucose fructose gels that we all know and if not love tolerate. >> Yeah, some tolerate, some love. I actually have grown to love gels actually. I kind of look forward to them on my run. It's like a little uh it's a little treat, you know, every uh 20 minutes or so. >> Same way. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, there are so many good ones now.

Nobody likes goos, you know, the original energy gels. Those things are like uh cake icing in a in a little packet, but the stuff now is uh pretty good. I was, >> you know, not to go on a tangent, but yeah, I had a Betaf Fuel electrolyte gel today, the strawberry lime one. Like so good. I would just might have this start having them for breakfast. >> Put them on your toast instead of jam. >> Exactly. Exactly. Um, so yeah, lactate gels, very, very new.

These are a supplement I haven't actually p like tried myself yet, just because they're not um commercially available. I believe in probably the next couple weeks we'll be people will be able to buy them on places like the feed. Um, but a couple companies are producing them and selling them. And yeah, the I think tours riders have been reported to be using them. I think there was a report that Sawe used a lactate gel when he ran um the sub two-hour marathon. >> I believe both Sawe and Yacha both both men that broke two in London this spring. >> Yep.

So the lactate gels basically you are just providing an exogenous source. So you know an edible or a source outside the body of of lactate. So the same molecule that your body produces um you would just be ingesting via a gel. Now, it's not just a lactate gel in and of itself. As far as I know, I believe it's a gel that maybe has something like five grams of lactate paired with there's some carbohydrates in the gels as well.

At least the one that I saw, I believe maybe had like 40 grams of carbs and five grams of lactate along with it. So, this is operating on the theory, you know, going back a few minutes ago when you and I were talking about lactate. Our body can use lactate as a fuel. So the theory is if you just give the body lactate, it's going to use that as an another or a complimentary or an alternative fuel source to glucose and fructose and you know sugar basically that we're using during exercise.

And why that kind of theory makes sense is you know the reason glucose and fructose gels are the reason why you have these energy gels that have different sugars in them glucose and fructose and not just a single sugar is because our body has limited transport for all of these sugars. So you can't really take you can take about you know 60 grams of glucose per hour. If you go above that your body basically the transporters that put take glucose and put it into your system get saturated and they can't transport anymore.

So 60 grams is like the limit for that. But if you put fructose in that gel it uses a whole different type of transporter. So you can do 60 grams from the glucose and maybe get another 60 grams from fructose because it uses this different transporter. um that allows you to do 100 or 120 grams per hour without getting all that gastrointestinal distress. Well, lactate then uses a totally different transporter than either glucose or fructose because it's a different type of of molecule.

So, you can saturate your glucose transporters, saturate your fructose transporters, and then have this lactate gel. So, maybe you're maximizing all the carbs that you can use, burn, um oxidize during exercise. Then you have lactate coming. Well, maybe the body, the theory is that the body can actually then take that lactate and use it as an additional fuel source. It just gives you more overall substrate to use during exercise.

I haven't seen um any studies that actually show if you take that lactate gel, your body is burning. You know, I'm sure the studies are either being done or maybe close to being done and hopefully will be published. You know, you can put tracers on the lactate and see if the body's actually using it. Um so, I would love to see proof that the body is actually using lactate. in addition to glucose and fructose during exercise.

But that's the theory behind these is that you're able to just provide the lactate and use that as an alternative fuel source. Um the theory makes sense to me. Again, I'm not totally convinced and it's interesting to me that we have all these supplements that like Nomio, you want to lower lactate, but then people want to take lactate in order to boost performance. It's kind of some of these ideas kind of come at a crossroads and I'm like hopefully people aren't using them all at the at the same time. and maybe use them for different purposes.

But yeah, the lactate gels are are certainly interesting and I think it's something in the next year or so we'll be getting a lot of anecdotal data on probably because athletes will be able to buy them and use them. >> That usage simultaneously is something that I think we will get to later in the show. But I appreciate you bringing up the seeming mixed message of one brand telling us we want to lower lactate, another brand telling us we want to consume more lactate exogenously.

Again, intuitively it makes sense why we would want to consume more if it is a fuel source. If we're maxing out our glucose and fructose consumption ability over the span of an hour, why not add another fuel source that uses a different transporter into the mix? But that idea of mixed messaging, I think, is what makes this such a difficult field for your committed runner to navigate because they hear these things that they should absolutely be doing, promising to boost performance, but then they're hearing a conflicting report from another rival supplement company saying, "Well, actually, this is what you want to be doing using this pathway or this supplement to achieve the same end by a completely different or sometimes oppositional means.

