Ep21 The #1 Supplement Every Equestrian Should Consider

We all know that horseback riding carries a serious risk of concussion and head trauma. But has anyone told you about an inexpensive, well-researched supplement that can mitigate the impact of TBI? Listen in as endurance rider, personal trainer, and nutrition coach Tamara Baysinger offers practical guidance for using creatine monohydrate safely and consistently.

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Welcome to Equestrian Fitness for the Long Ride with the Sweaty Equestrian. I'm personal trainer and endurance rider Tamara Basinger, and I'm here to help you ride stronger in a day and longer in your life. Hello, hello, welcome to the podcast. I am coming to you from the general chaos of pulling together all my stuff for my first real endurance ride of the year. Actually, that's not quite true. I did one about a month ago, but it was so local that I just stayed at home to sleep and mostly eat. And then I drove to the ride for the day. So that doesn't really count. I didn't have to pull together my LQ and all my horse camping stuff and personal camping stuff and just all the things. So I'm surrounded by piles of clothes and buckets and blankets and oh, I haven't even thought about food yet. But um, you know, it'll all come together. It will. I did get shoes glued onto Coca Pelli. Um, I hope they stay. I gave up on the hooflocks acrylic glue. I just had shoes keep coming off and coming off within a week or two after being glued on, no matter what I did. I followed every bit of protocol that I could think of, and I talked with um a farrier at EasyCare to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I added a couple steps after talking to him, but still shoes coming off. So I switched over to the adhere glue, which I've had good luck with in the past. So all fingers crossed that all four of Coco Pelli's shoes stay on for all 50 miles on Saturday at the City of Rocks Endurance ride. By the time this podcast actually, this episode comes out, hopefully we'll be safely back home. Uh but as it stands, I'm still in the midst of the chaos, so let's just get right down to it, shall we? I want to talk today about the number one supplement that I recommend to all riders. Well, with a very, very small exception, but we'll get to that. Almost all riders should be taking this supplement because it is protective of our brains. And we know that equestrian sports account for the highest percentage of sports-related traumatic brain injuries in the United States. One study showed that 70% of rider falls in the study involved head trauma. And it was, it was mostly concussions, and this occurred even when helmets were worn. Imagine how much worse it would have been if the helmets weren't on. So these are sobering statistics, right? But as sobering as they are, they are unlikely to stop any of us from saddling up and frankly taking our chances. But there is, surprisingly, amazingly, an affordable and safe supplement that can help mitigate harm in the case of a head injury. So why wouldn't we riders be taking this? I think the only real reason is that most of us don't know about it. So let's talk about creatine. Creatine. This is not, by the way, to be confused with creatinine, which is totally different. That is maybe, maybe if you've ever had a horse or yourself with kidney issues, um, creatinine is a marker of kidney disease. Um this is different. This is creatine. Creatine is an amino acid compound, and its primary role is to maintain energy balance within your cells as energy demand rises and falls. And the majority of your creatine is stored in muscle tissue, but it's also found in organs, particularly your brain. Your body does produce some creatine naturally, and you can take in more through your diet andor supplementation. Now, the major dietary sources are going to be red meat and seafood. So if you are vegetarian or vegan, you can especially benefit from supplementing with creatine, which, as I said, has the happy characteristics of being both inexpensive and very well researched. Now, like many athletes, I have personally supplemented with creatine for years, uh, I think actually decades now. That's scary. Um, and this is due to its extensively documented performance benefits. Um so it'll help you gain muscle, basically, uh, which is a which is a good thing. That muscle is a strong predictor of longevity. The more muscle we have, the healthier we are as a general rule. So gaining muscle and strength is a very good thing in and of itself. But more recently, I have become aware of an equally intriguing reason that equestrians should consider creatine supplementation, and that is the issue of traumatic brain injury. As I said before, we all know that even with the religious application of helmets, our sport puts us at increased risk of TBI. So it is fantastic news that a growing body of research indicates that creatine supplementation can help minimize the negative impact of TBI. Now, why? How? Well, a TBI causes a significant energy crisis in your brain. Blood flow is disrupted, and therefore oxygen availability is disrupted, and creatine levels in the brain drop in the case of TBI. But because creatine supports cellular energy balance, it does this by helping restore adenosine triphosphate or ATP, which is basically the fuel for cellular function, you want to have plenty of creatine on hand. Now, the good news is that even though a TBI will cause the creatine levels in your brain to drop, both pre-injury and post-injury supplementation can promote recovery. So if that's not good news for writers, I don't know what is. Here, let me read you a quote from a 2023 paper in sports medicine. It was by DG Kandau and colleagues, and they said, quote, creatine reduced the duration of post-traumatic amnesia, intubation time, and intensive care unit stay, in addition to improving