So we need to be mindful of all these types of factors that go into when we take our supplements. And then also being mindful if you take any other medication, taking things like say magnesium, for instance, can interfere with other medication that you might be taking. So that’s again, why I think you need to be much more strategic around your supplement use rather than just taking stuff willy-nilly because you might be doing things to harm what you’re trying to do otherwise without you being aware of it. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me back. It’s been a while Brenton, but good to be back on the podcast. It has been a pleasure to have you come back on and today I wanna dig into supplements. What’s worth taking?

What’s not? To kick it off, what’s the most you’ve seen someone spend on an annual basis on supplements? I have seen it all, honestly. I find that most athletes take far more stuff than they actually need. One of my athletes recently gave me an entire spreadsheet with everything she takes so that I can review it when she joined the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program. I was like, holy crap, I’m oily. And I was like, you can cut all that out except for this one thing. And so her as an example, she’s saving six and a half thousand, but I know athletes that spend way more money than that on a monthly basis or annual basis for supplements that are, are they effective? Are they worth it? Probably not. That you’ve got me very curious as to what that one supplement was. Is that something that is specific to her that you think she should keep taking or is a pretty general one for everyone?

For her, it was something that’s specific for her. She’s recovering from injury. So I guess I take an athlete and where they’re at in their training, in their season, where they are in life. And also we had the benefit of her recent blood tests to go on to know what she actually needed because when we talk about supplements, the truth is in their name, they should be a supplement to a really good foundational diet. They are not the basis of somebody’s diet. And that’s where a lot of athletes go wrong is that they go to supplements first. I always talk about nutrition being a cake. So most athletes will do the sprinkles on the icing on the cake first because it’s really easy to add to cart. You get something shiny in the mailbox, which is a dopamine hit. You take it like people are generally pretty good at taking things the most days. And that’s really easy to do. Whereas the stuff that is the foundational layer

of somebody’s diet, the cake base is much harder. It’s doing things like eating enough for its vegetables, making sure your recovery nutrition start in for training, making sure you’ve got your fueling right for training. All the things that you do day in, day out form the big rock-solid foundation and adding supplements should be something that you sprinkle on at the end to get the advantage from that, not form the big base. Because if you do that first, there’s nothing for those guys to stick to. And there’s a really cool paper that I can dig up for if you want to dive into the research that the more things we take, the worse it seems to be. They all seem to kind of wash themselves out. So we need to be and think much more strategically around supplement use that we’re using something for a reason and with a purpose rather than just like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. One thing you mentioned there was blood tests.

Is that something that you recommend all your athletes get or just specific people get? Yeah, I think active people should definitely keep an eye on what’s going on. Most people do it kind of annually with their GP and if they don’t, then maybe you shouldn’t. I do have a free blood test guide. Actually, people want to go and grab that. If you go to dietitianapproved.com forward slash bloods you can download it. And it goes through a range of different things that are useful for active people. What on earth that test actually means and then some reference ranges as well. Now it’s not medical advice and it’s not going to replace having a good discussion with your doctor or your dietitian but it might spark some ideas for things to actually check in and monitor, particularly when you’re active because our need for vitamins and minerals is higher than somebody that sits on their butt all day but it doesn’t mean that we need to blanketly

be taking a multivitamin to try and meet those needs. So doing your bloods regularly at least once a year for some people it’s more often. So as an example, a female with low iron I’d be checking their bloods every three months because the red blood cell turnover is every three months to see what’s going on. And then strategically doing some interventions to see if what we’re doing dietary wise or even supplementation wise is helping or hindering. So it’s just being smarter and I guess taking ownership of your health a bit more and checking bloods is a really easy way to do that.

And is there a common thing that you see with endurance athletes that they are typically lacking when you get their blood test results? Yeah, really commonly iron particularly if you’re a female athlete or you’re a vegetarian vegan athlete and the endurance variety because we use more iron on a daily basis and we lose more iron as well. So it’s something that you want to keep a good close eye on. The other one honestly is vitamin D. So many people are deficient in vitamin D and have no idea and our whole bone structuring like system doesn’t work so well if we’re deficient in vitamin D. There’s so many like pathways in our body that don’t work well if we’re deficient in things. So iron and vitamin D are big ones to check as an endurance athlete in particular.

And are they ones that you would generally supplement for or you would obviously real foods is what we want to go to first but are they typically ones that you would look to supplement for and you’d be happy for an athlete to do that? Yes, but only if there’s a deficiency. So we don’t want to blanketly supplement those things without having the data first because vitamin D is actually a fat soluble vitamin. So if you have too much it can be toxic. So you want to check your bloods and check for a deficiency and is there a natural way for you to elevate that? So for us or anywhere in the world the depth of winter your vitamin D stores are probably at their lowest but in the height of summer or at the end of summer they might be there higher. So want to check at different times of the year to see what our vitamin D status is because it’s not stable. And that’s the best way to increase your vitamin D stores is to actually seek light at the right wavelength.

