-: Alright so we just talked about neurotransmitters
and now we're gonna get into a little bit
more of the micronutrient stuff that goes with
the designing a nutrition program for
a neurological phase.
So just really quick refreshing,
remember pre-workout we want increased
dopamine and acetylcholines,
we want that neuroexcitation, that beta wave activation.
For my meal, for my macros though,
I wanna have lower carbs.
Doesn't have to be zero carbs,
but it should be low insulin.
So what insulin's gonna do, is it's gonna
bring my dopamine levels down.
So if I have a big carb meal before my workout,
great, that might be great for getting a pump
but it's not gonna do jack for intensity.
So neurological training my goal is
I need maximal intensity.
So I wanna make sure there is no insulin
for me to overcome.
In a metabolic workout I'm gonna be
burning through so much blood sugar
that I'm gonna counteract that.
In a neurological workout,
I'm not gonna be burning through as much
carbohydrate, so I'm not gonna be able
to overcome a high carb meal and then
get my brain and body woken up for
high intensity work right away.
So ideally we want our glycogen levels to be
replenished before your pre workout meal,
that way we don't have to worry about this at all.
We can keep carbohydrates to a minimal
in the meal before we're gonna train.
Higher protein, again very similar to (inaudible)
especially yang proteins.
We'll look at things that have higher carnitine
and stuff that's gonna be good for metabolism
but these red meat based proteins
tend to have the nutrients that we need for
acetylcholine and dopamine as well.
Any energy enhancing fats,
so things like cashews actually have a small amount of
choline in them, but again not enough that you're
really gonna feel a lot in training, you're gonna
need to use a supplemental amounts of either
CDP or acetylcholine, but having those fats
and stuff for fuel will be ideal since
we're obviously not doing any carbohydrates
during the pre workout meal.
Alright, so pre workout supplementation.
I have my Dopamine Boosters that I can use.
So there's thee that I have up here.
The Mucana Purines is basically
L-Dopa, so it's one step away from being
converted into dopamine.
Because of that, it is going to be the
least likely to effect energy levels
in terms of metabolism, and the most likely
just to go towards brain energy.
Whereas Tyrosine or Phenylalanine both
are gonna have that application for
metabolic boosting, the synergistic with thyroid
you actually make thyroid hormone with Tyrosine,
it's one of the building blocks for it.
So these things are gonna impact your
overall energy production as well, so if you don't
want a metabolic boost and you wanna just
kinda something to help you be a little bit
more motivated, stable, get you in a motivated mood per se,
they could go with just the L-Dopa.
If you wanted to look at something that was gonna
be a little bit more energizing as well,
then you would add either of these guys in there.
The Phenylalanine gets converted to Tyrosine,
and then Tyrosine is eventually gonna get
converted into L-Dopa,
and that L-Dopa is gonna be converted into dopamine
and then that can be converted into norepinephrine
and epinephrine depending on the intensity
of your program and what you're requiring from your body.
Basically, this is the least energizing for the body
mostly just the brain.
These are gonna work body and brain.
One I don't have up here is antiseal Tyrosine,
which is just Tyrosine within the seal group on it,
and that's basically gonna take the Tyrosine and make it
a little bit more biased towards being able to get
across the blood brain barrier, so your dosage
on that could be a little bit lower.
These are all synergistic, so that does not mean
that you take 250 and 1000 milligrams and 1000 milligrams.
If you're gonna combine these you would need to
lower the dosage on all of them.
Me personally, what I'll usually do,
if I'm only gonna use one, like I'm just gonna
buy one product, I would do straight Tyrosine
because one, it's pretty cheap and it's gonna
get the job done, but if I need to switch things up
a little bit more, somebody that gets anxious easy
but they need to focus on getting their brain going
then this might be a better option.
If you were focusing on metabolic stuff
or if you have a harder time with cortisol
and what not, then you might use more of the
Tyrosine and Phenylalanine for little bit more
energy enhancing stuff, so cortisol levels can
stay lower during the training system.
Or if you're going for body composition,
so say this is for a metabolic phase,
I know we're talking neurological,
but in a metabolic phase obviously you would want
the metabolic benefits of using the Tyrosine
and Phenylalanine over just the L-Dopa.
The L-Dopa would be very ineffective
and a waste of money during a metabolic phase.
