Surmounting the Brain’s Capabilities by Consuming Supplements

Our brain is the command center for everything we do—whether we’re learning new skills, making split-second decisions, or trying to stay focused throughout the day. With the increasing interest in optimizing cognitive performance, many people turn to nutritional supplements to give their brain that extra boost. Although I work to stay fit by being active and eating as appropriately as I can, I know that my most valuable resource is my brain. In order to maximize my brain’s potential to the fullest I’ve been considering supplements. But do these supplements really work?

Today, we’re diving into a study by Romaine Meeusen and Lieselot Decroix, titled “Nutritional Supplements & the Brain.” This study takes a closer look at the relationship between commonly used supplements like caffeine, creatine, omega-3 fatty acids, and B vitamins, and their effects on brain function.

 

Limitations of the Study

This research focused primarily on athletes — a population that typically has higher physical and cognitive demands. Athletes often experience cognitive fatigue under high physical stress, making them a unique group for studying the effects of these supplements. So, while the findings are valuable, it’s important to consider that non-athletes might experience these effects differently.

Another limitation is that the studies reviewed in this paper don’t address the long-term effects of supplement use. What happens after months or years of consistent use? That remains to be fully understood.

Some of the supplements that I’m considering using are Bacopa Monnieri, Gingko Biloba, and Lion’s Mane mushroom. The Lion’s Mane is the only product that I’ve tried before. I didn’t keep track of dosages, and I couldn’t quite tell if it had any effect or what the right dosages should have been in order to generate an effect… I chose these supplements because my aim is to improve my memory and overall cognitive function. We’ll see.

 

Breaking Down the Supplements:

Caffeine

Caffeine is one of the most well-studied cognitive enhancers. It works by blocking adenosine receptors in the brain, which delays feelings of fatigue and increases alertness. But its effects go beyond just keeping you awake. In this study, caffeine was shown to enhance reaction time, focus, and even memory retention.

However, it’s worth noting that these effects are dose-dependent. Too much caffeine can lead to jitteriness, anxiety, and a crash in cognitive performance, while moderate amounts provide optimal benefits. In this study, the researchers found that 3-6 mg/kg of body weight is the ideal range for cognitive enhancement.

Creatine

While creatine is widely known for its role in muscle energy production, it also plays a crucial part in brain function. The brain requires a massive amount of energy to function properly, and creatine helps by increasing the availability of phosphocreatine, which is necessary for ATP (adenosine triphosphate) production.

In cognitively demanding situations, creatine supplementation can help maintain mental clarity and cognitive performance by preventing the brain from fatiguing. This is particularly valuable in high-stress environments or when sleep-deprived.

I have also taken creatine before. I find it quite difficult for me to be able to notice differences in cognitive function when it comes to taking supplements. I do think it helped with my energy levels in the gym and helped in muscle development. However, it’s difficult to say because of the power of one’s belief mechanism.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), are critical for brain structure and function. These fats are incorporated into the membranes of neurons, promoting better communication between brain cells, and reducing inflammation, which is linked to cognitive decline.

Unlike caffeine or creatine, omega-3s do not offer an immediate cognitive boost. Instead, they function as a protective measure, supporting long-term brain health and potentially reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.

B Vitamins

B vitamins, especially B6, B9 (folate), and B12, play key roles in the production of neurotransmitters and maintaining mental energy. Deficiencies in these vitamins can lead to cognitive impairment, fatigue, and even depression. B vitamins help with the metabolism of homocysteine, an amino acid that, at high levels, is linked to cognitive decline.

For those looking to support cognitive health, ensuring adequate intake of B vitamins—either through diet or supplementation—can help sustain mental energy and reduce brain fog.

Results of the Study

The study found that caffeine and creatine were the most effective at providing short-term cognitive benefits, especially in high-stress environments like competitive sports or mentally demanding tasks. Participants who supplemented with these saw improvements in reaction time, mental clarity, and alertness.