And there are a couple of dietary sources as well but it’s not a good one to be really deficient in. So something that I would supplement if it’s particularly low but definitely not one to supplement if you just think it might be. And the other one is iron. Again, like too much iron is bad. And so we want to check our bloods and particularly you’re looking for ferritin which is our storage form of iron and making sure that storage is higher. And the reference range for that for the active population is higher than the general population too. So working with a sports physician or a sports dietitian is going to help you make sure that both of those things are optimal because your performance is not going to be particularly good if you’re deficient in either of those. Interesting. And makes a lot of sense, right? Some are obviously getting a lot more sun you’re getting a lot more vitamin D so it could change with the seasons.

Now, the next one is creatine. It feels like in the last 12, 18 months has had a really big increase in popularity with how much you should take, why you should take it. I remember probably 10 years ago it was like take it to get jacked and get strong but now they’re talking more about the mental benefits of it. So what’s your take on creatine? Yeah, you’re right. Creatine has just had an explosion lately and the messaging is that everyone should take creatine because everyone’s going to benefit which I disagree with but there are certain subgroups and subpopulations that it would be beneficial for. Historically, like it’s one of the most researched supplements and historically it has been in the Jimbrough space to, yeah, get swole, but we are seeing more research in the female space and particularly females through the lifespan too. So there’s some stuff in sort of menopausal women and the cognitive benefits of creatine for that brain fog

which is really cool to see. The dosing for that is quite high though and I wouldn’t suggest that there’s enough research in that space to warrant taking such huge doses. Also don’t enjoy the blanket, everyone should have three to five grams a day advice because it is based on your body weight because creatine is uptaked, soaked up into the muscle and like you’ve got more muscle mass than I do so your dosing of creatine should be specific to you. So something to look at but it is still a supplement and it’s not something that you should replace without having a good quality diet because you can get creatine from all of your animal meats too. So it doesn’t have to be necessarily something that you supplement. If your diet quality is poor then you’re not going to get the same advantages for it. Protein powder kind of along those lines I guess as well. What’s your take there? Again, it is a supplement. So we want to supplement our diet

with that in certain situations. You will get so much more benefit from having something like a high protein Greek yogurt with some berries, some nuts and seeds or some muesli type thing that meal has got healthy fats, it’s got carbohydrates, it’s got calcium, it’s got a huge range of vitamins and minerals in that. Whereas replacing that with a protein powder you are literally only getting the protein. So we need to think more globally around what we’re putting in our high performance engine I like to call it. Our body is our temple and it’s what’s going to get us to the finish line fastest. It’s not this one supplement but protein powder I think is relatively low risk. I’d be looking for something that is informed sport tested so that you know that it’s been independently batch tested and it includes, it doesn’t include any water prohibited substances because supplement industry is in particularly well regulated to be honest.

America’s atrocious, Australia’s slightly better but everything that you put in your body you want to make sure that it is safe and also effective. So checking supplements that are informed sport tested is a good thing. And then there’s a couple of different types of protein powders. You’ve got way based protein powders, you’ve got other like plant based protein powders if you’re vegan or can’t have dairy and their quality is different and how much protein they have per serve is different. So just going into a supplement store and asking the huge buff dude behind the counter for a protein powder is probably not the best strategy. You actually want to pick one that is suitable for you and then using it strategically where you need it to like supplement or top up your daily protein intake where you need it rather than using that as like a lazy way of trying to do recovery because it doesn’t actually tick all of your recovery boxes.

So like any of this stuff you need to be strategic about it rather than just going, yep, that’ll do and like tick a box because it generally isn’t ticking a box for most people. The next one, general multivitamin. Oh God, are you still taking AG1? No. I don’t know. You mentioned it, I think two podcasts ago. I was like, yeah, well, I’ll at least finish what I’ve got and then looked into it more as well. And I was like, yeah, you’re right. Yeah, so no, I’m not. How much am I saving you? I don’t know, probably 80 bucks a month. They did offer to send me, actually they sent me some as like a potential podcast sponsor. And then besides I’ll take that and then like I didn’t proceed with it, obviously. So yeah, I’ve got the free one. That didn’t cost me anything. But no, I’m not taking it anymore. Okay, you’re welcome. So I asked that because it’s in the same line as a multivitamin, right? And people think that that’s a better way to go

