Maximum Mileage Running Podcast

Supplementation for Runners!

• Nick Hancock • Season 2 • Episode 12

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In this episode, Nick talks through his "supplement stack" and why he takes these specific supplements!

Supplements for running are all the rage and it can be a real minefield of what is good and what is snake oil!



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SPEAKER_02:

Trailblazers and tarmac tacklers, welcome back to the Maximum Mileage Running Podcast. I am Nick Hancock, USCA and UK Athletics coach, and I

SPEAKER_00:

am here with... Matt Scalesbrook. I'm a runner and... See, I was prepared this week.

SPEAKER_02:

That's better.

SPEAKER_00:

And I have a working knowledge in some science, some health stuff, particularly to do with pain and injury and a bit recovery. And I'm still a runner.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I coach you.

SPEAKER_00:

And you coach me. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And you coach me. And you're quite good at podcasting. So there you go. Hello, Matt. How are you?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm all right. Thank you. Yeah. In fact, I'm feeling reasonably good because you give me an easy week this week. I have, cut back week this week. Which is quite nice, because I must admit, I think I wrote in Training Peaks that I tried to go a little bit quicker on my long run, not because you told me to, but because I was feeling really good and I was like, oh, I wonder what I can do. And then afterwards, I was like, oh, I wish I hadn't. I realised I've still got more runs this week. So actually, to start this week and know that it was a cutback, I've timed that well.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I do tend to find that that kind of feeling as you're getting towards the end of a few big weeks in a row, when you do start to feel a little bit tired, that is actually usually a precursor to some adaptations are coming. So the fact that this week is a cutback week is ideally timed. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

well, I'm trying to make the most of it as well. I'm trying to get my sleep in to make sure that because, you know, as we've talked about before, the adaptations come when you're resting, not when you're active. So I'm trying to get the sleep in as well. So I'm trying to make the most of a cutback week. I'm eating like I'm still training. That's the one downside. So the hobnobs are disappearing rapidly from the cupboard where my wife thinks she's hidden them. But no, no. Otherwise, pretty good. Thank you. How about yourself?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'm feeling really good. Knocked out a 68-mile week last week. That comment I just made around, you know, feeling like adaptations are happening. I just, I'm feeling great. And that is usually that kind of, you know, the precursor of feeling a little bit tired, which I was doing. I was feeling tired. Had a bit of a cutback week. Those adaptations have obviously happened. And now I'm absolutely flying. I mean, I knocked out a 20-mile long run on, on Sunday at 7 minute 20 pace.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I saw that. I thought that was quick.

SPEAKER_02:

At like top end of zone one heart rate, 141 beats per minute, which is, yeah, sort of top end zone one, low zone two. So, yeah, I'm feeling really good. And, yeah, I did a session yesterday, actually, practicing my target marathon pace, which is still hard to get my head around, but... Yesterday was definitely a bit of a confidence booster. I did 12 by three minutes at 55 pace and then finished off with 10 minutes at six minute mile pace. I felt

SPEAKER_00:

good. So what's your pace goal for your marathon attempt?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm going to see if I can run a championship qualifying time, which at London, two hour 35. So... Fast.

SPEAKER_00:

Fast. And what does that boil down to in terms of minutes per mile? And as I think Lakes put in the comments, in real money or in new money, kilometres per minute? Yeah, that was Chris

SPEAKER_02:

in our WhatsApp chat, yeah. It's 5 minute 55 per mile pace or 3.40 per kilometre pace for 26.2 miles.

SPEAKER_00:

So, quick.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it is. It is quick. It's... Yeah, it's that thing. It's like I'm sort of sat here now thinking that's nuts, but it's ages to go yet. And yeah, yesterday was a nice little confidence booster. So yeah, the intervals will start getting a bit longer now and yeah, start practicing marathon pace a little bit more. But yeah, for me, the big thing is getting that volume in. I've talked about it before on the podcast. Consistency is always going to be king, but volume where possible is key. So yeah, getting in that volume through the means of, yeah, just more running, usually easy running. In fact, it is easy running. I'm not doing any more speed work. It's just putting more easy volume on top. And now I'm working from an office. I'm finding that pretty easy because, you know, two and a half, three mile run here, run at lunchtime, two and a half, three mile run back home. where I wouldn't have done those two and a half, three miles before. Cause I was just going straight to my desk in my house. Yeah, it's kind of, it's building the mileage up. quite easy.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's it, because I'm not sure we've talked about your office yet on the podcast. But I commented this morning as we came online, because obviously, yes, we're on a podcast, but we've got video, we can see each other, it's a little bit easier that way. And, yeah, your office is looking pretty swanky in terms of, well, put it this way, it looks like a running coach's office.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I've got my maximum mileage coaching flag up behind me. I've actually got my maximum mileage hoodie on as well, and all of the Ogoku hats in the background. I've actually, in fact, I just Took delivery yesterday of the, I'm showing Matt the new hats. This isn't the new bucket, is it? From UGOKU. So first of all, the new black.

SPEAKER_00:

I really like that design. The one on the underside of the, yeah. So it's the black with the kind of moon and rocks.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's right. I'm pointing up to the one on the wall.

SPEAKER_00:

Pointing for everyone listening.

SPEAKER_02:

Over there. That's the trucker version up there. But then I'm going to have to take my headset off a second.

