Weekly Recap 11/23-11/30
Here’s what we are reading, watching, and liking.
The article of the week is Shedding Some Light on Vitamin D Supplementation: Does It Increase Strength In Athletes?
The video of the week is from Jeff Nippard and his video talking about his diet from 10 years ago. While he specifically talks about a bodybuilding prep nutrition program, he discusses many myths that surround training and nutrition.
Our first social media post of the week is from the antideit_dietitian about 7 signs you are in a caloric deficit, especially those who only track their progress using a scale. The last post is from Emma Jarman who’s post links to her “Women and Performance Enhancing Drugs” survey that sheds a light on PED use in women’s sports and starts to talk about the hows, whys, whats, and costs associated with PED use.
Article of the Week
Shedding Some Light on Vitamin D Supplementation: Does It Increase Strength In Athletes?
It probably shouldn’t be too controversial to suggest that, in general, vitamin deficiencies aren’t a positive thing. However, vitamin D has a special status in the eyes of most lifters, as researchers have previously suggested that vitamin D supplementation could potentially enhance aerobic performance, strength performance, muscle growth, and recovery from exercise (2). Unfortunately, there’s also a bit of uncertainty associated with the management of blood vitamin D levels; there’s an active debate about whether the optimal range is above 50 nmol/L or 75 nmol/L, blood levels are meaningfully influenced by latitude and magnitude of sun exposure (which is difficult to practically quantify), and excessively high blood levels are also problematic. Dr. Helms has previously discussed vitamin D supplementation in two previous MASS articles, but this month, there’s a new vitamin D meta-analysis (1) to report and interpret. Authors of the current paper (1) specifically evaluated the effects of vitamin D supplementation on strength outcomes in athletes. Results indicated that supplementation significantly increased blood vitamin D levels, but effects on bench press strength (effect size [d] = -0.07, p = 0.72) and isokinetic leg extension strength (d = 2.14, p = 0.12) were not statistically significant, nor was the overall effect on both strength outcomes pooled together (d = 0.75, p = 0.17). Having said that, I think these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. This article explains why I feel that way and discusses whether or not vitamin D is an advisable supplementation strategy.
