AdvoCare Muscle Fuel vs. Mass Impact:
By AdvoCare Director of Endorsement Mr. Rob Graf
AdvoCare Muscle Fuel: It is specifically formulated to be a fuel for your muscles for intense workouts. That's it. Creatine was added to help provide stability for membranes, reduce muscle tissue damage, and improve recovery from exercise and competition. For the average person, an intense workout might be pushing a lawn mower and other forms of physical labor.
Mass Impact: As a strength & conditioning specialist, I see that Mass Impact has a more broad and beneficial use such as:
1. Short-term fast-filling of the body's creatine stores (what I call the body's "creatine tank") when beginning a Lean Mass gain training regimen
2. Great way to maintain a full creatine tank on non-training days (on days I don't train I don't use Muscle Fuel...and I may not use Post Workout Recovery on those days either)
3. Great way for a normal person who doesn't intensely train to keep creatine levels up for general strength and recovery
4. Great way for Baby Boomers and elderly to maintain strength for daily activities
Using creatine before workouts and dehydration
Hydration is a daily method of operation. By hydrating consistently on a daily basis, eating a good diet, staying away from alcohol, and getting proper rest all should be fine.
What is creatine? Creatine is a nitrogenous organic acid that occurs naturally in vertebrates.
1. It is not a steroid or drug. It is naturally produced in the human body from amino acids primarily in the kidney and liver
2. It helps to supply energy to skeletal muscle which is its primary target with the body's production or supplementation
3. One cannot get enough creatine by just food to fill the muscle up and thus supplementation has been used.
4. Your body loses about 3 - 5 g creatine per day (5 g for those training at intense levels)
5. Safety of creatine has been examined and due to the fact it primarily goes to muscle at a 97-98% rate it has little impact on other cells and tissues
6. Creatine helps to stabilize membranes and reduce muscle tissue damage and improve recovery from exercise and competition
7. Creatine has about a 5-10% treatment effect on strength, power and allows trainees to push out 1 to 3 more reps in a set at various intensities
8. In other populations such as older adults the creatine improves physical function and everyday tasks
Filling the Creatine Tank
The body's "creatine tank" normally stays about 2/3 full. The idea is to fill up your body's tank and then keep it full. To visualize this, think of a gas tank that has a small leak that lets out about 3-5 grams of creatine per day. We lose that much per day. The upper range of 5g would be a person who is training hard on a consistent basis. There are two ways to fill your tank:
1. Fast Fill: 20 grams a day (4 servings a day of 5 g each spread evenly through the day) for 4-5 days
2. Slow Fill: 9 - 10 g (3 servings of 3 g per day spread evenly through the day) for 30 days
Notes on Filling the Tank
- A large body of research over the last fifteen years has shown that oral creatine supplementation at a rate of 5 to 20 grams per day appears to be very safe and with limited of adverse side-effects while at the providing an effective impact on improving the physiological response to resistance exercise and increasing maximal force and power production of muscles in both men and women
- There are individuals with genetically high concentrations of muscle creatine and thus they do not respond to creatine supplementation and are called non-responders
- Use of creatine causes a weight gain of about 2-4 pounds do to the need for increased cellular water, so hydrate properly
Maintenance (Keeping the Tank filled)
- Once your tank is filled, it takes about 3 - 5 grams a day to keep your tank filled. There is no need to surpass the amounts above when filling your tank. Anything more just overflows the tank and is of no value and is lost via kidney in the urine. If you are training intensely then the upper limit (5 g) is needed as more is lost. If you stop the daily "re-filling" maintenance, the filled muscle goes back to its normal 2/3 level and the body will kick in and produce its own creatine again.
General FAQ's
What separates AdvoCare Mass Impact™ from a creatine product? Mass Impact is more than just creatine monohydrate. It is certified by Informed-Choice, and it contains 3 other ingredients that make it a unique product:
- Sustamine™ - Sustamine is a dipeptide of the amino acids, L-alanine and L-glutamine. This dipeptide enhances electrolyte and water absorption resulting in higher serum bioavailability and absorption of L-glutamine, compared to L-glutamine alone. It plays an important role in enhancing the immune system, muscle protein synthesis and energy production through gluconeogenesis. (Sustamine™ is a registered trademark of Kyowa Hakko Bio Co., Ltd.)
- L-leucine - Of the three branched chain amino acids, L-leucine is most important for prevention of muscle mass loss with aging (sarcopenia), maintenance of exercise quality and intensity and faster recovery from workouts
- Glycine - Glycine participates in several important reactions, including the biosynthesis of heme, an important constituent of hemoglobin, and the biosynthesis of L-serine (another amino acid), purines (constituents of genetic material), and glutathione (a coenzyme and antioxidant).
My creatine tank is filled and it's time to maintain. I train 3-4 days a week. I use Muscle Fuel and Post-Workout Recovery. That's 5 g of creatine, so do I still need to use Mass Impact? You need 3 - 5 g to keep you tank filled. On your training days, Muscle Fuel and Post Workout Recovery should suffice. Consider using Mass Impact on your non-training days.
I heard creatine is banned by the NCAA? That is incorrect. Creatine is NCAA "non-permissible" which simply means that an NCAA institution or Institutional staff member cannot provide it to the athlete. It is perfectly fine for an athlete to purchase Mass Impact on their own and use it. Note: It is a violation NCAA rules for any NCAA staff member (coach or otherwise) to sell AdvoCare products or any nutritional supplement to their athletes.
My son's coach says creatine causes cramping. Is that true? Cramping has not been shown to be caused by creatine
For More Information on AdvoCare's Performance Elite Line visit www.AdvoFitAthlete.com