Other than if you like it for your mood.
It's never wrong to take something that helps
your mood per se, when we look at nootropics.
For Acetyl Choline, two main options here,
Alpha GPC or Citicholine.
What I'll say is that the Alpha GPC
seems to be more energy enhancing.
Whereas the CDP tends to be more focus improving.
So depending on what the type of training
that you're doing, I would say from a neurological
face, if I'm doing heavy loads,
not explosive but heavy loads,
I might do the Alpha GPC, cause it's gonna give me
energy I'm gonna have a lot harder time sitting around
and doing nothing with a lot of Alpha GPC
and a lot of dopamine.
But with the CDP I might be more focused.
So if you're an Olympic weight lifter
and you're doing a rep and you're walking around
for ten minutes thinking about the next set
this might be a better option because it might
just give you a little better calm focus than
the extra energy that the Alpha GPC's gonna give you.
And again, these are synergistic.
So you would go for a total dose,
so you could go 600, 600 or 1200 of one viatrils
for your top dose.
Again, you could start low on all of these neutropic things.
Start low and work your way up, because too much
can have a reverse effect for what you desire.
Also, Acetyl Carnitine I put on here.
It's not a direct precursor to choline or dopamine,
but what it does is it amplifies the effect of dopamine
and acetylcholine nutrients.
So, Alcar - Acetyl Carnitine - is going to
enhance brain energy, it's gonna increase the
metabolism of your brain, and if you increase
the metabolism of your brain and you provide
these appropriate neurotransmitters it's going
to basically be like adding an exclamation point,
increasing the effect that you get
from those types of nutrients.
So if you add this in you may need a little bit less
of your dopamine booster, your acetylcholine booster
or whatnot, and your brain might be a little
bit more energized, and it might help you actually
utilize that dopamine booster better, or that
acetylcholine booster better.
We'll look at pre workout supplementation
know that the Acetyl Choline boosters will also
boost the effect of the dopamine boosters.
So AlCar boosts both things but an Acetyl Choline booster
will also bring up dopamine.
So if you take Alpha GPC, it's gonna make your L-Dopa
and your Tyrosine more effective.
So when you start combining these things,
again go with the lower dosages don't go with
the higher dosages especially when you're combining them
because it may be really easy to go overdosed
by using multiple ingredients that are potentiating
each other, so it's better to start low
and work yourself up to the desired effect than
to take some stuff and then in the middle of the
workout you're hearing colors and seeing sounds
and you've got monkeys crawling around on the ceiling
and stuff and that's not a good idea.
Getting out of the neurotransmitter stuff
and into our typical nutrients.
B Complex still ideally want activated methylators
in there so the B6, B9, B12.
No antioxidants because having a small
amount of oxidative stress in the muscle
has actually been shown to potentiate the
intensity of contraction.
So, not a lot but a little oxidative stress
very minimal, just the fact the muscle senses
that it's working a little bit.
So if you've taken antioxidants before
we could blunt that response and that's not
what we're going for.
We want those high intensity contractions.
We want that stimulus.
Electrolytes, if you get plenty away from training
then you don't need to have the intra workout,
but if you're not right, then having electrolytes
in the water that you're drinking while training
can be really good, because you
do move a lot of electrolytes.
You move a lot of sodium, potassium, calcium and everything
when you're doing a neurological training system.
So, what I put in here is not the Bicarb form
because that's gonna buffer lactic acid.
To be honest since this is neurological phase
your not gonna be making that lactate.
From a performance perspective if you have
somebody that is suffering from a lot of
acidosis because they've got poor metabolic function
then I actually would reverse that.
I'd say use the Bicarb version, or if you're
using the neurological phase as a de-load from
the metabolic training, then I would actually use
buffering electrolytes in this to make this
as least lactic as possible in terms
of what's being produced.
So, it's like okay let's buffer as much lactic acid
and buffer that effect as much as possible
so that we can re-sensitize to that if that's the
purpose of you doing a neurological phase.
Glutamine, very important for fuel in the nervous system.
And then Ketones or MCT's could be a valuable fuel
source over carbohydrates, especially because they're
gonna help get more fuel to the brain.
If you have not used ketones before, ketones do
cause a bump in insulin but they should overcome that.