SPEAKER_00:

Bucket hat. Bucket hat. The bucket hat looks really good. I appreciate that this is sterling television for everyone listening.

SPEAKER_02:

I feel like Jim Wormsey when I put it on.

SPEAKER_00:

That looks really cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so that's probably going to be my South Downs Way 100 hat. So yeah, I'm in the office now, which is great. It's just great not working from home. I've worked from home for five years now, which I didn't realise actually how much of an issue it was becoming for me until I've actually come here and now I'm so much more productive and getting more done and You're

SPEAKER_00:

going to want to be careful because all the businesses that are trying to get people back into the office are going to be using soundbites of email going, look how productive you'll be. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

yeah, I'm not getting distracted by, you know, the dogs needing a wee or... Doing

SPEAKER_00:

the washing.

SPEAKER_02:

Washing needing to be done or I'm just in the dishwasher or whatever. I'm just being a bit more organised on an evening in the morning before, you know, before I go to bed and, you know, when I wake up and... And yeah, so yeah, we've got an office now. It's at an old country, quite sort of typical country estate. It used to be a mansion of a very rich family back in the day. And I've run past it so many times and you can't actually see the building from the road. So I've never really paid much attention to it. All I knew was that it was service offices and a wedding venue. And yeah, it's got new owners. They're putting a lot of time, effort and money. I don't actually know if you can hear, hopefully not, but I've got workmen literally just outside the door hammering away.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a very, very faint thudding, but I'm not sure it will show up in post, so

SPEAKER_02:

we're fine. Fingers crossed. Sorry if everybody can hear the dun, dun, dun, dun. That's, yeah, they're ripping up carpet downstairs that's been there for like 100 years or something. It's glued to the floor. But yeah, they're doing all sorts here. They're really trying to sort of attract as many local businesses as they can. So yeah, the Maximum Mileage headquarters is now in an actual registered business address rather than my front room, which is good. So yeah, getting that volume in, getting my strength work in, getting back on that because I must admit I've been a bit slack. recently um but yeah good and and just because a lot of people that do follow the um podcast will know that uh you know i've talked about my wife a lot um but she's um she signed up for a 10k so she's she's trying training for a 10k in in may which is fab

SPEAKER_00:

dare i dare i ask has she signed you up as her coach Or has she been sensible and gone elsewhere?

SPEAKER_02:

I am doing her strength training for her. She's using the Strength Builder module in Training Peak. So I've built her strength training for her for the moment because we have a pretty decent treadmill at home. Incidentally, she's actually following Tommy Rives. She's following his beginner return to running training. on the Nordic track treadmill. And for anybody who knows or doesn't know Tommy Rives, he had a very aggressive and rare form of lymphoma. He was literally on death's door. One of the best ultra runners ever to live. And yeah, he was very, very ill. And yeah, he's come back from it now. So she's sort of fallen in love with his story and his beard, I think.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And, yeah, she's following his program because he's pretty well now, not back to running like he used to. But, yeah, so, yeah, she's doing that. So, yeah, shout out to Alison.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, fab. Well done.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So we've had a lot of chat going on in the Maximum Mileage WhatsApp group recently. I mean, there's always people asking about this. There's always chat. Anyway. Yeah, there's always somebody asking about this sort of stuff anyway, and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to... So what I have done is I've recorded a video, which will be on YouTube, but if anybody doesn't watch YouTube, we're going to play that sound, play it for this podcast episode. Basically, if all of the supplements that I take And I sort of go through why I take each of those supplements. It is not from a basis of you should be taking all of these things, but I

SPEAKER_00:

just wanted to look behind, behind the curtain. What does Nick take?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, just sort of a bit of a, yeah, I think a, yeah, just an insight into what could be helpful if you decide to, you know, sort of, put a bit of research in to some of these things. You might find that a lot of nutritionists, dieticians would say some of it, all of it in some cases is useless. You get everything you need from your diet. However, just with the volume that I do, I do just find some things to be incredibly helpful, particularly like I talk about this in a bit more depth, but like a multivitamin. The amount of times I've been told, oh, multivitamins are useless, you'll just end up pissing the vitamins out because you've already got all of the vitamins that you need. That may be so, but anecdotally, I find it helps me as a father of two young kids who bring home every disease on the planet. Like we call Miles patient zero because he brings everything home. He's like the first kid to get everything. So, yeah, so he brings everything home with you. And I just find that taking some of these things helps to cover some bases. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I suppose it means you can be sure. I mean, I must admit, I sit on the other side of the fence when it comes to multivitamins myself, you know, to play the devil's advocate element here. Yeah, I mean, I find them a fab way of making really expensive urine. It's just there's very few buyers for that kind of thing. So I tend to not spend my money on the multivitamins. But they are one of these things. I mean, my kids take the multivitamins, but largely because they come in rocket-shaped strawberry flavor. So it's kind of hard to convince them not to. But in terms of... you know, the balance between the evidence base and how you apply it individually. I mean, this is always the fun bit about the evidence base, right? In that whenever we look at evidence, generally we're looking at large population studies and we're looking for statistical differences. Boiling that down to an individual is much, much more difficult. And so some individuals are going to find more benefit in this stuff than other individuals. And the only way they're going to know that is By trying it. So provided you're not taking anything that's going to actively cause you harm and you can afford to take these things in terms, you know, financially, like there are other things I imagine as a coach you'd ask people to do first before adding the multivitamin in. Provided you can take, you know, you can afford these things financially and perhaps justify them as you do in terms of the level at which you're trying to perform, then yeah, where's the harm? Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's a good point because I do actually touch on, you know, one of the supplements I take sometimes, not all the time, sometimes, and I go into more detail why that's sometimes, but collagen. I only take it sometimes. There's a certain reason I do, but one of the reasons I only take it sometimes is because it is... fucking expensive really expensive like good quality collagen and the one i get is a really good quality one it's uh it's a um approved safe safe for sport um one from healthspan elite so um yeah i i use it sparingly when i need it and as i say i'll go into more detail as to why i need it a bit further down the line, a bit further in the episode. So yeah, something like collagen, I would only take from a financial point of view every now and then. But something like a multivitamin, I think they're, what, 6.99 for two months?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. No, I'm not suggesting multivitamins are the most expensive supplement. But of course, some

