0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio,

0:03

news, music and more.

0:07

So Tegan, you like these sort

0:09

of hanging onto wall kind

0:11

of exercises. Do you have

0:13

a little valium or something? Is it a pre-workout

0:15

thing? What? So I'm not so anxious on the

0:17

wall. Yeah. No, my I generally

0:19

climb in the morning while I'm

0:21

driving to the gym in the car, usually

0:24

listening to a podcast. I

0:26

am drinking black coffee and eating a banana

0:28

or something. Similarly, in the

0:31

simple carbohydrates category. Right.

0:33

Have you tried one morning not doing that and seen whether

0:35

you fall off the wall? Well, I used to

0:37

not do it at all. And then there was one

0:39

morning that I did have that and I couldn't believe

0:41

what an athlete I was and I was like, oh,

0:43

OK, maybe there's something in this. Because I'd sort of

0:46

heard that black coffee and a banana was like the

0:48

thing. Now I think there's a

0:50

placebo effect because if I miss it

0:52

and I'm not like firing, I think it's

0:54

because I didn't have it. It's the lack of banana. How

0:58

about you? What do you have before you go into your seven

1:01

minutes on the elliptical trainer? Nothing. Nothing.

1:04

Nothing. I go into a fasting

1:06

state. Not even not even a cough. Not

1:08

even a coffee. Straight

1:10

in. Roar dogging the gym. Yeah.

1:12

Hardcore. And

1:15

that's what we're going to be talking about today on

1:17

What's That Rash? Where we answer your questions and the

1:19

questions that everyone's asking. I'm health reporter

1:21

Tegan Tyler and I'm on Jagger and

1:24

Turbolan. And I'm physician and journalist

1:26

Dr. Norman Swan coming to you from Gennigoland.

1:32

And today's question comes from Meg. Hi,

1:34

Tegan and Norman. Just

1:36

wondering whether there are any benefits

1:39

to taking pre-workout before heading

1:41

to the gym. I've been taking

1:43

it every morning just as a matter of

1:45

habit. And I'm finding I'm taking more and

1:48

more. And I'm just curious

1:50

whether it is actually having any impact on

1:52

my workout, if it's good for me

1:54

or bad for me, if there's such a thing as

1:56

too much and what actually

1:59

is in it. We'd love to

2:01

hear your thoughts. Thanks. So pre-workouts

2:03

Norman, is that something that you've heard of

2:05

before? I tend to be blissfully

2:07

ignorant about it because I ignore them and I assume

2:10

that they actually don't work. Although in fact I think

2:12

on a previous Watch That Rach, I

2:14

might have mentioned Black Coffee and Black

2:17

Tea as assisting fatty acid mobilization so

2:19

you're burning more fatty acids. And

2:22

we got an email from one of

2:24

our subscribers who said she's been trying it

2:26

before exercise and swears by it. So it's

2:28

in the ether. Well, okay. So

2:30

an interesting little spoiler then is that

2:32

a lot of these pre-workouts contain caffeine.

2:35

And so that is something that I want to

2:37

get to. We'll talk about the

2:39

ingredients and that sort of thing. But first,

2:41

I think we have to talk about the

2:43

marketing because they are an incredibly energetically

2:47

marketed thing in

2:49

terms of the labels and that sort of thing.

2:51

What I want you to do right now, Norman,

2:54

is just quickly Google pre-workout and just kind of

2:56

get a sense of the labeling situation that we're

2:58

talking about here. Okay, I'm doing it right now. Pre-workout

3:04

gummies. Oh, God. There's

3:07

shops full of the stuff. I mean,

3:09

I was more, you know, I'm vaguely

3:11

aware of stuff that you take afterwards,

3:13

ultra-processed proteins and things like this. But

3:15

you've now just opened my eyes to

3:18

an amazing world. Well, yeah, I mean,

3:20

they're definitely also ultra-processed. So if you're not

3:22

currently looking at a box or a bottle

3:24

of pre-workout, they're very much like graffiti

3:27

sort of thing. There's real kind of

3:29

aggressive language around it. Street smart. Yeah,

3:31

very street smart, kind of war-ish sort of

3:33

like upsetting the system, being disruptive and that

3:35

sort of thing. Is it mostly block oriented?

