The Effect of Workout

Supplements on Strength and

Speed ImprovementsBE301 Final Report

Group 203: Jeremy Gilbert, Jackson Hobble, Emily Koehler, and Danielle Spinelli

Thursday, December 10th, 2015

Pre-workout supplements are often used because of their claim to improve muscular explosiveness and strength over a short period of time. To test these claims, our experiment aimed at testing the use of creatine and C4 against no supplement control groups in males ages 18-21 over a 4 week period. 6 subjects were given a workout routine performed 3 times a week that pinpointed back, chest, arms and leg exercises with various sets and repetitions. By assessing the results, we discovered that subjects using creatine showed greater strength improvements in 3 of 9 major exercises, and subjects using C4 showed greater strength in 1 out of major 9 exercises. The rest of the exercises were deemed inconclusive. There was little no significant correlation between the supplements and speed. Results were obtained by analyzing maximum weight and amount of repetitions during the last set, or maximum set. The difference in total weight of the max set was also calculated from week 1 to 4 and converted from a percentage representing percent increase in weight in relation to original weight used. Thus, our experiment showed a small immediate trend favoring greater strength improvements in creatine subjects in comparison to c4 subjects, however the data

is mostly inconclusive and needs further research. Also we found no correlation between either supplement and increased speed times for the mile or 40 yard dash.Introduction Pre-workout supplements have gained popularity among athletes, nutritionists, and those interested in aiding their workout routine or to improve their recuperation rate. Socially, supplements have gained popularity in the mid to late 1990’s, meaning they are relatively new. Various types of supplements are available for purchase, all stating different claims of the effect they can have on the body and progress that can be achieved inside the gym. These claims are so abundant that at times it is difficult to know if they are being marketed truthfully or just an incentive to get customers to buy. In this experiment, we are analyzing the effects of creatine and C4 on muscular strength and endurance to determine the validity of these marketing claims.

Creatine has been the most popular supplement in the past two decades because of its known ability to increase ATP production in the body, and its documented help in increasing muscular strength and endurance[1]. While commercially sold as a supplement, is also a protein found naturally occurring in the body, specifically made in the liver and pancreas.[9] A protein comprised of amino acids, creatine is excreted in the urine, and can also be found in the plasma portion of blood. [2] This is why analyzing creatine levels gives healthcare professionals a good indication of the working order of the liver and pancreas. Another important detail about creatine is the “loading phase” which refers to a week long time period a subject takes creatine without any exercise in order to saturate the blood levels and get the body used to the supplements.

The interaction of creatine and phosphocreatine (PCr) are naturally involved in the cycle of ATP consumption during muscular activity. Through the admittance of creatine to muscle cells by specified transmitters, the level of water retention in the muscles is heightened which helps increases available ATP production within cells for targeted energy release, and PCr serves to moderate the amount and rate of ATP consumption. Thus, muscular nucleotides are used in a more efficient way, as ATP is not burned too quickly or excessively. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the

more control over ATP consumption will lead to an increased muscular output of an individual that has been consistently ingesting an extra amount of creatine.[3]

C4 consists of beta alanine, creatine nitrate, arginine AKG salt, vitamin C, B12 and caffeine. A powdery substance, a small tablespoon of C4 is ingested with 1 cup of water anywhere from 20-30 minutes prior to workout. The main ingredient that induces higher muscle “explosiveness”, beta alanine, contains carnosine which prevents lactic acid buildup in muscles. Acid buildup results in muscle fatigue, therefore carnosine is a similar buffer as to PCr in the sense that it slows the normal biological processes that leads to abnormal muscle activity. [4] Creatine nitrate is 10 times more soluble than creatine monohydrate, allowing your body to take in much greater amounts of water [10]. When looking at the breakdown of creatine monohydrate, each molecule of creatine is bound to a molecule of water. As for creatine nitrate, each molecule of creatine is bound to a molecule of nitrate. It is suggested the molecule of nitrate supports cardiovascular exercise efforts and oxygen consumption, as well as overall power output [11]. Being one of the most controversial supplements for its possible relation to liver and kidney failure, C4 has not yet been FDA approved.