SPEAKER_02:

supplements. 8 quid for a bag of creatine that lasts, what, three months maybe? well

SPEAKER_00:

I mean that's maybe I mean I so I'm going to have to hold my hands up here and say I haven't heard the sound bites I'm going to be adding to this podcast later so there's going to be perhaps a certain amount of mystery for me as well which is quite exciting but Is it worth sort of laying out, just in case some listeners are brand new to the idea of supplementation, like most people will have heard something, but they might be coming from the perspective of, I've no idea what these things do, let alone why I personally would need them. Is it worth covering sort of some headlines of some of the most common ones that you'll have either heard about or maybe want to consider and just kind of cover what they are and broadly speaking, what we think they do?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, I would always start off with saying that I have a food first philosophy, but not food only. And actually I've stolen that from a guy called Laurent Bannack. He's the head of the Institute of Performance Nutrition, has a very good podcast. And yeah, it's something he says, food first, but not food only. So what that means is that we are looking to get as much of all of this stuff from food as possible you know we need to be getting our micronutrients from you know fruit and vegetables and whole grains and um you know whatever you know mostly plant-based is kind of another uh another sort of um philosophy i have you know as much fruit and vegetables as possible um

SPEAKER_00:

Just to clarify, is that a personal philosophy based on ethics, environment, etc., or is that a philosophy based on evidence regarding performance?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, evidence regarding performance. Again, in the soundbites that are going to be played afterwards, I talk about the gut. We're learning so much more about the gut now, the gut microbiome and how health kind of starts in the gut, good health starts in the gut. And that does then play into being a better athlete. If you are a healthy athlete, you're going to be a better athlete. Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, I've turned a corner and decided I'm not going to eat sugary foods and, you know, in inverted commas, bad foods because that's not true at all because I do, you know. I guess you could probably put gels in the inverted commas, bad category.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, they definitely count as you're ultra-processed.

SPEAKER_02:

They do, but like we've had on the podcast before, we had Harvey Fortis from John Moores University. I will always kind of, I think I'll always have in the sort of back of my mind that something he said was that actually it could be more damaging to us as athletes to not have things like gels or processed sugary foods because it's a very different kettle of fish to somebody who doesn't really exercise. No, you don't want to be sat there on a Saturday night watching Netflix, having just had a pizza, then necking gels. That's not healthy. However, we are not sat around doing bugger all, are we? We are out there running 30, 40, 50, 60 plus miles a week, cycling, strength training. Our glycogen needs are high. And if we are not giving ourselves that sort of fuel, then we are potentially withholding vital energy energy sources in not taking those kind of foods

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and and this is the the challenge isn't it of of these broad sweeping uh declarations that certain food groups are bad or certain nutrition needs to be moderated because of course most of those messages are aimed at a general public who's Hell, guidance is 90 minutes of exercise a week and yet they're still not hitting that level. So it's why we need people like Harvey Fortis who specializes in the population groups that we find ourselves within. endurance athletes uh to be able to then take what data we do have and interpret it in a way that's useful for for what what we're doing um so yeah i mean because i i must admit van tolken and and his uh current charge against upfs um i find um frustrating at times Yeah, there you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm just holding up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, great TV for podcast. And, you know, I do find some of his messaging around UPS a little frustrating because it is, well, not targeted at me, I guess, which is, which is why I find it frustrating. Whereas, you know, knowing that I'm going to be taking ultra processed foods on a regular basis, but, because I live a different lifestyle and I need to adjust for that lifestyle. It's sort of common sense, but sometimes is missed by some of these as a broad sweeping statements and messages that are handed out by people.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So yeah, some of the other sort of things that go through my mind are, you know, from a performance aspect, I do do a lot of the right things. I do sleep well. I do eat well. I do recover properly. Then I'm using things like compression boots and getting massages and doing my mobility work. I'm covering all of those kind of bases. Knowing that I'm doing the 99% pretty well, for somebody like me, I am then thinking about what For somebody who's trying to run 235, I am looking for those 0.000% things. Have

SPEAKER_00:

you yet started packing your bed and your pillow and your mattress to take with you to wherever you end up sleeping the night, a la the British cycling team?

