As a CrossFit athlete, you're constantly pushing your body to the limit, striving for better strength, power and endurance. One of our favourite things about the sport and what makes it so rewarding is that you can always improve from where you are today.
The challenge is part of the fun, right?
Implementing a sports nutrition plan or improving your current plan is just one of the ways you can make your training more effective, whether your athletic ambition is to find your fitness community or compete in the CrossFit games.
Your unique training regimen and diet are important for your performance, but supplementing with the right products can give you an extra edge. So, we’re sharing the three supplements we recommend to all CrossFit athletes for improving their performance: creatine, beta-alanine and protein.
Creatine for Increasing Strength and Power
Creatine, also called creatine monohydrate, is a naturally occurring compound made by the body that’s also found in high-protein foods like meat and dairy. It plays a crucial role in the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), your muscle’s primary energy source for explosive, high-impact activities like weightlifting and sprinting.
Adding creatine to your sports nutrition plan increases your ATP levels, leading to improvements in your strength, power output and muscle endurance. Creatine has also been shown to help athletes better maintain focus and mental sharpness by enhancing cognitive function.
Our HMB+ Creatine combines creatine with HMB, or beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate, to enhance creatine’s already impressive benefits. HMB is a metabolite of the branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) leucine, which supports muscle protein production, recovery and injury prevention. The combination of creatine and HMB helps you push harder during training sessions and recover faster afterwards, letting you achieve your athletic ambition more quickly.
Beta-alanine for Boosting Endurance and Fighting Fatigue
Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid used by the body in combination with histidine to form carnosine, a dipeptide that buffers against lactic acid buildup in the muscles during exercise. Lactic acid is what causes the painful burning sensation you experience after intense or repeated muscle use.
By increasing your carnosine levels through beta-alanine supplementation, you can delay the onset of muscle fatigue and train harder for longer, improving your endurance. Carnosine also plays a role in post-training recovery since it’s been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties.
Beta-alanine is particularly beneficial for CrossFit athletes due to the high-intensity, anaerobic nature of CrossFit exercises. That’s why we make our Beta Alanine from only pure beta-alanine and recommend a higher dose than most other beta-alanine supplements do, so you see the maximum benefit to your training.
Protein for Muscle Repair and Injury Management
Protein is foundational for muscle tissue, supplying essential amino acids for repairing, growing and maintaining your muscles. It’s also used by the body to strengthen connective tissues, including tendons and ligaments, to improve muscle integrity and decrease the risk of injury.
While protein is a key component of any sports nutrition plan, it’s especially important for CrossFit athletes since the sport involves a mix of strength training, cardiovascular exercise and functional movements, which increases opportunities for muscle damage.
It pays to do your research before using a protein supplement as they’re usually highly processed and can have an unnatural taste, upset your stomach, and are more likely to be contaminated during the manufacturing process. Knowing this, we made Egg White Protein Isolate since egg whites are the highest-purity and most efficient protein source that exists as real, unprocessed food, making them easier for your body to digest and use for recovery.
Why We Recommend These Supplements to CrossFit Athletes
When combined, creatine, beta-alanine, and protein offer a comprehensive range of benefits for CrossFit athletes wanting to enhance their strength, power, and endurance, no matter their athletic ambition. The synergistic effects of these three supplements can have a significant, perceptible impact on your performance and recovery.
To recall, creatine improves strength and power output by boosting ATP production, beta-alanine delays muscle fatigue and allows for longer, more intense training sessions by buffering lactic acid buildup, and protein helps your body repair, grow and maintain its muscles—all of which are crucial for the varied demands of CrossFit exercises.
If you’re curious about how to use each of these supplements or how they can fit into your existing sports nutrition plan, check out our user guides for information about our suggested dosages, timing, and tips for maximizing their benefits.
— And as always, train hard!