The purpose of our experiment was to analyze the effects of pure creatine monohydrate and pre-workout C4 on muscular speed and strength of males ages 18-21. This being our major goal, our supporting goals included determining the rate of improvement for people with workout routine versus people without workout routine, and verification and support of research that already exists about these products. To do this, we comprised three hypotheses with regards to the supplements being analyzed. The first; subjects who are given creatine and pre-workout supplements will achieve increased strength and speed over those who do not take anything prior to physical exercise. From the research done on C4 and creatine, we felt that the introduction of the PCr and carnosine buffers will slow muscular fatigue. As an expansion on our first hypothesis our second hypothesis is that subjects who are given creatine will achieve a greater increase in strength and speed than people who use C4. Lastly, subjects who are already in good physical condition will show overall less improvement than subjects who are not in good physical condition. “Good” physical condition will be assumed in this experiment as

one who works out or performs some sort of endurance, strength, or speed type of physical activity at least 3 or more times a week. This is hypothesized because of the radical muscular exercises the “poor” (less than 3 times a week) subjects will be exposed to muscle activity and fatigue that “shock” the muscle more severely compared to people who have muscle memory and are accustomed to these types of exertions. Setup and MethodologyCharacteristics of the Research PopulationThe population that our research is targeting is males that are ages ranging 18-21, students of the University at Buffalo only. This age group was chosen as our target because they are statistically this age group is the largest consumers of the type of supplements our experiment is testing upon combined with the ease of being able to access and recruit students in our immediate environment. Approximately 28% of collegiate athletes claim to taking creatine [12]. Females were excluded for the experiment as a way to block, since it has been found that women’s muscle growth rate varies from men, and also to have more control over variables when deciding to work with just one sex [13]. Also, racial and ethnic origin is of no issue to our research population. A subject can be any race, weight, or height.

Subject Recruitment MethodsSubjects were selected from a pool of our group member’s friends, family members, and former classmates, males only. We approached them with information about our experiment including what our experiment is testing, the required time commitment (approx.. 3x a week each for 4 weeks), what form of exercises they must perform, benefits, risks, ect. After recording our subjects height, weight, body type, how frequently they already work out, gender, and most importantly their available hours to participate in our experiment. We will continue recruiting until we have recruited 10 subjects that fit our inclusion criteria and are willing to participate in the experiment. Although we recruited 10 subjects, 6 were used for testing. We recruited 10 to ensure we had backups if there were scheduling conflicts. Available hours of all subjects along with our own available hours were evaluated, and groups with as many subjects as possible were assembled based on similar availability. The 4 extra recruited subjects whose available schedules matched the least to others

were released for the experiment. Subjects that had any asthma, allergies to any of ingredients of preworkout and creatine, any medical conditions that exclude them from the types of physical activity being performed were dismissed from the recruitment pool of the experiment. As stated in previous sections women were also excluded.

Risks and Potential BenefitsPotential risks to the subject are adverse effects from the type of supplement/pre-workout taken, and injury in gym. Potential benefits to the subject are determining what supplement, if any, will best benefit the development of strength, speed and endurance, and to be on a regimented exercise plan and increase physical condition.

Informed Consent Process:Subjects must complete waiver (attached) to be eligible for testing within 48 hours of waiver being administered. Subjects will be given group’s email/phone number to verify if they are interested in being tested.

Experimental ProcessSix Subjects were broken up into 3 different groups; the control group, experimental group A and experimental group B. The control group took no supplements, group A took creatine, and group B took C4. The subjects were picked upon their levels of physical condition prior to the experiment. Within each group, as a blocking mechanism, one subject was classified as being in shape given that they workout 3 or more times a week, and the other subject was classified as being in low level condition based on the fact that they rarely work out if they work out at all.