disability, good recovery, self-care, communication, locomotion, sociability, personality and behavior, and neurophysical and cognitive function. Further, creatine improved post-traumatic headaches, dizziness and fatigue, and lingual problems of understanding. So you can see why I have added personally high-dose creatine supplementation to my personal list of instructions for family members to follow if I should end up in the hospital unable to advocate for my own care. And yes, I do have a list like that. Um, and if you don't, you might want to consider such a thing. Um, I just I just have a document that's is an in case of emergency, it tells people how I want to be taken care of and how other critical things like taking care of my horses need to happen in case I'm not available to tell them for a while. And one of the things that I want is for whoever is looking over overseeing my care to make sure that I am getting high dose creatine in the case of a head injury, because this research does indicate that it can be so helpful. So forgive me for the depressing aside there, but we all have to be aware of this. If we are going to ride horses, we need to help our families and our friends help us if something does happen. Anyway, um, what about the safety of creatine, though? Most sources agree that long-term creatine supplementation is extremely safe. It has been researched uh forever and ever, for decades. That said, be sure you talk to your doctor first, because there are possible exceptions in the context of liver disease, renal or kidney disease, uh, bipolar, diabetes, and pregnancy. So just be aware of that. But by and large, for just about everyone, all the time, creatine is very well researched and safe. The form that you want to look for if you're interested in supplementing is creatine monohydrate. It's not that the other forms are bad, but creatine monohydrate is the form of choice. It's the most bioavailable. And just about every product on the market today is going to be creatine monohydrate anyway. You can get it in a lot of different forms. It comes in capsules, in gummies, or powders. The powders are going to be the cheapest, but also more of a nuisance because then you have to mix it into something and drink it. If you're going to go that route, uh, which is what I do mostly because it's, you know, the cheapest, um, micronized powders have smaller particles that will dissolve more easily in liquid. So if you're going with a powder, try a micronized powder. And remember it's creatine monohydrate. If you prefer capsules, they are easy to find. They're a little bit more expensive, but still reasonable. The downside of capsules, though, is that to get a big enough dose, you typically need to take about seven capsules a day, which for some people feels like a lot. So bear that in mind. You can also find creatine monohydrate in gummy form if you're willing to pay for it. It's definitely more expensive that way. So, again, powder is the cheapest. Use a micronized powder because it will dissolve more easily in liquid, or if you can handle seven capsules a day and a little higher price point, go for the capsules. Or if you don't want to do the powder or the capsules and you want to pay for the gummies, go for it. Now, let's talk about how much you should take. For a long, long time, the recommendation has typically been five grams a day. And that remains true for most of the benefits of uh creatine, especially to do with improving sports performance and building muscle. Five grams a day. Um it does appear that a higher dose is more important when you want to get the brain boosting effects. About twice the dose. So some people put it this way: they say the first five grams a day go to your muscles and the second five grams a day go to your brain. It's not really that clear-cut and simple, but it's fine to think of it that way, really, because if you want to have the most brain protective effects, 10 grams a day is a great way to go. So the good news is because creatine is not terribly expensive, 10 grams a day is pretty manageable on the financial front. However, you should be aware that creatine can cause some minor stomach upset or nausea in some people. This doesn't happen to everyone, and it's usually not very bad, and it usually doesn't last very long. However, it can be annoying. And typically it doesn't happen below five grams a day. Whoa, I just about jumped out of my skin. Sorry to interrupt myself. Um, but an amber alert just went off of my phone. I don't know if my mic picked it up, but um yeah, I just about had a heart attack, but I'm fine, I'm fine. So, anyway, back to nausea. You are unlikely to experience any of that stomach upset effect at five grams a day. But if you do, you can just split it into smaller doses. Of course, if you take that higher dose of 10 grams a day, you are more likely to experience the stomach upset. But same answer, you can divide it out over the day into smaller doses. Maybe start with two five gram doses, and if that still doesn't work for you, then you could turn that into three or four doses that are even smaller. So there you go. With the caveat that every individual is different, you should consult your own medical professional, especially if you have anything going on like pregnancy or renal disease. Creatine monohydrate is an extremely well-researched supplement. It has shown a broad range of benefits in widely varied individuals over long periods of time. It's low cost, it's low risk, and it has very high potential benefits, especially for traumatic brain injury. So that is what makes it the number one supplement that I recommend to help you ride stronger in a day and longer in your life. Want to get more sweaty? Subscribe to my newsletter at the sweatyequestrian dot com slash newsletter. And remember, you have what it takes to be a full athletic partner for your horse. Saddle up strong.