On the other hand, omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins didn’t show immediate effects on cognitive performance but were noted for their long-term protective benefits. Omega-3s, in particular, were linked to improved memory function and reduced risk of cognitive decline with consistent use over time.

 

My Analysis

From a practical standpoint, the decision to use these supplements depends on your individual goals. If you’re looking for an immediate mental boost—say, during a high-pressure workday or a challenging workout—caffeine and creatine could be effective. However, keep in mind that too much caffeine can be counterproductive, leading to jitters and decreased focus. Moderation and knowing what you can handle is key.

On the other hand, if your priority is long-term brain health, you might want to focus on omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins. These supplements don’t provide an instant cognitive boost but could support your brain’s health as you age. As I said earlier, I’ve started taking Bacopa Monnieri, Gingko Biloba, and Lion’s Mane mushroom supplements which have provided more long-term effects. Follow me on this journey to learn what my experience with them has been.

 

What About You?

I’d love to know—have you tried any of these supplements? Do you notice a difference in your mental focus or clarity after adding things like creatine or omega-3s to your routine? If you’ve experimented with any of these, I would love to hear about your experience. Let’s dive deeper into what works for cognitive performance and how we can all improve our brain function.

 

If you’re interested in learning more about how caffeine impacts performance, check out my detailed breakdown of caffeine and workouts. How Does Caffeine Help in Surmounting Your Workouts?.

 

Although I am working on becoming a personal trainer, I currently am not one. The information in this post is intended to be a simplified summary of the scientific paper. If you can find one to trust, consult a doctor or medical professional for advice on health and fitness related matters. For those interested in exploring the study in more depth, I encourage you to read the full article. You can find the reference below.

 

Meeusen, R., & Decroix, L. (2018). Nutritional supplements and the brain. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 28(2), 200–211. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2017-0314

Using Words to Surmount Learning Obstacles

Words are very important in the human language. What words mean and how they are used are what keeps conversations civil. Words are also important when it comes to teaching someone. Are you going to tell your student how to play a game and then let them make their own decisions? Are you going to tell them to participate in the game without telling the rules to them? Or are you going to tell your students that they should focus on their own body movements? This summary will show that there is a difference between how you say something and the effect that you get from people.

 

Limitations

I’d like to believe that humans are very similar creatures. We just grew up with different circumstances and have different internal motivations. But all the way that we interact with our environment and with the people around us can be psychologically similar. The participants of this study were between the ages of 9 and 11 and located in the northwest of England. The study also lasted for the duration of a single recess period. Of course, there are other limitations, but I believe that these are perhaps the ones with the most impact to understanding how words influence a person’s intention.

Design of Testing

The researchers weren’t directly involved with the children. They split a group of 75 children into 3 equal groups of 25. Then they told each teacher a different phrase to say.

·         Autonomy-Supportive group: “This is an opportunity for you to learn the skill of curling. To help you learn this skill, I will give you an instruction that you may want to follow. So when, you are practicing the curling task, TRY TO concentrate on sliding the stone smoothly toward the centre of the target. Is that okay? As your practice, I will offer you some hints. You may want to use these hints to improve your skills.”

·         Control group: “Your job today is to learn the skill of curling. Before you begin, I will give you an instruction to follow. So, when you are practicing the curling task. YOU MUST concentrate on sliding the stone smoothly toward the centre of the target. You must use this instruction. As you practice, I will give you hints, YOU MUST use these hints to improve your skills.

·         Neutral group: “The aim is to get your stone as close to the centre of the target as you can.”

 

As you can read, each group were told a little bit of the same thing but also slightly different. The Autonomy-Supportive group had more supportive language and instances of “try” and “you may want.” They were told how to play the game. The control group was told to play in the game. Finally, the Neutral group was told about the aim of the game.