For the subjects taking C4 Pre-workout, 1 scoop (5-6 grams) was taken with 1 cup of water 20-30 minutes prior to the beginning of the workout. Due to the fact that creatine is taken daily rather than right before the workout, subjects took roughly 1 teaspoon (5 grams) of creatine powder with 1 bottle of water with their lunch every day. Furthermore, subjects taking creatine were required to begin this process 7 days before the workouts began due to the “loading phase” of creatine. There were three types of sessions in our experiment. Two of the sessions consisted of only

weightlifting located Alumni Arena Fitness Center and the third session consisted cardio exercises such as the mile time/40 yard dash performed on Alumni’s inside track in combination with a weightlifting session. Each subject was required to complete these three sessions every week. In the event of time conflicts that prevented subjects from completing sessions during the week, we set aside time during the weekend to make up these days.

The three different weight room sessions isolate different muscle groups in the body in order to get muscle improvement throughout the entire body. The following images in figures(II, III, and IV) display the muscle groups associated with each session. Several exercises were performed but not analyzed due to the fact they were highly variable, repetition based exercise mainly used to support the improvement of the major exercises. Major workouts were determined to be the most essential exercise in the muscle building process for each muscle group. The nine major exercises are depicted in figure(II). The required materials for the weight room sessions are a free-weight bench, a squat rack, dumbbells and barbells. Subjects are required to wear sneakers, and loose-fitting workout clothes. At least one member of the research team accompanied the subjects in the weight room to record how much each subject could lift in various exercises. The amount of sets per lift and repetitions in each set were denoted as follows: (# sets x # reps for first set, # reps for second set, …) ex. (3 x10,8,6) and the lists of exercises are shown in figure(I).

Session 1 Session 2 Session 3

Chest / Shoulder Leg / Back Arm / Cardio

Bench Press 3x8,6,4 Squats 5x10,8,6,4,2 Barbell Curls 3x8,6,4

Inclined Bench Press 3x8,6,4 Deadlifts 3x8,6,4 Dumbbell Curls 3x10,8,6

Cabled Fly Extensions 3x10,10,10 Leg Extensions 3x10,10,10 Tricep Extensions

Dumbbell Shoulder Press 3x8,6,4 Seated Row 3x10,8,6

Tricep Skullcrushers 3x10,8,6

Upright Rows 3x10,8,6 Upright Row 3x10,8,6Forearm Curls 3x20,15,10

Lateral Pull-Downs 3x10,8,6 Mile Run

Pull-ups 3xfail,fail,fail 40 Yard Dash

Figure(I): Depicts sessions of the week; type of exercise followed by set x repetition. Bolded exercises represent the major exercises within

sessions; other exercises are supplemental.

Figure(II): Session 1 muscle groups; delts, pecs, traps Figure(III): Session 2 muscle

groups; calves, quads, hamstrings, lats, traps, obliques

Figure(IV): Session 3 muscle groups ; triceps, biceps, delts, extensors, flexors

Figure(V): 9 major exercises and their positionings

Results and Discussion:Before we analyze the data to test our major hypothesis that Creatine will create higher strength and speed improvements than c4 supplements, we must first

support the validity of our experimental process by analyzing another hypothesis. This alternate hypothesis states that subject who rarely or never lifts weights or exercise will show greater improvements in strength and speed in comparison to subjects who already are physically conditioned. This is an important blocking mechanism because if proven true, it can provide accurate insight on how to set up a similar experiment in the future and further validify the accuracy of our experiment. For example, if our hypothesis is true, and if the group of subjects taking creatine was composed of subjects that were all in high physical condition and the group of subjects taking c4 was composed of all subjects in poor physical condition, the c4 group would show a biasedly greater improvement of strength because they have an automatic advantage.

To test this hypothesis we analyzed the improvement of a poor physically conditioned person compared to that of a high physically conditioned person within the control group as well as within each supplement group. Both the testing for this hypothesis and the major hypothesis regarding which supplement increases strength more were both performed at the same time and analyzed in a similar manner. At the conclusion of the four week workout period the subject’s strength and speed measurements were analyzed by taking the difference in total weight of the max set in each exercise from week 4 and the initial week 1 and converting that difference to a percentage representing percent increase in weight in relation to original weight used. After the data had been analyzed it can been seen that poorly conditioned subjects showed substantially greater increases in strength in 5 of 9 of the major exercises. The data pertaining to the 5 major exercises that demonstrated this correlation can be viewed in Appendix Figures(3,6,7,8, and 9). Additionally, according to the data shown in figure(VI), poorly condition control, creatine, and C4 subjects showed an average percent increase of 35.1%, 35.7%, and 27.0% respectively. Whereas highly condition control, creatine, and C4 subjects only showed an average percent increase 18.4%, 26.5%, and 26.7% respectively. These clear comparisons simply further support the hypothesis that subjects who rarely or never lift weights or exercise will show greater improvements in strength and speed in comparison to subjects who already are physically conditioned. By proving this hypothesis to be generally true, our experimental design of blocking