than taking a multivitamin. But a multivitamin is kind of like a general practitioner that it’s a generalist at lots of different things but it doesn’t have enough of specific things to be beneficial. So you wouldn’t take a multivitamin and say, if you’re iron deficient and you need to increase your iron because it only has a tiny amount. So it is kind of a little bit like a safety blanket that a lot of people would take but it is also throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something fix. Oh my God, can I say that again? It is a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. A lot of our vitamins are water soluble. So if we don’t need it, then we are literally going to break it down and pee it out. So it’s not something I would recommend anybody take. I’d much rather be more strategic around supplement use and using sole supplements. So an iron only supplement to treat iron deficiency

or vitamin D only to treat vitamin D deficiency rather than taking a little bit of all this stuff. You will get so much more benefit from eating actual food, getting the vitamins and minerals from real food like our fruits and our vegetables and eating the rainbow to get all that huge variety because you’ll get fiber, you’ll get more satiety from eating and chewing your food that you won’t get from taking a pill. And you also get a whole range of food chemicals that can’t ever be packaged up and put into a shine little product either. So it’s a no for me for a multivitamin. But what about vitamin C? Is that one that you would ever consider? No, short answer no. Same sort of thing. It’s water soluble. If you have a look down at your pee, your urine color after taking a vitamin C, generally it’s kind of glowing. It’s like bright orange. And that’s because you are literally breaking it down and peeing it out because it’s water soluble.

You can get your daily intake of vitamin C just by eating some citrus fruits or a pun of the strawberries. Like it’s really easy to meet your requirements on a daily basis from food. And it’s not something that we’re generally limiting in the modern diet either. Okay, gotcha. I’m sorry, were you gonna say something? Yeah, do you want me to keep going? Yeah, sorry, go for it. If you are feeling like you’re coming down with an upper respiratory tract infection though, like a cold, then taking vitamin C in combination with zinc can be beneficial, but only for the first five days. And that’s been shown to lower the severity and duration of a upper respiratory tract infection. But it’s not something that you wanna take prophylactically all the time either. So again, being strategic around a supplement use rather than just taking things all day every day. One question I wanted to ask before, but I forgot to was in terms of how,

with some of these supplements, let’s say it’s iron or vitamin D, do you have a preferred method of taking it as in like pill or tablet? Like what is there some that are better than others? Yeah, it depends what it is really. Timing of day is often really important for some things over like the form. Say for instance, vitamin B12 often needs to be given intramuscular via injection, but it’s really difficult to become deficient in vitamin B12. You have to do a really crap job of dietary stuff for a long period of time or have another pathway where you’re not absorbing it properly. But I think timing is more important than form with a lot of things. So iron in particular, we have this hormone that controls our iron status and it increases as the day goes on. So if we’re supplementing with iron, we want to put it sort of first thing in the morning before that hepsidon response has increased as the day goes on. And then for example,

and for iron as an example, there’s a lot of foods that enhance the absorption of iron and inhibit the absorption of iron too. So we need to be mindful of all these types of factors that go into when we take our supplements. And then also being mindful if you take any other medication, taking things like say magnesium for instance, can interfere with other medication that you might be taking. So as again, why I think you need to be much more strategic around your supplement use rather than just taking stuff willy-nilly because you might be doing things to harm what you’re trying to do otherwise without you being aware of it. Gotcha, okay, interesting. Next one’s electrolytes. So good, bad, yes, no, what’s your take there? Obviously it’s like it’s a supplement in a way but maybe a little different than some of the other ones we’re talking about but what’s your perspective there? Yeah, it depends. So it’s not something

that I would take necessarily outside of training but because I work with triathletes then having some form of sodium during exercise can be beneficial for some people in some situations which is why it depends. So it really depends on what type of sweaty you are and how much sweat sodium you are excreting. And you might need to be supplementing during exercise if you’re a really salty sweater or you’re out there for a long period of time. But before people get into supplementing out there are other things that I would do first and that’s making sure their fueling is right as well as making sure their overall hydration status is right and then I like to layer in the sodium piece on top of that. So we do other things first whereas most triathletes, because that’s how I work with, they do the electrolytes first. And kind of like creatine, the sodium story has had a lot of limelight in the last couple of years and people are just taking more and more and more.

And that’s not necessarily beneficial either because we know that the more salt that you have in your diet, the more your sweat glands try and get rid of in exercise and the more your kidneys will just filter out as well if you don’t need it because you don’t store salt or sodium anywhere. We don’t have like a bucket, like our protein in our carbohydrate in our muscles as glycogen, we don’t kind of store sodium up for later. So we need what we need at the time but the kidneys do an excellent job of filtering out any excess and then also retaining what they’ve excreted if they need it. So it’s not a really simple answer to that question. So that’s why I said it depends.