Results

If you guessed that the Autonomy-supportive group received the overall better set of scores, you’d be right. The researchers focused their results in three areas. One was whether the students increased in motor learning. To describe it another way. Did the children get better in the game overtime as they continued playing? Another results was motivation. Did they children enjoy the game more between the three trial groups? The last area was self-efficacy. Did they have the confidence in their ability to succeed?

The group that did second best was the neutral group. That is to say that if you leave kids to their own devices and not tell them what to do or how to do it like in the control group, they can still show positive results.

Additionally for the limitations, it was one study cycle and it’s hard to say that it proves anything. But I think there are a number of us that agree that language that describes the ability to be a bit more autonomous with our actions has more value to use, than someone trying to control us and tell us that we have to do something a certain way.

My Analysis

My personality, or perhaps the circumstances of how I’ve grown up, makes me think that anytime someone offers words of encouragement at a task they are being patronizing to me. Subjectively speaking I prefer a more neutral style of being taught a subject. Nevertheless I can also see that people would appreciate an autonomy-supportive method of teaching.

What About You?

I’m sure at the part where I was describing the design of the Study and what each teacher was told to tell their students, there may have been some of you that had assumptions as to what teaching style was better. I’d love to know, which style did you think was better and why do you think that? If you’re a teacher of some kind are you going to adjust your teaching style even if just a little bit to see if this study has merit? For those that did, I would want to hear those stories of what happened as a result.

 

Although I am working on becoming a personal trainer I currently am not one. The information in this post is intended to be a simplified summary of the scientific paper. If you can find one to trust, consult a doctor or medical professional for advice on health and fitness related matters. For those interested in exploring the study in more depth, I encourage you to read the full article. You can find the reference below.

 

Simpson, T., Finlay, M., Simpson, V., Asadi, A., Ellison, P., Carnegie, E., & Marchant, D. (2024). Autonomy-supportive, external-focus instructions optimize children’s motor learning in Physical Education. Journal of Motor Learning and Development, 12(1), 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1123/jmld.2023-0040

How does Caffeine help in Surmounting your workouts?

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has wondered about this question. I remember during the summer of 2023 when I first discovered the joys of caffeine, I would drink about a cup of it before I went for my workout. I figured, “If I am more energetic, wouldn’t I see positive results after drinking caffeine?” My results are inconclusive. I didn’t record dosages, or the number of spoons of caffeine I put into the French press, or the kinds of workouts I did. Nor did I study any long-term muscular or neuromuscular effects that came from drinking caffeine before a workout. Let’s dive into what science says about how caffeine affects workout performance, specifically in a Wingate Anaerobic Test.

While I didn’t perform a study, there was a group of scientists who did. The title of the study is “Caffeine, but Not Creatine, Improves Anaerobic Power Without Altering Anaerobic Capacity in Healthy Men During a Wingate Anaerobic Test”. They aimed to find how Creatine and/or Caffeine had an influence on anaerobic power and anaerobic capacity.

Limitations

As with all studies, there are limitations to the reliability to the results. Such is the case here; the sample size is only 24 individuals. Furthermore, the sample size was limited to just men. The researchers did admit that there are “similar ergogenic effects of caffeine and creatine between men and women”. How much of a difference between the two genders is there? [Perhaps another article I review will discuss this.] Finally, the dosages used may be too little for some people or too much for others. 

The researchers also did not take any blood or muscle samples, either before, during or after the test. But for those who aren’t researchers with specialized equipment, such as me, evaluating our own results will have to come by taking notes on our intake and post workout results.

Design of Testing

The first action the researchers took was to measure the body fat percentage of the participants using their skinfolds. They used the chest, abdomen, and thigh skinfolds in their calculations. The participants also filled out a food and beverage questionnaire to determine their habitual caffeine consumption. Then the participants performed their first Wingate Anaerobic Test and were paired according to their peak power and mean power results.

