The 5 Supplements You NEED for the CrossFit Open

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If you want to perform your best for the Crossfit open then adding the right supplements to your routine can help with that. This video breaks down the 5 supplements you need for performance as well as why supplements can help you.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

For performance. I like to stress five supplements that are really going to give you immediate impact for performance. Now, I know the Open's coming up in two weeks, so can you really get a benefit from supplements in that time? Yeah, you actually can supplements can be a huge but there's so much misinformation out there. There's so many things that people just don't know.

There's so many supplement companies that are trying to pull the wool over your eyes that don't know what they're doing, don't know what they're talking about, give you bad information, all this kind of stuff. So I want to talk about that. And that's kind of my passion is to kind of cut through the B.S. and give people some great information about supplements.

So first thing I want to do is I want to talk about what is CrossFit HQ say about supplements. The only supplement that CrossFit HQ really specifically recommends is a fish oil omega three fish oil, because there's incredible research behind it and how important it is and the things that it can do, but they don't really say much else.

The CrossFit nutrition course dives into some of the information around supplements, but they don't go too crazy in-depth about recommending supplements. And that's because, like Justin was just talking about food first, food first. Always, always, always, always. No matter what, I'm a supplement guy. I've made a living for the last ten years, helping thousands of people live healthier, perform better with supplements.

But I still always say food first because that's the truth. But let's talk about why we would need supplements. In addition to the food. Justin kind of talked about some of the stuff already with the poor food quality that's out there, making sure you're making good choices. That's a great reason to supplement, to fill in some of the nutritional gaps.

Another thing, the environmental toxins that are out there so you can help fight off all the things that come into our bodies, all the things pesticides and things like that that get put into food. Then there's a lack of variety and nutrients just in talks about that. When it comes to cutting your macros, the lack of variety, you don't get the wide array of nutrients.

You know, one of the biggest questions I get from people is do you even need supplements? And the simple answer is no, you don't need supplements, but supplements can be a great benefit to you and hitting your performance goals, living healthier, doing all those things. And that's just one of the reasons, because most people eat the same five things all the frickin time, right?

So then the next thing is the, the, the key part of supplements and why we're talking about it here is you can improve, you improve your performance, you can feel better, you can improve the performance and really maximize all of the training and the nutrition that you're doing by supplementing your healthy diet. And then the last thing is longevity.

I would be remiss to say that I would what's the word? That's the expression. I would be leaving it out or feel bad if I left it out. Talking about the longevity piece when it comes to supplements, because when it comes back to the meeting and nutrition quality and the nutrient density and all that kind of stuff, supplements can play a huge role in that.

Okay. So that's that's why supplements. But with the supplement world, a lot of times people want to jump to the fancy ones. Everybody wants to get the pre-workout. Everybody's heard about pre-workout. They want to get that sick pump and get a good bro session in the gym. It's all great. It's all well and good. Or then, you know, I see a lot of things online where people are digging into one specific supplement or one specific nutrient or macronutrient or not micro micronutrient, vitamin mineral to fix a certain thing.

And that's cool and that's great. But you've got to address the foundation and from a supplement perspective. And if you're not addressing the foundation, stacking, the more pointed supplements on top of it are only going to do so much. So I'm a huge advocate of really dialing things in like with what CrossFit HQ says, getting a good quality fish oil, but then also getting a multivitamin.

You think about it with a foundation of everything, just and just gave us a masterclass on nutrition and building that solid foundation. Then you can use fish oil in supplementation to fill in those nutritional gaps. So now you have a rock solid foundation to build a massive house on. Right? And so that's super important when it comes to building your foundation, what to look for, what to avoid in supplements.

Couple of things that are really important when it comes to supplements. You want to make sure you're looking for something that's banned substance free. Specifically in the world of CrossFit. But if you have any aspirations of qualifying for quarterfinal, semifinals or the games, you definitely want to make sure that you're not taking any banned substances. Good way to do that is certified via Informed Sport or NSF.

Those are the two certifying bodies that check all of the supplements to make sure that they're tested for banned substances. Most companies use one of those, too. They're both comparable. You know, I don't think there's much of a difference anymore between the two except in form sport checks, every single pallet that gets tested, that shipped to them, and they test every single batch where NSF, I think doesn't test every single batch.

But the majority of the batches. Either way, you definitely want to make sure that you're checking to have the certifications on it. Then you want to make sure you're getting an adequate dosage. And what I mean by this adequate dosage is I'm going to use a silly example, but this is to illustrate the point. If I'm a supplement manufacturer and I make a protein product, I can claim all the benefits of it.