What I will say is if you're gonna use ketones
it should be with dopamine boosters, to minimize
any negative impact the insulin might have
in terms of dopamine levels.
Pick one or the other, don't use ketones and MCT's.
That would be redundant and actually could create
a fat storing context for your cells because
they've got too much energy coming in.
Too must very fast energy at once.
So ketones and MCT's are both very fast fuel,
much like carbohydrate.
It would be like stacking glucose with glucose.
Now, intra workout as we're getting through here.
We need fuel for the workout stimulus.
Minimize any unnecessary stress is the other thing.
We need enough amino acids, enough carbohydrates
to decrease the stress in the liver and feel
the stimulus, but we don't need any excess of that.
So guess what?
We don't need as many carbohydrates during
the neurological phase as we would a hypertrophy phase.
We don't need as many amino acids during the neurological
phase as we would during hypertrophy phase.
And we definitely don't need as many carbohydrates
as we would during a metabolic phase.
And fats, if we're gonna use the ketones and MCTS,
you could divide that up between pre and intra workout
if you so desired to fuel that.
So if things are gonna be pretty
minimal on the intra workout.
So low, if any, carbohydrates so definitely needs
to be not enough that you're getting an insulogenic effect.
And this would be a sip throughout the workout,
not I'm gonna take 15 grams of carbohydrates intra workout
and I'm gonna slam and be like no I'm gonna kinda
sip just through the workout, just to kinda
decrease the stress on my liver, and provide
just a little bit of glucose as a fuel.
Because you won't be demanding glucose in large pulses
in neurological training like you would
say in hypertrophy training.
MCT's may be a better source, especially if you
don't handle carbohydrates that well, and they
won't inhibit the neural excitation because
there's not a big insulin response with the MCT's.
Do not combine them with carbs, so you
gotta pick one fuel source.
You got ketones, you got carbohydrates or you got MCT's.
For the most part the ketones I would really only suggest
in people that are doing a keto based diet, which
if you're gonna do a keto diet, guess which phase
of training would probably effect the least?
Your neurological phase, because you're the least
dependent on carbohydrates in this system.
Lower branch chains, like 5-10 grams.
If you get too much brain chains are also insulogenic
so that can decrease your training drive.
We don't wanna over do branch trains in the middle
of a neurological workout because it an take
away our intensity, take away our motivation.
More is essential if you're not using
any intra workout carbohydrates because the liver
is still gonna want some to help stabilize glucose,
so if you're doing just MCT's and no carbohydrates,
then I would say okay maybe you wanna make sure
you're taking the branch chains.
But if you're doing a little bit of carbohydrates
you might not even use any branch chains
especially if it's a speed or momentum based program,
because you're gonna be creating very little muscle damage,
very little demand on glucose, and total calories being
consumed during the workout, so you can
probably get by without any branch chains
at that point in time.
Continuing on, more Glutamine.
Love Glutamine if you can't tell, because it fuels
the nervous system, so it's gonna be very important
for that nervous system to keep it's energy
levels high, which is gonna decrease the amount
of time that you need to rest between sets and increase
your tolerance to total volume of neurological work.
Taurine can be used intra workout.
So Taurine is really good for helping
stabilize the nervous system.
I've said it kinda calms it, but a small dose
can help with managing heart rate which can be
really good especially if you're taking caffeine.
So, small dose 100-300 milligram.
When we talk about post workout,
we're talking about grams of Taurine.
Intra workout we're talking about just helping
stabilize heart rate and electrolyte balance
a little bit, to allow faster recovery between sets.
Then we're just thinking a few
hundred milligrams will do that job.
But we don't wanna calm the system down,
we don't wanna inhibit the nervous system,
we just wanna allow it to recover really quick between sets.
So if your taking some dopamine precursors and
some acetylcholine stuff and you happen to throw in
a little bit of taurine in there to help with
electrolyte balance and heart rythym
and to help make sure that the caffeine doesn't
overstimulate your system, then that could be
a really beneficial supplement that won't
have any negatives on your performance.
It helps improvement with heart rythym and response
to caffeine, but you need adequate magnesium
to get the benefits of taurine, so if you
haven't been taking any magnesium and your
magnesium levels are really low in your body
the taurine will not be as effective.
So if you take taurine and it doesn't work very well
chances are you need more magnesium for that
to actually come into play.