SPEAKER_02:

I do sometimes take my pillow, depending on where we're going, because I have one of those Emma memory foam pillows, and I struggle to sleep if I don't have it. So I do sometimes take that. Excellent. There you go. That's your 1%. Yeah. But no, no, it's things like, you know, taking creating, for example. I mean, for me, creating, and, you know, you can correct me on this, but I don't see really any reason why anybody wouldn't take creating. It's so well studied, pretty much, you know, almost guaranteed to be safe. for somebody taking it. As long as you're taking a good quality creatine monohydrate, then why wouldn't you take it?

SPEAKER_00:

I would imagine, to start with, because you don't know what it is. Should we cover what it is? Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Go for it.

SPEAKER_00:

So, I'm going to call it creatine, but then that's just, you know, potato, potato. So... Creatine basically is a molecule. It happens to be made of amino acids, which if you can remember your GCSE biology, I think it's amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. And when we're talking about nutrition, you'll often come across people talking about amino acids and essential amino acids. Now, essential amino acids are the nine that you cannot make within your own body. And so you need to source from your diet. And you can source those either from plant or animal sources. There are sources in both camps for those essential amino acids. So that's kind of a non-sequitur there. But in terms of creatine, although it's made of amino acids, it's not considered a protein. What it is instead is it's sort of a... I was trying to think of a really good analogy for it earlier. It basically acts to hang on to what's known as a phosphate group ready to allow your body to recover from uh a burst of energy so you may or may not remember that human energy comes uh from a molecule known as atp

SPEAKER_02:

adenosine triphosphate

SPEAKER_00:

adenosine triphosphate and it's important we've got our three phosphate groups there and essentially the energy that we end up using comes from breaking one of those phosphates off and we turn to a molecule called diphosphate two phosphates um and creatine is hanging around ready to scoop up that extra phosphate and hang on to it ready to give it back again to recreate a triphosphate which can again later be broken releasing energy so it's part of the cycle of um re recharging the batteries if you will and so Having creatine floating around, either already bound to a phosphate group ready to donate it when needed, or pre-creatine waiting to receive that phosphate group once it's been released, is seen to be beneficial in not only the amount of energy available to you at a particular time, particular point and how much energy you're going to use is obviously varies slightly on the intensity of the exercise you're doing so for example going for a sprint you actually make more use of your career team potentially in that capacity than you do if you're doing resistance training because we don't actually use that much atp relatively speaking when we're doing resistance training

SPEAKER_02:

it's more of a power thing isn't it it's that sort of 10 sub 10 second hard effort and actually i i I would say in things like power lifting movements, there is... It's that intensity section. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're doing something like 12 lunges, then probably not. But like doing three powerful squats, for example, you are going to be using it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so having that creatine available basically means that you can... potentially have access to a little bit more energy a little bit more quickly and potentially recover those energy levels a little bit more quickly. Although creativity, sorry, ATP kind of levels back in the muscles tend to recover within, well, there's two phases. The first phase takes about a minute and the slower phase by about eight minutes post-exercise, you kind of back up to the kind of levels that you were previously. Although of course, we need to be using glucose at that point, sugars at that point to help rebuild all of this stuff. So there is a long chain here of other effects. And this is why studying any one particular nutrient, micro or macro nutrient is quite tricky because of course you're looking at one thing which is actually involved in many, many other things and being really specific gets quite difficult. But there seems to be... a substantial benefit in the order of somewhere between 10 and 40% increase in available creatine in your body if you take it as a supplement. And the supplement, correct me if I'm wrong, Nick, but it's of the order of three to five grams a day.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, usually five grams a day is what they say. There used to be... Discussion around you need to have 20 grams a day for the first five days to do a loading phase, but that's kind of been poo-pooed a little bit. That's been left back in the bro science world. Another thing that's been left in the bro science world is one thing a lot of people get worried about with creatine is water retention and therefore in endurance sports, putting weight

SPEAKER_00:

on,

SPEAKER_02:

but it's actually minimal. And actually that water weight, and I talk more about this, that water weight is actually intramuscular water retention, which is good. Like that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, that's the other area, of course, then that creatine has been studied to, and which is where the bro science side comes from. Because, you know, bro lifters are less particularly worried about how much energy is available to them whilst they're doing the lifts. Cause they might not be doing the same kind of level of intensity, obviously power lifters we've talked about, but the levels of intensity of exercise are different, but the bit that really interests them is the, is that, intramuscular water retention, which is thought to contribute down the line, as I say, down this long sort of chemical line, to hypertrophy, muscle growth. And so that's the other area that creatine seems to play a bit of a role in, that it's thought that it has a sort of an anabolic effect somewhere along the line about increasing our ability to grow extra muscle tissue and end up with larger muscles as a result.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, which from an endurance standpoint, perspective, what we're learning more about creating use in endurance sports. Because again, for the longest time until very recently, the thought was creating is useless for long distance runners because you only really use it in that ATP production cycle in a really intense burst of exercise. But actually what we're learning is that creating plays a pretty big role in that. So hypertrophy, muscle repair, and therefore recovery, which is a big reason why I take it because, again, I'd say anecdotally, I do feel like if I am not taking creating, I do potentially feel more sore, particularly after I've done strength work, which then... can and does affect the quality of speed workouts, for example, running. It affects the quality of your running. So yeah, that's one of the biggest reasons I take creatine is for that potential effect of helping with recovery. And if it does help you to produce more power in the gym and therefore be stronger, that's then going to play into becoming a stronger runner. So that's another reason I take it.