This study was designed as a “matched-pair, controlled-trial, crossover design”. Let’s break this design down one set of words at a time. “Matched-pair” means that the study will get two individuals who are most similar to each other and put one in the control group and one in the experimental group to help control individual differences. “Controlled-trial” is just science-y talk for “have a control group in the study”. For a “crossover design” let’s say Group A gets the caffeine and Group B gets the placebo. After the first set of experiments is performed there will be a period of waiting for the drugs to exit the system and then Group A will get the placebo and Group B will get the caffeine. Unknowingly, of course, since if people know which group they belong to it may have an impact on the results.

So the “matched-pairs” were discovered and were then randomly split up into either the control or experimental group. The experimental group was told to ingest 20 grams of creatine per day for 8 days, while the control group ingested a placebo using the same protocol.

When the participants returned on their next visit they were weighed. Then half of them were to ingest a caffeine capsule that contained 5 mg/kg [or 2.27 mg/lbs] of body mass, specifically weighed for each individual. The other half were given a placebo. The figure below will probably explain it better than I can. For an athletic male, such as myself, who weighs about 200 lbs, I would have ingested about 454 mg of caffeine! Typically, .5 ounces of coffee grounds in the French press to make my coffee is all that I need. This is only about 100 mg of caffeine. I have to wonder if at this point the results may be worth that amount of caffeine.

 

Wingate Anaerobic Test

For those, like me, who aren’t familiar with what a Wingate Anaerobic Test is, it is a 30-second cycling test that measures anaerobic capacity and muscular power. One way to perform the Wingate Anaerobic Test could be to get on the stationary bike and, after a brief warm-up period, crank up the bike resistance to its maximum setting and pedal as hard and as fast as you can for 30 seconds with maximal effort. Something similar can be done on a treadmill, or even on a Full Throttle Rowing Machine. A brief warm-up period and then maximizing your intensity at the same time as maximizing the machines resistance.

Doing this test will clearly tire most of, if not all of, us out. The question then is, “is the anaerobic capacity and muscular power that we perform during the test, higher or lower when we consume caffeine?”

Results

Ultimately, whether a person used creatine or did not use creatine did not have an impact on athletic performance as it relates to the Wingate Anaerobic Test. On the other hand, those that were given caffeine in both the creatine and the placebo trials did experience positive results in anaerobic power. Those participants experienced significantly higher peak power compared to those given the placebo. This is most likely due to the fact that caffeine will “excite” the nerves and muscles in the motor and spinal receptors.

My Analysis

Over 400 mg of caffeine is a lot. Sometimes I’ll drink two cups of coffee, but even then I’ll feel… uncomfortable internally. The next time I plan on doing an intense work out session I’ll see if I’m willing to risk the potential effects of such a high dosage.

What About You?

I’m curious – have any of you tried coffee before a workout? If you stop drinking coffee and give your body time to get it all out of your system, do you find that the workout is less satisfying in the end?

 

Although I am working to become a personal trainer I currently am not one. The information in this post is intended to be a simplified summary of the scientific paper. If you can find one to trust, consult a doctor or medical professional for advice on health and fitness related matters. For those interested in exploring the study in more depth, I encourage you to read the full article. You can find the reference below.

 

Marinho, A. H., Silva-Cavalcante, M. D., Cristina-Souza, G., Sousa, F. A., Ataide-Silva, T., Bertuzzi, R., de Araujo, G. G., & Lima-Silva, A. E. (2024). Caffeine, but not creatine, improves anaerobic power without altering anaerobic capacity in healthy men during a wingate anaerobic test. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 34(3), 137–144. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2023-0191

Managing Lower Back Pain: Insights from an Athletic Perspective

In this post, we’ll explore the specific muscles involved in chronic lower back pain, discuss how inspiratory muscle training can make a difference, and review the findings of a recent study that sheds light on these connections.

The article explained in this post is titled, “Inspiratory Muscle Training in Rehabilitation of Low Back Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial”. This article shares results for combating Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) using Overhead Squat Exercises and Inspiratory Muscle Training. The tests the scientists used were static and dynamic overhead squat assessments. All the participants of this study performed these assessments before and after the 8-week Inspiratory Muscle Training protocol.