3:38

I get a very bro

3:40

energy from the way

3:42

that they're marketed, although, of course, Meg, our

3:45

question asker is a woman. And

3:47

I think it's a very like

3:49

traditional gym weightlifting, optimizing kind

3:51

of space. So here's my question to

3:53

you, Tegan. So is it

3:56

sufficient to look at the marketing to get that bro

3:58

energy or do you have to actually consider? to

4:00

people who have supplements. I

4:02

think you also have to consume them, but there's also

4:04

a whole language around it as well. So when I

4:07

started to look at this, I thought that the sorts

4:09

of things I would need to Google were the ingredients,

4:11

which of course I did, but I also had to

4:13

Google things like, stim, pump,

4:16

nootropics. And these are

4:18

sort of the various claims that were on

4:20

the packaging. Stim as in like something containing

4:22

a stimulant. So like caffeine,

4:24

pump as in something that's gonna make

4:26

your muscles like juicy and bulging. And

4:30

then things that promote muscle endurance or

4:32

even kind of like mental focus and

4:34

endurance. So are there any that will give

4:36

me a washboard abdomen after one session? I'm

4:39

sure that they will claim to. You

4:41

might need to do your own controlled trial

4:43

to find that out. So in the

4:45

world of placebos, they're all creating huge

4:48

expectations. We should talk about what's in

4:50

them, but I do think that it'll

4:52

be interesting to also discuss the placebo idea

4:54

as well. So take

4:56

us through the stims, the pumps, and

4:59

everything else in between. Right.

5:02

So these products vary in their formulation, but

5:04

there's a couple of different ingredients that crop

5:06

up again and again. And I thought it

5:08

would be useful to sort of go through what

5:10

they are. And the

5:12

first one is the one we've already touched on a little

5:14

bit, and that's caffeine. And caffeine is

5:16

a performance enhancer to the point

5:18

where it was actually banned. It was on the

5:21

list of banned substances by the International Olympic

5:23

Commission from 1984 through to 2004. Oh,

5:27

that's a long time between coffees. No,

5:29

and I was wondering about that. I sort of feel like I

5:31

need to do a different deep dive into what athletes

5:34

were doing and how they kind of kept track. But it

5:36

was at a certain level, wasn't it? You were allowed to drink

5:38

coffee and tea. It was just at a certain level that they

5:40

were banning. Yeah, and even now

5:42

it's still monitored by certain athletic

5:44

associations, and you've got to keep

5:46

it within a certain urine, caffeine

5:48

concentration below a certain point, which

5:51

is still, if you were consuming

5:53

that much caffeine, you would still sort of have triple

5:55

the intake that's reported to enhance

5:58

performance and probably be incredibly g as

6:00

well. So that's caffeine which is in everyone and I

6:03

seem to remember from some of the

6:05

work I think was done at University of New

6:07

South Wales on tea and coffee that it may

6:09

not just have been the caffeine, it might have

6:11

been other things in tea and coffee which are

6:14

antioxidants. There's all sorts of things

6:17

in tea and coffee which can be good for you. So take us

6:19

through some of the other things that are in there. One

6:21

is called citrulline, have you heard of this one

6:23

before? Yeah I think it's also called L-citrulline

6:26

which is the directionality of the molecules. You

6:28

can get L and R and L usually

6:30

is more compatible with your metabolism but any

6:32

of you carry on. Well it's an

6:35

amino acid so it does a couple of

6:37

different things in your body but I think

6:39

in these supplements the effect that people are

6:41

going for is vasodilation so widening your blood

6:43

vessels. They think it might play a part

6:45

in muscle building but I think even if

6:47

it doesn't you probably get that book at

6:49

the end of your session that you like

6:51

juicier than you were before. Interestingly

6:54

if you want a natural source

6:56

of L-citrulline you can find it

6:58

in watermelon. Indeed. And

7:00

so a lot of the substances

7:02

in these pre-workout supplements are either

7:05

like amino acids or they're like

7:07

precursors to amino acids. What

7:09

about beta alanine? That's another thing in

7:11

these substances. Beta alanine is

7:13

another precursor to a different compound

7:16

that we know is useful. So

7:18

beta alanine is an amino acid

7:20

it increases something called a muscle

7:22

carnosine and we know that carnosine

7:25

concentrations are higher in

7:28

certain types of muscle especially in

7:31

muscles of athletes who are

7:33

really good at anaerobic exercise.