each group the way we did is validated and ensures that there is minimal bias within the rest of our results.

Figure(VI): Average increase in strength between poorly conditioned subjects and highly conditioned subjects over 4 weeks within each

supplemental group

Now we can continue on to the analyses of the topic that our experiment is most interested in, which supplement improves strength and speed more in relation to the control group, creatine or C4 pre-workout supplements. Data was analyzed and compiled in the same manner as the other experiment using a percent increase from the initial weight measurements. We have considered the fact that using percentages to represent improvement will show greater gains for subjects initially starting with lower weight and perhaps improving by the same amount as a subject who started at higher weight but we feel this is the correct analyses because the subject that improved by just as much weight but started lower became pound for pound stronger. After analyzing our data related to the subject’s strength improvements, we concluded that only 3 of the 9 major exercises showed substantial evidence favoring creatine improvements over C4 improvements. Specifically creatine performed better in Upright Row, Bench Press, and Barbell Curl and the data pertaining to those individual exercises can be view in Appendix Figures(1,3, and 7). Subjects using C4 showed even less substantial evidence favoring their supplement as C4 improvements were favored over creatine in only one major exercise, the pullups. The pullup exercise data can corresponds to

Appendix Figure(6). The control group did not have better improvements than the supplement groups in any exercise. The remaining five major exercises, shown in Appendix Figures(2,4,5,8, and 9), all showed inconclusive results. We considered results inconclusive if improvements were too similar between groups or if for example one creatine subject outperformed both C4 subjects but the other creatine subject performed less than both C4 subjects. The fact that a majority of the major exercises individually appeared to be inconclusive does not support our hypothesis well even though there is a slightly better correlation to creatine having better strength improvement results.

To gain a more comprehensive understanding of our data we took another approach to compare the supplements by taking the average percent increase of all the major exercises combined for each subject and then averaged that value with the other subject’s average personal increase to get a total supplement percent increase. As shown in figure(VII), the Creatine group had surpassed both other groups with an total workout average percent increase of 31.1% while both the control group and the C4 group coincidentally both ended up have the same total strength gains of 26.8%. What this data tells us is that for the second straight method of data analyses, first by looking at how many individual exercises creatine conclusively improved more than C4 (3 out of 9) and now looking at the total supplemental group workout average, creatine has had stronger results than C4. Overall, it is very tempting to jump to a conclusion and say these data results suggest that supplement usage does correlate to increased strength improvements and go even further to say creatine works even better at increasing strength than C4. However, the fact that a majority of the major exercises showed inconclusive results (5 out of 9) puts a major disclaimer on these conclusions. There are too many outside factors that could have affected the results that were difficult for us to control such as time restraints, effort levels, small sample population, individual sleep and drinking habits, and stress levels. Furthermore, does creatine increase a person's strength faster that C4 pre-workout supplements? According to our data it seems probable but the there is too much inconclusiveness to say for sure.

Figure(VII): Table of percent increases over 4 weeks in each exercise for each subject and total supplement group average percent increase (Blue

identifies control, green identifies creatine, red identifies C4).

Strength Analyses showed much more promising results than cardiovascular analyses. By analyzing each subject again by percent improvement in relation to their initial speed times on both the mile and the 40 yard dash, we found that both these cardio exercises to by highly inconclusive as there is little to no correlation in either that favor any particular supplemental group. As shown in figure(VIII) and figure(IX) the percent decreases in mile and 40 yard dash times were either too similar between groups or did not have both subjects in one group outperform another group. This makes sense that these supplements have little to no correlation with speed increase since they both claim to enhance muscle explosiveness and not endurance.