Limitations

This study  does have several limitations in the design of the experiment. These limitations may make the results of this study only applicable to the following specific group of people: athletic men and women between the ages of 18 – 25. “Athletic” here refers to - weightlifting and powerlifting athletes with Chronic Lower Back Pain (CLBP) who had exercised for at least 3 years, 3 times per week, 75 minutes per session. Another limitation was the sample size of the study. There were 47 people (23 male, 24 female) in the study split into two groups, an experimental and a control group.

Muscles Involved

When it comes to CLBP, several muscles are involved and can be potential causes of aggravation. It is known that CLBP is caused by an obvious weakness in the core and trunk muscles. This can lead to impaired breathing, increased pain, muscular imbalance, and spinal instability. These symptoms can significantly impact your daily life by making movement and breathing more difficult, increasing your risk of injury, and reducing your overall quality of life. While they aren’t typically life-threatening, they can lead to chronic discomfort and limit your ability to stay active if not properly addressed.

The transverse abdominis muscle in particular is more active during respiration than the other muscles such as the rectus abdominis and internal and external obliques. In this study, the focus was on changes in the erector spinae, multifidus, transverse abdominis, and rectus abdominis muscles due to the training protocol.

Inspiratory Muscle Training

Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) typically involves the use of a specialized breathing device that, in some models, comes with different resistance settings as one strengthens their respiratory muscles. These muscles include the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles. The relationship between the diaphragm and the core muscles in this article isn’t immediately obvious.

When you inhale deeply, the diaphragm contracts and moves downward. This creates a cavity in your thoracic region and pushes the abdominal organs outward. This pressure acts as a brace for the spine during deep breathing. CLBP weakness or dysfunction in the diaphragm can lead to compensatory patterns where muscles, specifically in the lower back, overwork to stabilize the spine. Strengthening the intercostal muscles also contributes to better posture and reduces compensatory strain on the lower back.

In the next section I will break down the results of this experiment under this training protocol. If the general assumptions of the impacts of IMT lean more towards truth, then we should see improvements in a participant’s muscular balance, core muscle coordination, reduced stress on the lower back, and potential pain relief.

Results

The study found that the outcome of IMT was an increase in core muscle activity in both the static and dynamic overhead squat test. They found a statistically significant decrease in muscle activation in the erector spinae and rectus abdominis muscle. And a statistically significant increase in muscle activation in the multifidus and transverse abdominis muscles.

To break that down a bit more, after the 8-week training protocol, activation of the multifidus and transverse abdominis muscles helped the body rely less on the erector spinae and rectus abdominis.

My Analysis

Keep in mind that this article has quite a few limitations. The sample size is relatively small. The ages of the participants are in the young adult range. The participants also didn’t have any known health deficits and had trained for at least 3 years. This is a very specific study, that most people may not be able to relate to. But the science and potentially positive effects of a protocol like this can be beneficial to people who might be interested in trying it.

The right breathing technique should be utilized. That’s a known element that has become increasingly popularized in recent years. You don’t have to be a cardiovascular nut to breathe properly.

Full use of the core is also an important element in overall body fitness. You should try incorporating some crunches or core related exercises in your workout plans. It may not reverse lower back pain, but it will at least improve trunk stability, posture, and general everyday activities like bending, twisting and standing up.

What About You?

Have you ever struggled with chronic low back pain? How has it impacted your daily life? Do you think incorporating inspiratory muscle training could make a difference in your own recovery or fitness routine? Have you tried inspiratory muscle training and how has it affected you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

 

For those interested in exploring the study in more depth, I encourage you to read the full article. You can find it in the reference below.

 

Ahmadnezhad, L., Yalfani, A., & Gholami Borujeni, B. (2020). Inspiratory muscle training in rehabilitation of low back pain: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, 29(8), 1151–1158. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsr.2019-0231