7:35

So sprinters, people who are

7:37

lifting weights have been

7:39

found to have higher concentrations of carnosine inside

7:42

their muscles and so the idea is that

7:44

beta alanine could help your muscles also look

7:46

like that of a power lifter or

7:48

a sprinter. But is there actual

7:50

evidence? I mean this is reminiscent

7:52

of a lot of complementary products

7:55

where at their

7:57

core there's a physiological rationale

7:59

for you. using them but the big

8:01

question is do they work when you

8:03

actually take them for the intended purpose? This

8:05

is it and when I was looking into this

8:07

I kind of kept thinking again and again of

8:10

our recent chat that we had about multivitamins and

8:12

this idea that we know that individually and

8:17

in certain settings these compounds are good

8:20

for us will have an effect that

8:22

we can measure but whether you get

8:24

that same effect in a combined form,

8:27

in a powder that you can buy off a shelf that's

8:29

really shelf stable that you're mixing up and

8:31

then it tastes like you know sour watermelon

8:33

raspberry flavour, whether that translates

8:36

through seems a little mistier to me.

8:39

The other thing that beta alanine supplementation

8:41

can do is make you feel really

8:43

tingly like not in a good

8:45

way sort of itchy and tingly for the first

8:47

hour or so after you take it. Which probably

8:49

gives you an idea that it might be working

8:51

I suppose if it gives you that sort of

8:53

funny effect. I did wonder that I think

8:55

I wonder whether maybe like oh yeah it's working

8:58

like I can feel in a sec from this

9:00

thing that I had. I don't think the tingling

9:02

in itself is performance enhancing. So so far

9:04

your coffee and a banana is winning out. What about

9:06

creatine? I understood creatine to

9:09

actually have some evidence behind it. Yeah

9:11

so creatine's a compound it comes from

9:13

three amino acids and you can get

9:15

it in food. Most

9:17

people get it through seafood and red meat

9:20

but when you're supplementing it you're getting a

9:22

whole lot more of it. What

9:24

it does is a couple of different stages in

9:26

this process are going to go through some

9:28

cellular biology. If you

9:30

supplement with creatine you get

9:32

more of a substance called

9:34

phosphocreatine which helps your body

9:36

create a molecule called adenosine

9:38

triphosphate which is ATP and

9:40

ATP. Pure energy. Yeah it's

9:43

the energy source within the cell it's

9:45

involved in all sorts of different cellular

9:47

processes including cells transmitting

9:49

information to each other it's energy for

9:52

within the cell itself. I

9:54

mean it's important for manufacturing DNA. It's

9:56

a really really important molecule in the

9:58

body. Creatine seems

10:00

to help increase muscle strength and muscle mass

10:02

and then if you take it over a

10:04

longer period of time like not just a

10:06

single dose of it but if you sort

10:08

of take it for a week or more

10:10

it does seem to have a cumulative benefit

10:12

so that's kind of cool as well

10:14

and the other thing that creatine also does

10:16

is it makes your body retain water a

10:19

little bit which some people might not like

10:21

if they're trying to get really shredded but

10:23

it makes your muscles look bigger as well

10:25

so I think it can also have the

10:27

effect of feeling like water on

10:29

your muscles. Oh yeah like it makes your muscles look

10:31

bigger if that's one of the things you're going after. Yeah

10:34

I mean there's different ways of doing that. I

10:36

remember a cartoon in the New Yorker a few

10:38

years ago where this guy standing around with the

10:40

togas on in the forum and one

10:42

of the guys says look if you just hold

10:44

your toga like this bending his arm you can

10:46

really you know make your biceps look great. Yeah

10:50

it's something we've been chasing. The

10:53

other thing with creatine and we're talking of

10:55

course about pre-workouts and a really important part

10:57

of making creatine work is the workout part.