Remind me of myself, it’s like someone asked a question about a certain aspect of the stroke. It’s like, well, it depends. Yeah, it’s always case dependent. You need the context that, yeah, great. So it can be certainly be a useful thing to have. Another one here is just BCAAs. So, yeah, amino acids, is that something that can be worthwhile for people? Maybe, so branch chain amino acids are what all of our protein foods break down to so that we can digest and absorb them. So if you’re eating enough protein in your diet, then you shouldn’t need to supplement with branch chain amino acids. The jury was out a while ago when I looked at the research. I haven’t looked at it recently in the last sort of five years but whether you take BCAAs in strength training and whether that actually helps with muscle strength and muscle hypertrophy, there’s papers for that and there’s also papers against it. But because all the big like buffed gym bros did it,

it filtered down to the general population and we think we should do it as well. So I think like primarily if we’re talking back to our nutrition cake, we need to make sure we have enough protein on a daily basis and you’re meeting your protein needs and then you shouldn’t really need to supplement with branch chain amino acids. You’d probably go more of a whey protein isolate powder first rather than doing BCAA. Yeah, gotcha. Hey, real quick, in case you didn’t know, we run swimming camps around the world from the Maldives, Thailand, Japan, with Sundays, Galapagos Islands, plus a bunch of new locations for next year. So if you’d like to join us at a future camp and improve your swimming and explore and experience some of the best locations to swim in the world, then go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash camps. We’ve got all the dates and locations listed there. A question I get all the time is, I’m not that quick, will this camp be suitable for me?

We have a wide range of speeds and abilities come to the camps. So as long as you can swim a kilometer, there’s a very good chance that these camps will be suitable for you. And if you’re not sure, just get in touch with us and we’ll make sure that we do find you a suitable camp. Thanks for listening. Let’s get back into the podcast. The other one here is magnesium. What’s your, what are your thoughts there? I have this love-hate relationship with magnesium because so many athletes take it and we don’t really know if it does anything. And they, when I ask them why they take it, they also can’t tell me why. A lot of people take it for cramping, but there’s no evidence that magnesium is gonna help or reduce the severity of cramping. People take it for sleep and there’s some research in sleep, but are you again masking or trying to, you know, safety blanket a deeper problem there than magnesium is not necessarily the answer.

So it’s not necessarily something I would take somebody off if they were really attached to it, but I would never recommend it to somebody. Mm, gotcha. Is there any that I haven’t mentioned that come to mind that pretty common? There is so many. Like I think collagen is probably another big one that’s getting a lot of limelight at the moment. And that’s because, you know, 10 years ago, the research was like collagen doesn’t do anything. And now there’s more literature saying, yep, collagen does, but again, it is a supplement. You can get collagen from your diet. And I think a lot of women are taking it for the skin benefits, which, you know, I’m all four. I turned 40 this year and I’m absolutely freaking out. So I don’t personally take collagen, but it might be something that I add into my diet in the near future. Like there’s so much stuff, right? Like my athlete that sent me her spreadsheet, I should bring it up.

Like there’s just so many things that she was taking that just get added up over the years. Like someone somewhere told her to take something and then she just continued taking it forever more. So for instance, she’s taking a really high dose iron supplementation from postpartum 10 years ago that she never got rid of. She definitely doesn’t need that. Same as vitamin D, she was taking vitamin D, but when we look at her bloods, her vitamin D levels were fine. Like they’re perfect. And so it’s just being mindful. And I’ve said the word strategic so many times because I think that really is the key that it’s not just to take everything and like cross fingers and hope for the best. You actually want to layer things in strategically. So if you’re going to use creatin, for instance, maybe you do it in a strength phase and then you get rid of it again and then you bring it back in through like a strength block. Protein powder could be something that stays,

but again, it needs to be at a strategic time of day rather than having it every day or every snack because you need more protein. So it’s just being more aware of what you put in your mouth and doing things that are going to help you and actually are effective rather than just kind of taking things because you feel like you’ll get left behind if you don’t do it. Taran, thank you so much for this. I’ve kind of a quick rapid fire or fairly rapid fire answer to a lot of questions that I know people will be wondering. And some people, it may be a little bit of putting to hear that the thing they’ve been taking might not be giving them the advantages that they… They thought and I mean, I experienced that a few years ago with AG1 as well. So yeah, I know what it feels like, but give it a few months and then see how you feel about it. Taran, thank you again. If this all sounds like there’s… It depends, there’s a lot of information.

It’s like, well, what’s relevant to me? Get in touch with Taran. We’ll include the link to your website there with the triathlon nutrition academy. So anyone who needs a bit more help themselves can get in touch. So Taran, thank you for being a guest on the podcast again. My pleasure, as always. Thanks, Brenton. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.