SPEAKER_00:

And in terms of just then touching on you asked you know why wouldn't people take these things obviously all supplements and i guess it's probably worth saying that if if at all you're unsure discuss with your gp your nutritionist this is not necessarily medical advice all that kind of uh standard stuff uh but in terms of um long-term studies and short-term studies in terms of safety um it does appear to be safe in terms of uh markers of kidney liver immune system and metabolic function um even in studies where someone's been you know where groups of people have been using it for five years continuously so there's certainly the there's very high confidence that this is generally safe for an otherwise healthy individual yeah um so um So yeah, so that's creatine. I suppose, again, one area that sometimes I see getting confused is, well, is creatine a protein supplement? Do I need to take protein separately? And the short answer is no, creatine is not a protein supplement. So yes, If you're after a protein supplement, that should be taken separately. Despite the fact that creatine is made from amino acids, which are the same building blocks that make your proteins up, creatine is not a protein. It's actually only made of three amino acids and we need 20 of them for full functionality of proteins within our bodies. And in terms of what the proteins do, well, again, proteins are the building blocks of life. Pretty much. There's almost nothing in your body that doesn't rely on a protein in one way or another. And again, where you get those proteins from has been sort of big battles over the years in terms of we should get it from red meat or actually, no, we can get it from vegan and vegetarian sources. And the long and short of it is that protein is protein, provided you're getting protein all 20 amino acids, which as I said earlier, you can get from either plants or animals, then protein is protein because fundamentally when you eat a steak, you're eating cow protein. You are not a cow. So your body is gonna have to take that protein and break it down into its individual amino acids Anyway, and then rearrange those amino acids into a human shaped protein in the same way that if you get your protein from P, you're not a P. We're going to take that P protein, break it down into its amino acids and rearrange those amino acids into a human protein. So it sort of doesn't matter where you get them from the absolute. major importance is you get enough um and i think i think it

SPEAKER_02:

does matter where you get it from because for anybody thinking well should i eat human protein please don't please don't become a cannibal

SPEAKER_00:

you know what i've never thought of that whenever i use that analogy with people i've never thought someone might think i'll just eat people and then i'll save myself the trouble of rearranging the protein yeah

SPEAKER_02:

exactly yeah no don't do that

SPEAKER_00:

don't do that don't do that So yeah, it doesn't matter where you get it from. Assuming we're eating like normal people, then it's more about making sure you get enough and that you're getting that full variety, that full 20. So if you're looking at... protein supplements because you fall into a group a bit like us where perhaps we will benefit from that extra protein availability so we can support the repair and growth and everything that we're trying to achieve above and beyond a normal human baseline, then knock yourself out for whey protein or plant-based protein. One of the issues in the past has been that just by the nature of how animal protein is made available, what's called bioavailability of protein has been questioned. And so you would, you would tend to absorb a higher percentage of the protein from an animal source than you would from a traditional plant source. But particularly if we're talking supplementation, actually it's much of a muchness now. The bag of powder you get has a very similar bioavailability. You're going to get most of that into your system, whether it's come from a plant or from an animal. If you are a strict vegan and you're not supplementing and you're just eating plants, there is a risk that because those proteins are locked behind plant cells, walls that are really tough for human bodies to break down, particularly if you're eating them raw, cooking them actually helps in terms of accessing the goodies inside, then you might not be getting quite as much protein out of your diet as you think. That's one of the catches. But as I say, supplementation is pretty darn cheap for protein.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's not too bad. I think some companies have gone a bit wild with it. I think MyProtein, who for the longest time were kind of the leaders in... um in in protein sales went crazy over um over covid with their with the price of their their bags they went from like you know five kilo bag being 50 quid to 150 quid um well i

SPEAKER_00:

think there was a lot of people taking advantage over covid

SPEAKER_02:

yeah yeah um yeah i mean i i use whey protein um Anybody who's listened to this podcast long enough will know I work with Proteinworks. I have done. In fact, I mentioned this before. I mentioned this later on, but I've worked with Proteinworks as a customer. I was a customer well before they... I became an ambassador for them. I like their way because it mixes well, but there was also a time where I was vegan and I was on their vegan wonder shake and that mixes well. I think that's kind of my issue with some of the vegan shakes out there is they can be really chalky.

SPEAKER_00:

So I actually use their bog standard vegan protein. Uh, I'm, I'm partial to the cookies and cream one cause it basically feels like I'm having a pudding without eating pudding. Um, uh, and I find that fine, uh, for me that, that mixes really well. I really liked that one. So again, um, yeah, it's still protein works. Um, and again, I was, I was using them before I knew you were an ambassador and I could use your code. Um, but yeah, I like that. I like that vegan stuff. It's good.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Um,