11:01

Oh no I just spotted it. There's

11:03

a sting in the tail. You didn't have

11:05

to do the workout you just came through the

11:07

supplement it felt great. So yeah apparently according to

11:09

one study that I read creatine works really well

11:12

if you combine it with a strength training regime

11:14

and you kind of go well. What a shock.

11:17

Yes exactly. So I mean we

11:19

could go through the list of things as taurines we could just go

11:21

through and endless because I mean I was just looking at the Shelby

11:24

Cleaner our producers as usual done amazing

11:26

research on this and given us some

11:28

of the recipes for these things. I

11:30

mean they've just got almost everything in

11:32

it. They're having five bob-eats-wares they'd say in

11:34

the old days. Yeah and I think

11:37

one of the groups of studies that I looked at were people

11:39

who looked at multi supplement

11:42

supplements. So basically multi ingredient sports

11:44

supplements and what they're doing is going

11:47

OK we know that creatine by itself or

11:49

we know that beta alanine by itself has

11:51

an effect maybe but what do you do

11:53

when you have these things coming together. And

11:56

the truth is there's not nothing there.

11:58

There's definitely some sort of. performance

12:00

enhancing effect but in the studies that

12:02

I looked at most of them are

12:04

pretty small like maybe 20 people

12:08

and maybe quite short duration there's

12:11

an effect that's measurable but

12:13

it's not turning a couch potato

12:15

into a ripped athlete sorry Norman.

12:18

Oh okay and they're all different so

12:20

which one do you choose I mean that's the other

12:22

thing. Yeah and I think for

12:24

some people I mean we're not here to prescribe

12:26

different things some people really don't have a good

12:28

reaction to the stimulants the caffeine that are in

12:30

these things you can imagine a situation where you're

12:32

having a coffee or a tea in the morning

12:34

and then you're having this on top of that

12:36

and you could end up feeling quite

12:38

jittery like I said before the beta

12:40

alanine has that tingling effect that people

12:42

maybe don't like and they're not

12:44

cheap and they don't seem to

12:47

have a huge effect so a little bit like

12:49

when we were talking about the menstrual tracking chat

12:51

a couple of weeks ago maybe if

12:54

you're a super elite athlete and there's

12:56

milliseconds or grams between you

12:59

and your closest competitor maybe

13:01

they give you an edge there but whether

13:03

they're going to make you an incredible athlete if you're a

13:05

bit of a weekend warrior or going to the gym a

13:08

couple of times a week maybe

13:10

you should save you money. Yeah and

13:12

here's one with vitamin b6 in it so you're just

13:14

kind of a bit concerned that the tingling effects

13:17

that you were talking about might be vitamin b6 that

13:20

affects your nerves. Well so on that so

13:22

what you mentioned last time the context here is

13:24

that you mentioned last time that overdosing with b6

13:26

can affect your nerves and I think what can

13:29

happen with you've got a whole lot of different

13:31

stuff that's over the counter it's not being prescribed

13:33

by a physician or even a pharmacist and

13:36

so what you can end up having is that

13:38

you've got these things they're not inactive they actually

13:40

are having an effect on the body and then

13:42

lay it on top of each other they could

13:44

be creating negative side Effects. So What

13:46

about the Placebo effect? I Mean

13:48

you're talking about small studies? I

13:50

Mean they're powerfully marketed. They create

13:52

expectations on the tin. Admittedly, they're

13:55

ultra processed, which is something that

13:57

we haven't really touched on. The

14:00

enormous placebo effect schools creating

14:02

expectations? surely? A year and

14:04

I think something exercise performance has such a

14:07

strong psychological side and this poll fields of

14:09

psychology dedicated sports psychology. We know that expectations

14:11

and mindset is part of how people perform.

14:14

So maybe there is a placebo effect there.

14:16

and they certainly studies that showed that that

14:18

could be part of it. Lit. Maybe that's

14:20

part of your ritual around exercising the eat

14:23

you get up and you have you pre

14:25

workout and you hit the gym and it's

14:27

all part of how you build up to

14:29

performing. Then it could be a placebo effect.

14:32

Their placebo effect is still. An

14:34

effect. But. Then there's also this

14:36

fact that these compounds do have an

14:38

effect in the body as had just

14:41

claims on these products are slightly scary.