Muscle recovery, building muscle strength gains, all this kind of stuff. If it has two grams of protein in it. Now we all know that two grams of protein isn't gonna do much for you when it comes to building muscle and gaining strength. So make sure that when you're looking at a protein or whatever it is that you have an adequate dosage, you know, adequate dosage of protein is going to be minimum 15 grams of protein per scoop, but more likely to 20 to 25 grams of protein per scoop.

So you want to make sure you're getting that adequate dosage for what you're spending. You know, if you're if you're buying two grams of protein that only cost you $0.20, okay, then maybe it's worth it. But if it's two grams of protein for $3, that ain't worth it, right? So you really want to make sure that you're looking at the dosages levels.

And then the last thing is you want to check ingredient quality. So do your research, check the company reputation, Make sure that these companies are not getting dinged for spiking their proteins or doing different putting banned substances. Just do your research and make sure that, you know, like can trust the company that you're working with. Couple of things to avoid artificial flavors, artificial dyes, artificial sweeteners, anything artificial, just avoid it.

You don't need it. Right? Like, it's not going to be good for you. The artificial flavors in the dyes are super, super sneaky a lot of times. And the sweeteners, there's some of them that sound like they might be okay. The two biggest culprits in the world of supplements are sucralose and aspartame. Those two are the most prevalent ones in the world of supplements.

And if you can avoid those, that's huge. And then you don't want to have any added fillers. And then just to stress that point of the hundredths ingredients, that's super huge. So really make sure that you're taking the time to actually read the label. I've been in the supplement game for ten years and it's always funny to me that when I talk to people, they immediately want to know every detail of every product or every ingredient that's in the supplements.

But then they don't do that with their nutrition and they don't do that with their food choices. And then they realize, this sucralose is in my food that I eat all the time, so it must be okay. But the reality is it's just not. And so it's a lot of things you really got to do. Do your research, use Google.

Google is a great thing. I got a thing the other day, somebody messaged me about sodium chloride. They were concerned that it was going to be not good for them because sodium chloride chloride, I mean, it sounds kind of like chlorine. I mean, that's that can't be good for me, right? But sodium chloride is salt, you know. So let me do your research.

Use Google. It'll definitely help you in getting a better bang for your buck with the things that you're purchasing. So for performing, I like to stress five supplements that are really going to give you immediate impact for performance. Now, I know the opens coming up in two weeks. We got six days before the first announcement. So can you really get a benefit from supplements in that time?

Yeah, you actually can. And so there's a couple of them. They're going to take a little bit longer to give you true benefit. Now, let me caveat all of this by saying everybody's different. Your individual body might react differently to a supplement than someone else. So always, always, always do your due diligence, due diligence and make sure you're making the right choice for you and testing these things.

And this is the most important piece, would I say, implement these products today for the workout on Thursday, thinking you're going to get results? Probably not or it's not going to make that big of a difference or should you try a pre workout prior to that? The the 24.1. Right. Like the first time you ever tried it was right before that.

No don't cause you could get blown up. You could have whatever's going on. So just don't try brand new things now though would be a great time to try something this week. Try it. See how your body reacts to it, and then when they open, announcement happens, then you are at least accustomed to it and using it. So it's a couple of products that I want to stress you guys that are going to give you actual benefit for for 24.1.

If you started taking them right now, you would definitely have a benefit. So first one, creatine. This is probably it's the number two most researched supplement in the world. It has been proven safe and effective time and time again. This is great for men and women, so everybody can benefit from this because it helps fuel your cells, helps restore energy in your cells.

And what I like to say, when your cells are happy, your body's happy, and creatine is going to help make your cells happy. So there's a lot that it can do. Couple of points with creatine, make sure it's creatine monohydrate. If you're not taking creatine monohydrate, you're probably paying a premium for a fancy, fancy marketing term. And the best form of creatine monohydrate that you can get is from a manufacturer called Create Pure.

It's based out of Germany, but the way they filter the creatine makes it 99.98% pure creatine monohydrate. You cannot find a better, more pure creatine on the market and other companies who put creatine monohydrate in their products that don't say create pure on the label are just not as pure. Next next supplement that I would recommend protein just in talked about it you got to get your protein goals protein is huge.

It's the most important thing for CrossFit is to make sure you're hitting protein. You want to get a gram of protein per pound of body weight every single day. That's huge. It's super important. Specifically post-workout, to help with the recovery process. There's different types of protein. Hydrolyzed is the fastest absorbing one. You've probably heard about whey concentrate as well.

That's the the it's fast absorbing butt of the way proteins. It's the slowest of the three. There's whey concentrate whey isolate whey hydrolyzed sit and wait concentrate is going to be the least filtered protein. So it's going to be the hardest one for your body to process versus the isolate and the hydrolyzed state. That's where you might have experienced protein farts in the past.