And that brings me to the next area of conversation, which is ketones. Now, the first thing that came to mind when I started hearing about ketones, and I imagine this is the case for some of our listeners, is the idea of ketosis, which is essentially when the body, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, starts shifting most of its fuel consumption from our primary source, carbohydrates, glucose, fructose typically, to burning fat.

And there's been long-standing studies. We've even had people on this show, I think, of world champion race walker Evan Duny, who's participated in studies about how does the body efficiently burn fat for endurance. Now, it's not as readily consumable of a fuel source as glucose fructose. There's a reason why we slurp back sugar when we're running a marathon and not condensed bacon grease. But these ketones uh do they relate at all to that idea of ketosis and to consuming fat?

And is that in the same realm maybe as introducing lactate as a fuel source? Are ketones working to help us introduce fat as a fuel source or am I missing the mark there? So they do relate to the idea of ketosis, but there's a big difference between exogenous ketosis which would be achieved via a supplement like an exogenous ketone and endogenous. So endogenous ketosis is what you're thinking of say somebody on a ketogenic diet where they're eating 50 grams or less of carbohydrate per day, a super highfat diet, or they're fasting for a couple days.

In those cases, your body does not have lots of glucose available. And so it starts to burn fat and produce ketones, which are these molecules in the body that the body can also use for energy. So when you're in ketosis, that essentially just means your blood ketone levels are are elevated. Um, you can get into ketosis two ways. As I mentioned, you can fast, you can eat a ketogenic diet. Um, actually, you know, if you wake up in the morning and just go on like a 10 mile run or something and haven't eaten breakfast, you're probably in ketosis by the end of the run, uh, after an overnight fast.

So, you can do it that way, too. You can get in ketosis via exercise. But with the ketone supplements, the idea is different because, you know, you mentioned Evan Duny was part of a lot of these studies on the keto diet. the keto diet, you know, to put it straight, it sucks for endurance performance. There was this long theory for a long time, it's like, oh, you're burning fat, so it's going to be this incredible performance enhancer because you'll spare glycogen and then you're going to be able to just get this surge at the end of the race because you have all this glycogen.

None of that panned out in the research. It makes you less efficient. You're using more oxygen during exercise to run at the same pace. It doesn't spare muscle glycogen at all. So it's just the nail is pretty much in the coffin in terms of the keto diet is something that endurance athletes who are competing at a high level should be consuming. Um so here income exogenous ketones probably five or 10 years ago. This is the idea that you can take these.

It's basically a drink. Most of them are drinks in the form of like a shot. I have wish I had some up in my office but I don't currently right now. Um you can take ketones in the form of a shot. you drink it and it will put your body into the ketosis without fasting, without the keto diet. Um, so you're just giving the body this exogenous source of ketones and then your body can burn those ketones as a fuel. Your brain uses them, your heart uses them, your muscles can use them and remarkably, the good thing is you can still eat carbohydrates while doing it.

So you can take ketones with carbs and your body will use the ketones and it will use the carbs. So that was kind of the idea behind ketones. And 10 or so years ago, there was a lot of hype around them as performance boosting supplements because it's kind of the same theory as the keto diet. You know, if you take ketones, you're going to burn the ketones first. You're going to save your glucose for later. You're not going to burn as many carbs, and then at the end of like say a two-hour race, you're going to be able to call upon those glycogen stores that you haven't burned and and race harder.

There were dozens of studies on exogenous ketones. Really uh really unremarkable really. They don't they don't really seem to improve performance that much. And by that I mean like physical output, power output, running speed. They don't really seem to do much there. There's a little bit some interesting research showing that like during exercise they might help with cognitive performance, which is actually kind of an interesting um idea.

There was some studies in ultrarunners like they increase dopamine during ultra running and prevent you from like this cognitive decline because the brain can use them. So that's kind of an interesting area of the performance research. Are they going to help you like actually race faster? Probably not. Um and that's kind of an idea I had to reconcile with because I was and still am, you know, a very big fan of exogenous ketones and I use them myself.

But there's a specific use case for them and it's not take it before your marathon and race faster. um it really has switched more to the recovery and the adaptation side. Now there are some interesting studies showing if you take them after a workout, maybe a couple servings after a workout a few times per week, you can enhance some of the adaptations to exercise. So like better V2 max, more mitochondria. Recent study just showed they actually boosted EPO um if you took a high dose after exercise.