14:43

Sometimes states that have don't use them

14:45

as you pregnant or breastfeeding talk to

14:47

a health care practitioner before using it.

14:50

If you have a rapid heartbeat, chest

14:52

pains, shortness of breath, lox says it's

14:54

like. Don't use it anymore. Skyn

14:56

Source on Pure. And

14:59

then my favorite is oh Mrs from one of them

15:01

that I looked at if. Your performance athlete

15:03

Sex with your sanctioning. Body prior

15:05

to use to ensure compliance

15:07

with audit. No one is.

15:09

it's code for this isn't.

15:12

Gonna be compliant? or if that's kind of

15:14

a of marketing something that's going, you should

15:16

check. Because that's how powerful. This.

15:19

Substance is like it's a marketing thing.

15:21

we're good could be, but it's also

15:23

the manufacturer. Haven't just be careful because

15:25

rules, teams and something with gotten their

15:27

could quickly become something that to be

15:29

worried about for your rights. The thought

15:31

that this might be approved performing have

15:33

been answering compound and you're not in

15:36

professional competition might be attractive to you.

15:38

And of course what we haven't talked

15:40

about all bloody to for another days

15:42

what the objectives are of your workout

15:44

This. Is it exactly? And if I

15:46

mean pick an objective, they'll be a

15:49

pre workout for that. But again, whether

15:51

they. Can follow through with anything that's

15:53

more than a statistically significant. science is

15:56

still pretty unlikely, and for the record,

15:58

I gave up on a. Or

16:00

abdomen. A. Long, long time.

16:05

So what's your, what's your take away from? Make them.

16:07

Yeah, I think the take away

16:09

is that the ingredients themselves do

16:12

seem to have evidence behind them,

16:14

but the actual multi ingredients supplements

16:16

is not heaps of really good.

16:18

For the research is probably a

16:20

bit of an effect there, but

16:22

not masses. Although I will say

16:24

one of her questions was how

16:26

much snow take They almost all

16:28

say don't exceed one dose per

16:30

day, so again, it's not no

16:32

effect and so. Don't overdo it. To.

16:34

the of of what are questions coming through

16:37

school do on for towards that Russia's. Yeah

16:39

and you can always email us that rest

16:41

at abc.net that I you and actually Norman.

16:43

Someone emailed us about a comment that you

16:46

made when we were doing her episode on

16:48

artificial sweeteners when he said that fructose was

16:50

toxic i think is the weather use and

16:52

with actually had a couple of people writing

16:55

about that including someone who the series. Since

16:57

this summer and knowing about it yet

16:59

it's as if I'm just carry Mills

17:01

Universal Camera has written into the along

17:03

email with a had set him straight

17:05

up was calling out of date research

17:08

with an annoyance when I was talking

17:10

about it was all research which suggested

17:12

that Frutos behaves like a fat and

17:14

the bodies and condemns the liver and

17:16

sorts. Kerry. Has done. Oh

17:18

what a cold meta analyses were.

17:20

She's brought together the available evidence

17:23

on Frutos and the body and

17:25

she cannot find any evidence of

17:27

that To the is toxic. As

17:29

fun as it is turned into

17:32

glucose quite quickly in the body,

17:34

doesn't stay away from tones and

17:36

that's if anything, it's slightly beneficial

17:38

compare to other sugars. Bus To

17:41

doesn't make that claim at all,

17:43

but it's not any more harmful

17:45

than glucose or sucrose, so. Are

17:48

correct myself and I will not say

17:50

that again and carry thank you very

17:52

much for id him and Creighton record.

17:54

Think he's about the character riding in and

17:56

Norman it actually looking at that reset to

17:58

carry with outlining it's. It me really curious

18:01

again to dig into that and I think

18:03

maybe this either a health report. Or what's

18:05

that rest in? chat about fructose some

18:07

time in a theater? Will to. Send

18:09

you questions to that Ras or hit us

18:11

up on Instagram. A handle is at A

18:13

B C Health and we'll see next week's.

18:15

Even. Listening

18:29

to podcasts discover more

18:31

right podcasts, live radio,

18:33

and exclusives on the

18:35

Ab. Seeley Snap.