It's because the whey protein is a little bit harder for your body to process. So that's great for for hitting your daily goal. So look for a good, clean quality protein when it comes to recovery. Next thing is electrolytes. Electrolytes are huge. You know, there's so many electrolyte products on the market. There's some that are out there that are just full of salt, which is great.

Salt is great. Your body needs salt, you need lots of salt. But then there's not as many other electrolytes in there. And I think the other electrolytes are huge and important for you to get as well. So always look for something that has a good amount of salt and a good amount of added electrolytes to make sure you're getting the stuff that your body needs when you're hitting those workouts.

And then you want to make sure you're keeping sugar at a minimum. Now, this is I'll point out, one specific product that comes up a lot, and it's a product called Liquid I.V. People use that as a hydration product, but they're always so concerned about the amount of sugar in it. The reality of that is that would to me, that would be more of a carbohydrate based product, that would be more of a carb fuel product than a hydration formula.

So if you want to use it as carb fuel, which we're going to talk about in just a second, that's fine. But for as a hydration formula, it's not the best option for you and you should probably stay away from it for hydration specifically. But from a fueling perspective, like Justin talked about, carbs are our friends carbs are great for fuel and we need those.

And a lot of people don't like to eat a bunch of stuff, pre-workout. So if you can fuel with some carbs a carb powder like a liquid ivy or something like that that has some fuel in it, your body can definitely get a benefit from it. And then post-workout to restore the glycogen that you depleted could be huge.

And how does how do these things factor in for leading up to the open? Well, the protein and the carbs now are going to help you recover as you get closer to the open so that you're not at a detriment and state, what's the word, whatever, a lower state. As you get closer to the open, you can use the carbs and the protein right now.

So if you can't get it with supplements, find use it with food. Just in talked about all that stuff. Fix it with your nutrition, get the proper protein and carbs. But when it comes to the open, if you're really trying to have a good workout, fueling free workout with carbs is awesome. I've been doing it for years and it's an awesome thing to do to get to hit your goals.

And if you're trying to do workouts back to back or whatever, if you've got a long LA, depending on what the workouts are going to be, it's great. And so so those are the four that I usually start with. But this last one, this is the only time that I'm going to like, sell you guys on anything. And the only reason I'm going to sell this is because it is I had never seen another product like it on the market.

Okay, Now full, full disclosure, I am affiliated with this brand X Endurance, but this is a lactic acid buffer product. It's called extreme endurance. And basically what it does is it it makes you not gas out as fast. So think about it. If you're doing Karen, you get all those eyeballs, you can do more. You know, if you if you usually gas out at like 50, maybe you're going to push to 75 and you're going to go unbroken to 75.

So it just depends on who you are and your body type and stuff. But this product is a lot of people have heard of beta alanine. Beta alanine is the old technology of this. Think of beta alanine as the iPhone three and this is the iPhone 15, if that makes sense. Right? So this is going to help you buffer that lactic acid recover faster.

It's been clinically proven through multiple clinical trials. There's a ton of research on Xander and his website. If you go to that link Betley, the Betley link shop, Extreme Endurance, that's a link to straight to the site. It's my affiliate link. So full disclosure, if you want to use that. This product, though I've never seen it anywhere else, nobody else has this product.

Elite games, athletes all take it. I know, I know Danielle does. I'm pretty sure Trista does. I don't know about any of the rest of the athletes that you work with, but athletes in the past have taken it, too. Josh Bridges has been a firm supporter of X endurance for years. Camille used to take it back in the day when she was competing.

So this product has been proven and it would be something that you can absolutely 100% get benefit from if you ordered it today. Got it here and started taking it prior to the open announcement. Okay, sales pitch over, but it's legitimate. I'm not just trying to sell you. It's a legitimate product and they have a 30 day money back guarantee, so you really got nothing to lose.

You go and try it. Okay. So then that's the five products for performance. I have other products that I suggest when it comes to supplements, if you want to just go to my website, you can check it out. Big Mike parents dot com slash recommended supplements. It's there whenever you want to see what what products I recommend for different things different problems that you want to solve then everybody that gets that's registered for this webinar tonight is going to get a my guide to supplements called the Cross Borders Guide to Supplements.

This is actually a brand new guide that I just put together. So you guys are going to be the first people to to get this out in the wild. And I'm excited to get it in everybody's hands. But basically gives you a quick overview of some of the points that I covered tonight, but a little bit deeper dive on how to get started, what to do, some resources on on things when it comes to adding supplements into your your routine every single day.

Okay. So that's my spiel on supplements. I hope that was beneficial.