So it's still kind of an emerging area of research. Not a lot of studies there, but that's basically how they work. Um, and yeah, it's it's interesting to to kind of communicate the idea of ketosis because as you mentioned, it's like everybody's mind just goes initially to the keto diet, but these are a totally different kind of supplement. Um, if it really is analogous to like providing the lactate, it's an alternative fuel that the body can use. >> And so, what about that fuel source makes it so valuable in the recovery phase of a training cycle? >> Yeah, I think multiple things.

So, one is the actual energy side of things. I think that if you are taking them, it it just, you know, your body can use the ketones as energy. So said maybe your brain's using the ketones and instead of using up glucose that could be used for muscle glycogen replenishment, the ketones are sort of replacing that and just allowing your body to maybe use protein more effectively, use carbohydrates more effectively for recovering from exercise.

But ketones, um, interestingly enough, are actually also a signaling molecule, kind of like lactate. They tell the body to turn on all these programs for gene signaling and gene regulation and inflammation and adaptation. That's really how I think that they're working for the recovery process. They're kind of just telling the body adapt in this specific way. And I think that's like the EPO thing. You know, why would they increase EPO?

They're they're going to the body and initiating all these signaling molecules that say, "Oh, let's increase red blood cell production." So, that's kind of how they're helping with recovery and adaptation. Today's episode of the Shakeout Podcast is brought to you by the North Face Summit Series. Athlete tested, expedition proven, across continents, any conditions, all terrain. The North Face Summit Series trail running gear is the manifestation of over 25 years of development and innovation.

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Level up your kit and check out the new Offtrail Ultra and Summit Series gear from The North Base at the Northbase.com. Staying in the realm of shots, we've now covered a couple that come packaged in something that you can knock back, which has a lot of appeal because they're an easy thing to implement into one's diet. You know, I think one of the big boons [clears throat] for a product like Nomio when they first came on market and were promising similar results, albeit by a different pathway than say by carb was this is going to be way easier to take.

It's a tiny glass vial. You shoot it back the same way you would a ketone shot instead of having to slog your way through a goopy soup of sodium by carb solution. And staying in the realm of shots, this is one that I've been hearing about for years and years and years, even going back to the very early days of my own competitive career on the track, but it seems to be having a bit of a renaissance now, and that's nitrate shots, particularly beetroot seems to be the go-to.

Uh, so we're back in the world of vegetables in condensed shootable form. I know that you talked a little bit about nitric oxide earlier in our conversation and its anti-inflammatory properties. What's going on with the beetroot shots? Are [clears throat] they another one that we should be knocking back the way that we're knocking back our ketones or our Nomio? >> I think so. And what makes beetroots interesting? Beetroot shots or nitrates?

Um, it's kind of there really is no downside to them because it really is just like this very concentrated form of uh vegetable juice and beetroot juice. Um, I guess the only downside would be something called Beturia, which basically your your urine turns bright red a couple hours after the first time you uh use it. If you're not prepared for it, let me tell you, >> it is a shock. I remember the first time I drank beet juice.

It was in an indoor track meet when I was I think like a sophomore in college. I ran the 30,000 meters. You know, I had beetroot before and I got back to my dorm like later that night and I went to the bathroom and I was like convinced I was urinating blood and then I think, "Oh, wait a second. I took the beetroot juice and like my anxiety uh quelled a little bit. So yeah, something to be aware of there. But no downsides other than that.

So I would I honestly think that beetroot juice or nitrates is probably the most researched one of the most researched supplements in like endurance sports and it it really does work. So nitrates when you eat them um they you know are metabolized by your body and they produce nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a vasod diilator. It helps your blood vessels dilate and so you can just when that happens you can deliver more oxygen to the body.

So the theory is like perfect you know who doesn't want more oxygen. We know if you can get more oxygen to your working muscle you can have a higher output during exercise perhaps and then increase your exercise economy or become more efficient. Research is kind of unequivocal um that it really works you know it to do that improves economy it improves oxygen delivery. Um, I would say the one caveat there though is it seems to work better the less trained or the less fit you are.

So if you take the elite of the elite, beetroot might help, but it's not probably going to be the most impactful supplement for you. If you're slightly less trained, maybe somebody going from like a couch to a marathon, potentially could be something that works for you. And then when you look at like the opposite end of the spectrum, people with peripheral artery disease or cardiovascular disease, it really works for them.

It's like it's like EPO for them. If they take beetroot juice before exercise, it like unlocks this their exercise capacity just goes up. And that's just because oxygen is a limiter for them. Whereas athletes like you and I, you being way more elite than I, but athletes like you and I who are pretty well trained, we're, you know, that's not really the limiter for us. Our bodies are very good at delivering oxygen, but other than that, I mean, the economy standpoint, they're going to work well from that.