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I kind of go back to that initial point of it is a food first philosophy I have. It's just not a food only, particularly when a lot of the guidelines that are out there are aimed at generally sedentary people for the most part. It's simply guidance from the World Health Organization and then the health organization in the UK and various territories will have their own guidance on these kind of things that they want us to eat kind of generally healthy. But when it comes to us as athletes who are training like we do in the endurance and strength training context, there are additional needs. And I think that the guidance is something like 0.9 grams of protein per kilo of body weight per day for a sedentary person, and then that fluctuates slightly as you get older. But for us endurance athletes, you're talking 1.2 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. And for somebody like me who weighs 80-ish kilos, hitting 160 grams of protein a day is not easy just through food.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely not, no. Not when you start reading labels and you're realizing actually. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

that's a lot of chicken or a lot of skier. You know, I already have what I feel like is enough of that kind of stuff. So, you know, for me, having a skier yogurt with a couple of scoops of whey protein in it in the morning, that's a really easy way to get me to like 50, 60, 70 grams of protein straight off the bat.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And there's been recent studies, again, something else I mentioned later down the line is, you know, there have been studies done recently because anybody who's been alive long enough and knows anything even slightly about protein for a long time, there was a, oh, don't have more than 20 grams of protein a day. It's useless. It's, you know, you're just going to, poop out the rest of the additional grams that you have. But actually, there's studies done recently that there really isn't an upper limit. You could have 100 grams of protein in a single meal and you will use it. You will use it.

SPEAKER_00:

So why wouldn't you, just to play devil's advocate, why wouldn't you do 100 grams of protein per meal? Because it's a lot. Because you're going to feel quite bloated.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And anybody thinking like, because actually this is worth... kind of clearing up because eating 100 grams of chicken does not mean you're getting 100 grams of protein. 100 grams of chicken is actually about 26 grams of protein, I think it is. The rest of it is made up in water in the cells and some fat and connective tissue and cell wall and that kind of stuff. So it's not... Because I have had in the past where someone's gone, well, I eat like 150 grams of chicken for my dinner, so I must be getting 150 grams a day. Like, no, it doesn't quite work like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we are still, you've got to think, I mean, humans are classically regarded as 70% water. Exactly. Chickens are not that much different. And whilst, yes, some of that water comes out in cooking, not all of it, otherwise you'd have a very crispy chicken

SPEAKER_02:

breast. Yeah, it'd just be, yeah. like jerky basically and even then that retains some um some moisture so

SPEAKER_00:

moisture absolutely

SPEAKER_02:

um so yeah um

SPEAKER_00:

well shall we shall we should we do it that i i'm gonna now go through uh all the audio that you're gonna give me um and uh try not to repeat ourselves too much uh and that um if anyone's got any specific questions or if we've missed particular context. And that's my dog groaning in the background. I do apologize. If we've missed anything or anyone's got any questions, ping us a message and ask us about it. And particularly if Nick has mentioned he's taken a supplement and you don't think he's fully justified why he's taken that supplement.

SPEAKER_02:

Your dog is going mental.

SPEAKER_00:

She's going mad, yeah. She's trying to climb onto my lap now, guys. Again, fab TV. So, get down. She's a husky who's gone, you've not taken me for a run yet. Let's get going. So, yeah, ping us a message and we'll grill Nick and go, you didn't explain why you take your black pepper with your turmeric. I do, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I do. I think I cover everything. But, yeah, feel free, if anybody wants to send any questions in, as Matt says, to either email me, nick at maximummileagecoaching.com, or I'm on Instagram at runwithnick. Feel free to, yeah, send me any questions, any– Any comments? Feel free to critique me. Feel free to send me the latest and greatest evidence that tells me that taking a multivitamin is a total waste of my time and money. And I'll still take them anyway. Awesome. All right. Cool. Nice to see you, Matt. Enjoy your run.

SPEAKER_00:

See you later.

SPEAKER_02:

Bye. Hey everybody, so as requested in the recent WhatsApp chat, here is what I take as supplements to my to my diet. And that is a key word there, supplementation, not replacement. I am not trying to replace things. I'm not having supplements instead of other things. They are there to cover the gaps, to perhaps there's some sort of adaptation that I'm looking for or to mitigate something like inflammation during a recovery phase or something like that. So this is very much about what I'm adding into my diet, not replacing, okay? So, first thing's first, and probably the easiest one for any of us to supplement, and that is good old caffeine. Now, there is, The reason I take caffeine, first of all, I just love a cup of coffee. It does help to make me feel alert. People respond very differently to caffeine. There are people that respond really strongly to caffeine on one end and then there are people who don't respond to it at all. So you have responders and non-responders. I seem to fit somewhere in the middle where I could drink coffee all day and not feel terribly different from it. However, what caffeine does is it does block some of the receptors to when we feel fatigue. So from a performance context, rather than just the wake up in the morning and I've had three cups of coffee before 6 a.m., from a performance aspect, it does delay that time to fatigue, that time to exhaustion, and there are countless studies to back that up. So for me, caffeine is a big one, I love it, and I find it very difficult to not have caffeine. In fact, I get really bad headaches if I try and stop. But why would I try and stop? Coffee is life. So caffeine, number one. Supplement number two is protein. I am a big fan of whey protein, personally. Now, protein in general is super important for us runners. You know, the general recommendation for endurance athletes, athletes in general, that are undertaking intense sports is roughly around 1.6 grams of protein per day. kilogram of body weight per day. So for myself, I am somewhere in the region of around 150 grams of protein a day. Let's call it a nice round number. Sometimes slightly more if I'm trying to lose a little bit of body fat, which I am actually doing at the moment. I'm trying to lose a bit of body fat. And the reason I'm keeping my protein higher at the moment is because I want to retain that muscle mass. I don't want to lose that precious muscle mass and having a high protein intake does help mitigate some of that But just when I'm in sort of general performance mode, trying to get all the gains I can out of my training, my carbohydrate will go up and my protein will come back down to roughly around that 1.5 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. So for me, 150 grams of protein, which is great. It can be quite hard to get that much protein through diet alone. I try not to eat too much meat. I do eat meat, I enjoy meat. But yeah, having that much protein just through food alone is quite difficult. So I do have protein powder. Some of the ways I use that, really easy one for me, to get that big hit of protein straight off the bat is around about 50 grams of protein in one serving is 250 grams of skier with protein powder, a scoop of protein powder stirred through it and then berries and oats and things like that. Straight off the bat, start of the day with 50 grams of protein and the days where we thought that we could only process 20 grams of protein at a time are well over. In fact, there was a really good study recently that showed there is no upper limit really so yeah get your protein in folks super that is super important and there are plenty of studies to back that up and that's why I have protein powder okay next one is creating and I'm obviously show any protein works powders here because First of all, I am a Proteinworks ambassador. If you want to avail some Proteinworks discount, then use the code NICKRUN, N-I-C-K-R-U-N, on their website. But I am actually promoting Proteinworks from the point of view of, I was actually a customer anyway, so when I became a Proteinworks ambassador, it was a pretty easy one for me to do, because I've liked the products for quite a long time. Yeah, just particularly the whey protein. I just find that it mixes really well. Anyway, so creating monohydrate specifically. Doesn't really matter which brand you have. I mean, obviously for me personally, it's Proteinworks. But just five grams of this a day. Now, For the longest time, there has been the belief that creatine really is only useful to power athletes, people that are, you know, it helps in the production of adenosine triphosphate, which is a key part of the energy production system in the body. And creatine, yeah, for the longest time is sort of attributed to bodybuilders, powerlifters, strength athletes, however, What we are learning more about creating in the endurance world is that, first of all, if it does help you to be stronger, get more power, get more out of your work in the gym, then, the offshoot of that is that that is going to transfer into you being a stronger runner. Something else that we are learning about creatine is that it can help with reducing delayed onset muscle soreness, so DOMS as a lot of people know that it's called, and simply just helping with recovery. So that is why I take creatine. A lot of people get a bit scared about creating because they think, oh, well, you know, it's going to retain, it does, you know, there is a little bit of water retention. when you take creatine, but that is usually minimal. It's usually at the start. It usually levels out and it's actually good water retention because that water retention is actually inside of the muscle. So it's not a bad water retention. So the water retention and therefore the weight gain is very minimal and actually doesn't cause any problems. the kind of negative effects that we thought originally. Anyway, so protein, and specifically creatine monohydrate. Okay, next one for me is glutamine. Glutamine is a branched-chain amino acid, and it is the most prevalent one in the body, but it's one that the body doesn't get that much of from other sources. And it can also help to aid in digestion and help in recovery as well. So the way I actually usually sort of take creatine and glutamine is I just pop it into my protein shake. So it's basically like a recovery shake effectively. So I have that with, yeah, creatine, five grams of glutamine alongside the creatine. Next one for me is a multivitamin. Very simple. You know, you will find that some people will say there's no point in taking multivitamin if you are getting everything from your diet. However, for me, anecdotally, I do find that if I don't take multivitamins, I do get more sick more often, especially when volume is high, especially during a taper. the amount of times I've got sick during a taper. And also, quite frankly, I am a father of two young kids who go to school with all the other kids and they're all licking each other's necks or whatever it is they do and spreading their germs and yeah, they bring home all kinds of stuff. So for me, just taking that multivitamin, I just feel like I'm just covering those bases and as I say, anecdotally, I do tend to find that I get a little bit more susceptible to sickness if I don't take it. And it does cover everything, there's so many, So many things, and yeah, just this one tablet alone, it says it covers pretty much 100% of everything, really. So that's a big one for me. Next one is Omega-3 fish oils. I really, I feel like I've had to take Omega-3, and I have done for many years, even before I started running, because my family is riddled with arthritis for a start so you know for that whole joint health side of things i i do i've taken it for many many years it's probably the one supplement that i've been consistent with for pretty much most of my life um i also