Figure(VIII): Percentage decrease in mile time in relation to initial time for each subject (Blue identifies control, green identifies creatine, red

identifies C4).

Figure(IX): Percentage decrease in 40-yard sprint in relation to initial time for each subject (Blue identifies control, green identifies creatine, red

identifies C4).

Other last goal of our experiment was to simply back research already available on these subjects to help assure users knowledge of the risks to their body. The scientific research previously performed on creatine has shown the way it functions as a muscle building supplement by allowing the muscles to absorb and retain more water. This surplus of water aids in the regeneration of ATP in the muscles thus giving more energy available for the muscle to use. We recorded the body weight of each subject at each session and our data backs up the research found with the creatine subjects gaining the greatest percentage of body weight (probably water retention weight) compared to the C4 subjects and the control group. This data is demonstrated in Figure(X). For example, our greatest increase was seen in subject 4 who started at 160lbs after four weeks of creatine usage was at 168lbs.

Figure(X): Percentage increase in body weight in relation to initial body weight for each subject (Blue identifies control, green identifies creatine,

red identifies C4).

ConclusionConsidering the short time frame, the ideal outcome of this experiment would be observing noticeable initial trends after the four weeks of subjects taking supplements. If we did see strong initial trends, we could try to determine the effects the supplements might have over a multiplied time frame. However, it seems as though creatine and pre workout supplements do not show any drastically conclusive results until a much later point in time, which was made clear through the inconclusiveness of our data. As mentioned prior, A more appropriate time frame for this experiment would be several months, given the fact that improvements in exercise typically are not seen to an acceptable extent within the first few weeks.

Regarding strength improvements, 3 out of the 9 major exercises showed substantial evidence favoring creatine improvements over C4, while only 1 out of the 9 major exercises resulted in C4 subjects with greater improvements than creatine. When looking at the alternative method of analysis, which consisted of getting a total supplement percent increase by averaging the total percent increase

out of all the major exercises for one subject, and then averaging that with the total percent increase among all major exercises of the other subject within the same group, creatine showed greater improvements once again. These results seem to show promise towards creatine being favorable but on the other hand, the 5 out of 9 major exercises that did not show any conclusive data must still be taken into consideration. Thus, although creatine showed greater overall improvements upon analysing the data in two distinctly different methods, we can not fully conclude it is the better supplement due to the other limiting factors that create inconclusive results (effort levels, eating and sleeping habits, stress, ect).

One thing that was mostly conclusive upon looking at our data was that our original hypothesis stating subjects who are in poor physical condition will show greater improvements than people who are in good physical condition was proved true. We assumed this is due to the fact that muscles experience an initial “shock” period, in which they will show the greatest change or improvements upon initially beginning rigorous exercises, which will be followed by plateauing once they have adjusted [14]. Therefore we suggest a similar blocking style to anyone trying to test a similar experiment.

In order to improve on this experiment, the length of time given for this project should be extended in order to see more accurate trends. Further blocking could be applied to this experiment, for example by testing each individual subject with and without both supplements. This would require a much longer span of time due to the waiting period that is needed to ensure the supplements are out of the subject’s system before taking a new supplement. A larger subject pool would also benefit this experiment in order to increase randomness and eliminate bias. Testing females could lead to a more comprehensive conclusion regarding the effects of the supplements. Females’ bodies vary greatly from males regarding blood composition, oxygen carrying capacity and body fat percentage, therefore their body’s might react differently [15]. Finally a more progressive workout plan could greatly benefit the subjects in their improvements in strength and speed. By this, we mean that increasing the demands of the workouts over time in order to avoid “plateauing”, a point at which the subject’s physical condition remains at the same

level due to not being pushed harder, would allow the subject to constantly improve.

Appendix:Graphs

Comprehensive Legend:● Blue - control

● Green - creatine● Red - C4

Figure 1 Figure 2

Figure 3 Figure 4

Figure 5 Figure 6

Figure 7 Figure 8

Figure 9

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