They're actually just good for overall heart health and blood pressure, too. So, I mean, if you're an athlete, you know, you may not have high blood pressure, but just as like a cardiovascular health supplement. You could just be taking like a shot of beetroot juice every day or eating some leafy greens. Those also contain nitrates, although a concentrated beet shot is going to be way more effective than probably eating like a couple bags of spinach, which nobody really wants to do.

Um, but yeah, beetroot juice and nitrates um are are fantastic as like a supplement. Definitely works. Definitely worth a shot. Um, pun intended there, I guess. But, uh, definitely worth trying out. Pro relatively inexpensive, too. Probably compared to some of these other supplements. Um, so yeah, something I've taken and um, you know, enjoy enjoy taking regardless of whether I'm experiencing this massive benefit >> and putting them into practice.

Is there a timing that we need to keep in mind when shooting something like a beetroot shot or is it working the way that some more run-of-the-mill supplements are working as long as you're loading it in your daily diet, it's going to be effective no matter what time of day or what time of the week you're competing? or is this something that we're taking particularly pre-performance? >> Yeah, beetroot is going to be a pre-performance thing.

There are there are some studies where it's like they'll they'll supplement with it every day. I think that is kind of a more cardiovascular health, maybe vascular function more relatable for that. If you're just doing it for a performance boost, yeah, you want to take it before exercise. You want to do it about an hour before exercise. That's when the levels of nitrates will kind of spike in your blood after taking it. putting all of these things into practice.

Now, couple of points that you brought up that I want to spend some time on. One, you make the distinction between the untrained general population and a more trained population. Many of our listeners probably consider themselves runners uh are fitter than your average person coming off of the couch. And and that's something we addressed a couple of weeks ago in an episode focused on V2 max was simply the reality that an endurance and athletes heart after a certain level is already doing a pretty great job of things like transporting oxygen to the body.

And so you get those diminishing marginal returns. And so I think the question that it raises is at what point do these supplements become maybe peripheral to performance? Is there a point at which on the one hand they're no longer necessary because an athlete has done enough via training or lifetime mileage, whatever it might be, aerobic development, that they no longer need kind of a silver bullet or perhaps on the flip side, are there certain supplements out there that really aren't going to make a difference unless you're looking for that half a percent of performance boost?

And it comes to the idea of how do we mix these all together? How do we create what the the popular terminology lately has been calling the performance stack? Um the the list of supplements that we're taking, the order that we're taking them in. What's been your experience of trying to decipher which ones to take, how often, when to take them, and which ones maybe to discard, or to recognize that, hey, the the benefit of this isn't really worth the investment in time or money. >> Yeah.

I think I think something to keep in mind with I mean nearly all supplements is that I think a lot of them are marginal gains. If you're an athlete training hard who has the basics covered, sleep, training, recovery, stress, you know, all the things that I don't need to repeat, most pretty much all supplements are going to make a a minor difference. I mean, even compared to say something like just putting on a super shoe, they're you know, they pale in comparison to that. you get a huge performance boost from a super shoe.

No supplement even comes close to the performance boost I think you're going to get from a super shoe. High carb fueling would be that. But again, I don't really consider that. I mean, you are supplementing carbs, but you know, we haven't talked about that as like a supplement. So, um, yeah, I think one really just needs to think about the the potential overlap here and keep in mind that there is not going to be probably an additive effect of all these supplements.

Say this one gives you 1%. This supplement gives you 1%. this one gives you 2%. You're not going to get a 4% performance boost because there's lots of overlap when it when it comes here. You know, if one if they're both improving your efficiency somehow, then there's not an additive effect on your efficiency. It's going to be like, well, maybe you just get a 1.2% boost from both of these instead of the combined 4% boost.

There's not like this multiplicative effect of of the supplements. Um, so yeah, how would I think about stacking them? I mean, it's a very interesting question. You know, I think there's only so many that you can take if you're doing like a pre-race supplement stack. I mean, you probably don't want to do by carb and Nomio and, you know, also take an exogenous ketone before the start line. I mean, I think just practically and sort of intuitively an athlete would be like, okay, I do I need to be just shoving all of this stuff into my body before the race?

Probably not. I think the only way to really determine whether something works, you know, that could be subjectively or objectively is just to try it out and one make sure you don't have any adverse effects with it. That's one of kind of my I guess uristics when I'm like evaluating a supplement. I'm like, okay, I am not actually running a trial to see if this works on myself and gathering data every day and taking a placebo.

