None of these 'sports products' work.....

I did cringe when a colleague who had started running through his gym was spouting about the benefits of gels ... used during a 5k run.  Whichever personal trainer advised that should be shot!  And the amount of lucozade that is suggested on the bottle is ridiculous and likely to lead to over-hydration.  One of these days I'll send them the relevant passage from Noakes!

As for shoes... any fool knows that to run fast you need red shoes.  Nuff said

My shoes are red....I must have a duff pair!

For people who want to train to burn fat, don't you need carbs to kick start that rather than water? Can't remember the article in a cycle mag a while ago, and also carbs are carbs, not necessarily expensive drinks and gels.

I use lucozade sports drinks if I'm over going over 15 miles, I think they help.  Less than that water is fine, there's no way I'd use up my gltcogen in less than 2 hrs, or so.  I really liked the one with added cafiene, but Tesco's don't stock it anymore.  .  I always look for the two for ones etc.  I also like those little Isis bars cherry and grain stuff for the 20+ runs and it fits nicely down my shorts.  I have glucose tabs down there as well, for emergency only.  I am convinced that all this works.    I used gels twice and they made me throw up.  In general Panarama, for the last 40 odd years, is and always has been sensationalist crap (tabloid style), if you ever know anything about what they are talking about you realise this quite quickly.  I suspect that tonight willl be a case in point.  I will watch it until it pisses me off.  if i was spread betting, I'd go for 2-4 minutes.

King K,

before the drinks companies jumped on the whole 'mass running' bandwagon, there were drinks around that we would have used as 'sports drinks', just because if you hit the wall they would give you a boost.

Basically in my mind as a fairly fast non subscriber to marketing shit, you can make your own 'highly priced sports nutrition' for a fraction of the price. And if you think you need it as anything under sub elite. You're better off with my concoction of headless jelly babies, salt, water, jelly cubes and free sex.

Milk is good, so is beer!

I use beer and a bloody good curry for recovery (from the takeaway in the village).  I like a good jelly baby, when offered.  As for free sex, you obviously know something, I don't.

Pizza and wine are my recovery products of choice!

Panaroma was as expected.  They did acknowledge that sports drink were useful for endurance exercise, but the rest was very facile.  Personally, I don't like sports drinks, I'd rather have gels/food, but I do really have to bite my tongue when I see overweight colleagues ambling along at 5k per hour on the treadmill (no incline) in the gym, not breaking a sweat at all, drinking a sports drink and then whinge in the changing room about the fact that they are not losing weight.  Well duh.  Even worse, I've seen someone do this and then buy ANOTHER sports drink from the vending machine on the way out!

I would question the "much more expensive" thing as well.

I think of tinned tuna as a fairly cheap source of protein.

Looking them up, tins of sainsburys tuna, which I buy, cost over a pound each and a tin supplies about 35g of protein. Doing the sums (with the actual price) I got just over 3 pence per gram of protein. On the other hand, I buy whey powder from myprotein.com, and a 5kg sack costs about £42 and is 80% protein. Doing the sums again, I got around 1 pence per gram of protein -- three times cheaper!

I'm not surprised whey is so cheap, it is after all basically a by-product of other processes which they are selling off to us! But don't give me that "expensive sports supplements" thing, the only weight you will lose is in your wallet etc. Of course there are overpriced ones, but I think of my whey as a very cheap protein food.

I watched the show, i think our theories that the sports drinks section would be aimed at the less active i.e gym users, as opposed to long distance runners was provided correct - so that was good.

I was surprised to hear the theories about trainers, that it doesn't mater about cushioning , stability or pronation!! That will certainly affect my trainer buying habits!!

I think it was a shame that they spent about 15 mins going on about running bear foot and then only about 1 minute saying, well actually its how you run, not being bare foot. Bit bias towards the journalists opinion that section.

And it was a shame that the only real powders they looked at, were those aimed a body builders.

It will be interesting to see how companies like SIS, ForGoodnessShakes, Powerade and Lucozade respond. And also runners world who have been giving out that same advice that these companies and the trainer companies give out. I think they need to come out now start advising that there is evidence that these things don't work and what the alternatives are.

p.s sorry to hear that you cant find it for free king k :P lol

And kitten i suspect your now one of the most popular posters on here lol :P

For me nothing really came out of the programme that I didn't already know or suspect because there was nothing really conclusive - The interview with Graham Obree and his jam sandwiches perhaps summed it all up - he didn't think that the supplements work - the key word for me there is THINK - because if someone thinks a certain sports drink, supplement or a pair of trainers are helping, then they are and it is that belief that makes all the difference - just my opinion.

Hmm its a good point Grendel, but the fact that this is the first independent study and its shown them all up, isn't good news!