take it because there from a performance context there is some potential evidence that it can help aid recovery. So that's another one as well. And also the potential for it to help with heart health. And given that running is very much a cardiac sport, that's another reason that I take that. Next one for me is a probiotic. This is Proteinworks Gut Love. It has three billion live bacterial cultures in every serving. I never used to take probiotics or any kind of gut supplementation until fairly recently actually. We're learning a lot more about gut health for the athlete and that's where health start. We hear about the gut microbiome and all of that translates into just general health and it kind of goes back to that thing of you are what you eat. So eating healthily is kind of the start but one of the things that one of the nutritionist speakers talked about at the USCA conference I went to recently was about why wouldn't you take a probiotic so um so yeah i take a probiotic to help with gut health so that's the one i take okay the next one is um is a big one for people living in uh places like the uk where the sun isn't that strong um even in the summer i do i do go up and down with the supplementation of this. This is vitamin D, specifically vitamin D3. This one is from Healthspan Elite. Really good product, I think. Again, vitamin D has a wide range of functions across the body and particularly immunity is one of those, cell reproduction as well. And again, I do feel like if I'm not taking vitamin D, a fairly high strength dosage, then I do get more susceptible to being ill. So I tend to take two of these a day. So that's 2,000 IU, which is, yeah, a fairly high-ish dose. Yeah, two of those a day during the winter, and then I'll drop it down to one in the summer where we do have a bit more sun. But even then, it's still not that strong in the UK if we ever get any sun. So yeah, vitamin D, again, is another one. Okay, getting on to things that are just a little bit more, I guess, specific and outside of the realms of some of the more general stuff that you'll see. For me, I have recently actually started taking organic turmeric capsules. So turmeric has long been established in natural medicinal spheres, you know, big in India and it has Plenty of evidence to suggest, particularly the compound curcumin, which is a chemical inside of turmeric, the benefit of that is it does help with inflammation. You need to have it with black pepper, so always look for one, if you do decide to go with something like turmeric, always go for one that has plus black pepper because curcumin doesn't do anything on its own. It needs to have cracked black pepper with it to... to activate. So yeah, for me, I use this to help with inflammation. Inflammation is good. From a training perspective, we need that inflammation for our bodies to be able to adapt. However, I do just find that utilising turmeric does help with just feeling a little bit better and also, again, just because of, yeah, said arthritis in my family. It does help with joint health as well. So yeah, turmeric is a big one for me. Okay, next up is the good old gels. I take gels. I have for a long time used Torque. Really happy with that product and I just don't have any here to be showing some on screen. There have been other videos that I've done where I have used Torque products. I have been playing around with other, things recently just to just to test them out really I am Actually quite a big fan of the Science In Sport Beta Fuel, the Science In Sport Go gels, I hate. And there's just not that much carbohydrate in them. There's 40 grams of carbohydrate in the Science In Sport. I'm also a big fan of the Precision Fuel and Hydration, specifically their Flow Gel because you can decant this into a soft flask and for something like an Ultra, that was amazing, I used this for CCC alongside Torque caffeinated gels. Again, because I wanted that time to exhaustion assistance. But yeah, really good product. Both of those really good products. And then I say, always a big fan of Torque. I love the flavours and love the support I've had from them over the years. Okay, this one is probably one of the biggest ones that I sometimes use. that there is a bit of debate about does it actually do anything? Some people will say absolutely not, and others will say absolutely it does. It's really expensive, so I use it sparingly. I tend to use collagen when I feel like I've got a little bit of a tendon niggly thing going on. Yeah. It is debatable whether it does anything for you. The absorption of collagen is quite difficult for the body. So, yeah, debatable. But, you know, I did have a nutritionist that suggested I do have it just alongside when I've got a bit of a niggle, because I've had quite a bad Achilles tendinopathy in the past. Completely ruled me out of running for months. So I do take this if I feel like that's getting a little bit niggly, or if I've got any other sort of tendon connective tissue type niggles. So that's one I do take. But... it's not something I go running to on a regular basis. Okay? Okay, so. Now we get onto fluids, and this is gonna be the last thing. So yeah, big fan of electrolytes. I use the Precision Hydration 500 milligrams pretty much every time I go for a run. One of my big downfalls at CCC, UTMB, in the summer of 2025 was I went slightly hyponatremic, which is low blood um low blood low sodium volume in the blood and uh and yeah i got disoriented and hands and face went numb um because i drank so much plain water in my bid to stay hydrated i actually ended up diluting so now i actually practice um since then every single one i do i use a persistent hydration tab in 500 mils in my soft flask, which I have here. I literally take that on every single run. So first of all, I know I'm getting my electrolytes in, but also I use that as a gut training thing. Running with contents in my gut pretty much on every run I do, easy and hard and long, means I'm constantly training the gut to have contents in it and processing those contents. So yeah, processing hydration. I also really like, for a flavour hit, I really like the Torque hydration, which still has some carbohydrate in it, but much, lower. 16 grams of carbohydrate versus what I would call the energy drink, which is 36 grams, is it? 30.1 grams of carbohydrate. And I actually really like the pink grapefruit flavour talk. It really helps with flavour fatigue when I'm drinking this alongside taking gels, because a lot of gels are generally really sweet, whereas that pink grapefruit actually cuts through, yeah, cuts through that real sweetness. So yeah, I really like that. But yeah, that for me is electrolytes, and do they help with cramps? You know, we thought that was a thing for years, but very limited evidence that that is actually a thing. It's more to do with muscular endurance than salts. However, again, anecdotally, people do find that that helps them. So there you have it, folks. That's my supplement stack. Yeah, it is a lot. It is a lot of things. But, you know, Over the years, I have decided that that helps me. Those are the things that I like to assist my body with on top of the food that I eat. So yeah, there you go. Not advice. Do you all need to go and take all of those things? No. Probably not, but that's up to you to decide what you feel like you need to add into your diet. And if you really want some help, please do reach out to a nutritionist. And if you want to ask for any recommendations, I work with several that I'm really happy with, so really happy to point you in their direction. And that's it.

UNKNOWN:

Cool.

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Nick Hancock

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Faye Johnson

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Matt Scarsbrook

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