Nobody's going to do that. But if I'm taking something that has some decent research to back it and I'm not experiencing a negative effect, I know it's not hurting my performance. Most athletes are going to be able to tell if something's hurting. If it's not hurting my performance, then I'm probably just going to continue taking it in the hopes or in the belief that it's like working. I think that is probably how I operate currently with the exogenous ketones.

I take them for recovery. there is some decent research to support it and I experience no downsides other than the fact that I have to buy exogenous ketones. So, I'm going to continue to take them because the research would support that they are are helping me. Um, so I think, you know, find find two to three supplements that you are, you know, willing to invest your money in that you enjoy the routine of taking and that don't have any downsides to them and, you know, at make those part of your supplement stack.

I think it would be good to have something like an acute maybe recovery supplement or something you're taking every day. Something that you're taking like daytoday before your workouts and then something maybe you save for like your race day stack. I think it's nice to have a supplement that you're only going to use on race day or something like your secret that you pull out on race day. Um because then you're really going to be like jazzed to use it and maybe like experience that benefit um of not having used it before.

Um, some people like to claim that with like caffeine that you should sort of cut it out a week or so before and then use it on race day. There's actually no evidence to suggest it works better if you cut it out. So, if you're a coffee drinker like me, you know, rest assured you don't have to to cut it out. There's no like performance boost to that. But, that's sort of how I would go about evaluating all of this stuff um in terms of the supplements because it is it's hard to really know if something is working.

But again, if it's not hurting and if you're getting better and you're improving and you have the expendable income to spend on some of these supplements, I think really using them can be kind of fun and testing out all these various supplements. The research that came out disproving the effect of a caffeine taper room collar uh was music to the ears of heavy coffee drinkers like me because it seemed to my mind that cutting it out for a week before a race and enduring the headaches and the withdrawal just to reintroduce it for a seeming performance boost on race day ended up being a net negative.

And I think that that hits at something that's true of all of these things is if you become obsessed with relying on a specific supplement for a performance boosting effect, that probably is already an unhealthy place to be. If you have pent your next performance on no taking its effect or ketones taking their effect, you're probably missing the plot a little bit. And you know, I think it was actually you who tweeted a few weeks ago talking about an athlete waking up at 3 in the morning to cycle in their Nomio shot for their 6 a.m. workout, but disrupting their sleep cycle to do it.

And I think that's an important reminder. Have you seen any other use cases where athletes are maybe getting a little bit too over reliant or >> buying the marketing, let's say, to a a detrimental effect in terms of just how effective these supplements can be? Yeah, I mean I think that even regarding something like by carb is kind of where I see the there's there's almost like this fear of missing out with a lot of these supplements.

And I think I mentioned high carb fueling before and I think maybe that would be almost my best example where a lot of people just think they need to be cramming in as many carbs or cramming in by carb before every workout or every race without the acknowledgement that oh my gosh well if I do this like I'm actually risking like GI distress. And so you know you don't you don't necessarily have to be doing it. You don't have to buy into the marketing so much that you're going to do this at the peril of potentially sabotaging your race.

Um, another one would be, you know, maybe creatine. I think um I used creatine for a long time and I still think it's a wonderful supplement and most people should slash could probably be taking it and having some performance benefit. But I think that the proliferation of all of the influencers and all the people talking about creatine has led to this idea that oh my gosh if I'm at like a disadvantage if I'm not taking creatine.

But then you just hear of all these people oh my gosh I gain weight and I experience all this bloating and GI distress when I take it. And then my thought is, well, don't take it. There are all these people talking about ways to here's how you mitigate the bloating if you're bloating on creatine or here's how to try to mitigate the weight gain. And my first thought is, well, just don't take the creatine. If you're having an adverse experience with it, just don't take it.

The it's not that good that it's worth feeling like crap to to take. I think no supplement is good enough to warrant like feeling like crap taking it. So, if something doesn't make you feel good, you do not need to to take it. They right if the marginal gain that you're probably not even feeling but having to kind of trust the science to believe in is being overshadowed by the very visceral or physical reaction to a supplement.

Probably not worth it to keep it in play. >> Exactly. Because you a lot of supplements you don't feel the benefit of them but you will feel the downside which is kind of that harsh reality. And that's like with creatine you know you can take it and you might get stronger, you might get faster. um you're not you shouldn't or won't necessarily feel it because it's not like a supplement that works like that. But if you do it wrong or you know take too high of a dose or something then you will you will feel that.

