NSCA National Conference 2011 Review - Part 2
July 31 2011
Here is the second part of my review of the NSCA National Conference. To read the first part, click here
Dr. Dan Bernadot
Dr. Bernadot is a Professor of Nutrition and the Director of the laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia University. Dan’s presentation was titled “Within Day energy Balance for Better Weight, Body Composition, and performance”.
Dr. Dan talked about the issue of meal frequency - how many times you have to eat in a day to improve body composition. From what I have read, eating more frequently do not raise your metabolic rate or improve your body composition, though every fitness magazine swears that eating 6-8 times a day raises your metabolism. So I was very interested in looking at his references.
His first major study was an observational study done on elite gymnasts and runners. The study was based on self reporting and showed that the larger the energy deficit (in both frequency and /or magnitude), the higher the body fat. Keep in mind that this study is based on self reporting, the correlation coefficient was less than .50, and was studied on a population notorious for eating disorders and menstrual problems. It is hard to conclude anything more than a weak association between the frequency of food intake and body fat from this study.
Now for an experimental study with a control group –at least that’s what I thought from the slide. But the study was just a poster presentation and never got published. And the study did not study the frequency of meals, it only looked to see if a caloric surplus affected body composition in athletes. And, as expected, it did in a positive manner.
In fact, there are a few studies which have showed increase in lean body mass (or decrease in muscle loss) with lower meal frequency compared to a higher frequency. But the studies used BIA to measure body composition. In short, it seems like we do not have any strong evidence to show that a higher meal frequency helps lose weight or maintain muscle mass better than a lower meal frequency.
The second part of Dan’s presentation involved a dietitian talking about meal plans and recipes and how you can ‘make’ your athletes eat 6 times a day. Considering how college students have a hard time finding time or motivation to prepare and eat meals, strong recommendations like these need some strong evidence to be justified. If you can control your appetite better with 3 meals a day and hate taking the time to eat 6-8 meals (and most do), there is no convincing data to tell you otherwise.
Dr. Jeffrey Stout
Dr. Stout is an Associate Professor and the Director of Metabolic and Body Composition Laboratory in the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Stout presentation was titled “Nutritional Supplement Approaches to Male Athletes”.
This was a good presentation: He had all the relevant studies and he narrowed his presentation from acute to long term studies. In the acute studies, he showed how a carb-protein supplement showed lower cortisol levels and lower muscle damage (creatine kinase). He also had some data showing how protein-carb supplement increase endurance performance, time to fatigue and decrease muscle damage. By the way, I am yet to see a endurance athlete talk about post workout nutrition.
For long term benefits, he showed a couple of studies which showed an increase in muscle and strength. He also talked about creatine and how creatine shows an increase in strength and muscle. It wasn’t anything ground breaking, but it was good to see someone lay out the evidence neatly.
I have talked about in the past that only the Cribb study directly supports the pre-post supplementation protocol to increase strength and muscle. There are two major reasons for this: In most supplement timing studies that I have seen, the participants were tested in the morning under fasted conditions. This is not how majority of people workout unless you are training in the morning on an empty stomach. Also, if we are studying the timing, the study design should be such that one group consumes the supplement Pre and Post and another group consumes it further apart from their workouts. But most long-term studies which looked at supplement timing used a control group that just had water or a carb solution post workout.
I would love to see a study with the same design as the Cribb study, but with a few changes: A placebo group so that the subjects who are in the pre-post group are not subjected to the placebo effects. In fact, a placebo group is required in drug trials if you are testing the efficacy of a drug. Also, a study performed by authors who have no financial ties to the supplement industry. It pretty clear now that favorable results are more likely in studies where there is a financial conflict of interest.