The jam sandwich makes sense because its sugar and carbs which is basically what the drinks are. But i think i'll carry on using my recovery drink because its more convenient for me. Although i might skip them on days when ive only done short runs.

kittenkat wrote (see)

For people who want to train to burn fat, don't you need carbs to kick start that rather than water? Can't remember the article in a cycle mag a while ago, and also carbs are carbs, not necessarily expensive drinks and gels.

 

KK, you shouldn't use carbs to kick start the fat burning process.  I quote directly from Peak Performance "Following even a modest intake of carbohydrate, insulin is secreted from the pancreas facilitating movement of glucose from the blood into muscle cells(7). In addition to maintaining blood glucose within an acceptable range, insulin functions to remove fatty acids from the circulation, and is the primary inhibitor of lipolytic (fat burning) pathways(8,9)."  The references given are to articles in 'Nutrition', 'Progress in Lipid Research' and 'Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise' - but I let them do the dry reading for me.  If you're about to do an event that needs you fat-burning, but you still need to keep your carb stores topped up, then don't take in carbs until after you've started.

Grendel3 wrote (see)

For me nothing really came out of the programme that I didn't already know or suspect because there was nothing really conclusive - The interview with Graham Obree and his jam sandwiches perhaps summed it all up - he didn't think that the supplements work - the key word for me there is THINK - because if someone thinks a certain sports drink, supplement or a pair of trainers are helping, then they are and it is that belief that makes all the difference - just my opinion.

And this for me was a classic too!  As the BBC we can belittle GSK's 143 studies, but if one ex-world record holder has an anecdote to offer then it's God's Word!!

It was an interesting programme, but there was nothing to take away apart from a good point to consider any marketing claims and take nothing at face value.  Oh, and Creatine and Caffeine work, but you might have missed that second-and-a-half.

I think the BBC was going of the Oxford study which was the first independent study of these products all other studies had been done by or paid for by the companies selling the products, which i think was the point the Beeb were trying to get across. But the show was mostly about dispelling the myths that these things makes you faster, stronger & fitter and that you need them every time you exercise and that the products are better than water and part of a required diet if your to perform well in sports. Which i think most people on here will already know is just madness, its your gym bunnies and beginners i think that will of learnt the most from last night and were probably the target audience.

Oh and as per my past post, the jame sandwich would work as is it basically all thats in most sports drinks.

As for the trainers i think they said they looked at evidence from several studies were as again, the companies selling the products either only provided evidence they had found or couldn't provide any to back up their claims, which was a shame.

Ratzer, I think there was more to take away than that. We're talking about whole industries that use PR and marketing that suggests they have up-to-date and complete scientific proof behind them - and have nothing of the sort. That's unsurprising, but it needs pointing out now and then.

Peter Collins wrote (see)

Ratzer, I think there was more to take away than that. We're talking about whole industries that use PR and marketing that suggests they have up-to-date and complete scientific proof behind them - and have nothing of the sort. That's unsurprising, but it needs pointing out now and then.

Which indeed is the point I took away, though, as you say, unsurprising.  The irony is that it is a point being made by a whole industry of soundbite journalism.

The Oxford study acknowledged that 3 of the studies GSK provided were of acceptable quality and lack of bias.  (I couldn't find the criteria for determining 'lack of bias' but it is very difficult to find studies that aren't sponsored by someone with an interest in the results.)  Neither the BMJ (online BMJ.com) nor the programme have revealed what these particular studies show.

That is to say I don't support the findings either way.  The point I take away applies equally to the programme as much as what it was investigating!

I think they said there was some some evidence to suggest there is a benefit to professional athletes , but its not enough of a benefit for everyday people like us to need to buy such products, unless your doing endurance sports which will see you exercising for at least one hour and in those cases you wont need to take them until youve been going for an hour.

Ive seen some runners taking energy gels at the start line of a race, its just stupid, they should have enough energy at that point!!

SJPC14

I understand your logic, but would just like to expand on it for a moment.

Rather than use up everything in store until it absolutely needs replenishing, it is better for peak performance to manage the cycle of energy boost/insulin release dip in a more controlled way. That is to take a gel every 30 minutes from a point earlier in the race than you would expect to be needing one. I was also advised to change from my deliciously flavoured but big hitting sachet to a smaller variety. That way I took less of a boost, but more importantly got less of a dip.

Did it work? Quite possibly. But we are talking here about managing small percentage improvements, and there are many little jigsaw pieces that make up the whole picture. When I race I have always targeted a PB. When I fail, I usually know why. Sometimes I get everything right, then I surprise people. Others operate more moderate targets and continue to deliver a steady stream of moderate performances.

Gels work. Milk works. Big pasta parties the night before a big race do NOT work. Ice baths work. Massage works. Massive meat platters after a big race work. Being light works very well. Training hard works best of all.

I take your point, Ratzer, but what is an hour-long programme supposed to do? And the onus is surely on companies that make claims to back them up. That they're not is the main finding.