So sort of a harsh reality but uh yeah I think another way to evaluate supplements is just like you know you test it for yourself and you know just because everybody else is taking it doesn't mean you need to do it especially if like most of them it's you know a very marginal marginal benefit that you're going to be getting. Something that I want to wrap up on is a topic that you already introduced and that was the idea of saving something for those special races.

Whether it's placebo, whether the effects are physically felt or not, there are certain things that probably will have a boost to performance just because they feel special and exciting and they kind of trigger the idea that okay, today is a day to perform. I think back over the course of my career and I've cycled through lots of them. First, caffeine. I mean, I wasn't a coffee drinker outside of the realm of race days.

That changed fairly quickly. But others, even just the smell of Tiger Bomb for years, triggered to my brain that it was go time. It's kind of the smell of professional track and field call rooms is Tiger Bomb getting slapped onto the legs. Um, in recent years, that's been replaced by seeing by carb containers strewn around a call room. But there's those little triggers that seem to turn us from our regular selves into kind of the performative race day self.

And I wonder in your experience, have there been specific supplements that you would recommend or that have worked best for you if an athlete was going to pick something to give them that boost whether tangible or perceived on race day? Are there any that jump to mind? Man, that's a good it's a good question. Honestly, not really because unfort you know a lot of the supplements are ones that you're going to be using in training and not necessarily reserving for race day because you want to see how they work for you.

But I mean I would I would honestly put probably like I don't know if I'd even put barbar in that realm because I feel like that along with Nomio maybe better suited for for training. I think maybe a specific brand or like maybe your highest your higher octane supplement maybe you could put it. So, I wouldn't say like save this new supplement for race day, but like maybe you, you know, I use different gels on race day than the ones I train with.

I train with a cheaper gel. And of course, I've used the gel before race day, but I'm going to use like my higher uh octane, higher quality, like pristine premier gel on race day. Maybe I'll use my Morton gel on race day and I'm trading with like a beta fuel or something that costs a little bit less. So, something like that. It can make it feel a little bit special. You get excited to use it. Maybe it's a different flavor.

Um, I think the stuff on race day, like the coal ritual stuff that makes you a little bit more excited, more maybe less has to do with supplements, maybe more to do with like, I don't know, the pair of super shoes. I think super shoes would be a good example there. Like I, you know, in college when I was, you know, racing track, it's you never wore spikes only on race day. And when you put those things on, it was like >> we're ready to go.

Same thing with super shoes. So maybe have a pair of super shoes that you only wear on race day or something like that. So, um, yeah, that that stuff I wouldn't say that there's like a supplement that I really point uh could point out that would be like a let's reserve this for race day or really make it something special, but uh maybe like a breakfast or like a pre-race bar or something like that would be fall into that category.

You know, the fact that there is no one specific supplement that jumps to mind seems like a great place to wrap up and maybe a great place to hammer home the point that for as much good as any of these supplements can do, there probably isn't one out there that you should be pinning your next marathon personal best or personal best at any distance on exclusively at the expense of doing all the little things right like sleep, training, recovery, fueling, uh having a generally balanced lifestyle.

Well, um, and I really appreciate that you've given us some insight into that, Brady. So, great to chat with you to pick your big brain on a wide ranging topic and yeah, excited to use some of these strategies on my next start line and we wish you the best of luck as you do the same with some of your next start lines, too. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today. >> Yeah, I appreciate it, John. This was a lot of fun.

Thanks. >> Absolutely. Big thanks to Brady for joining us this week to untangle the web of supplement science and fiction. If you're hungry for more of his musings on exercise physiology, be sure to check out his website, physiologicallyspeaking.com and subscribe to a Substack. You'll find all the links in the episode description. While you're at it, don't forget to subscribe to the Shakeout Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you find your shows so you never miss an episode.

And do us a favor and leave a comment or review letting us know your go-to supplements and how you use them. We're now less than one month away from the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and the Shakeout Podcast is thrilled to be coming to you live from the Marathon Expo, Friday, October 16th from 3 to 3:45 p.m. Whether you're racing, supporting, or just love the running community, I hope you'll join me, John Gay, for an in-person conversation with some of the best minds in the sport.

We'll also be taking to the streets of Toronto on Thursday, October 15th, for the first ever Shakeout podcast, Shakeout Run. Be sure to follow us on social media @shakeodcast for all the details coming soon. Thanks for joining us this week. I hope to see you soon for your next shakeout.