Original articles  BODY COMPOSITION, SPORT NUTRITION AND SUPPLEMENTATION 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2002 September;42(3):340-7

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training

Rozenek R., Ward P., Long S., Garhammer J.

From the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education California State University Long Beach Long Beach, California, USA

Back­ground. Sev­enty-­three ­healthy, ­male sub­jects ran­domly ­divided ­into 3 ­groups par­tic­i­pated in a ­study to deter­mine the ­effects of 2 ­high-cal­orie nutri­tional sup­ple­ments on ­body com­po­si­tion, ­body seg­ment cir­cum­fer­ences, and mus­cular ­strength fol­lowing a resis­tance-­training (RT) pro­gram.
­Methods. In addi­tion to ­their ­normal ­diets ­group 1 (CHO/PRO; n=26) con­sumed a 8.4 Mj × day-1 (2010 ­kcal) ­high cal­orie, ­high pro­tein sup­ple­ment con­taining 356 g car­bo­hy­drate and 106 g pro­tein. ­Group 2 (CHO; n=25) con­sumed a car­bo­hy­drate sup­ple­ment ­that was iso­ca­loric ­with CHO/PRO. ­Group 3 (­CTRL; n=22) ­received no sup­ple­ment and ­served as a con­trol. All sub­jects ­were ­placed on a 4-day × ­week-1 RT pro­gram for 8 ­weeks.
­Results. Die­tary anal­ysis ­revealed no sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in ­total ­energy con­sump­tion or nutri­ents at any ­time in the non-sup­ple­mented ­diets of the 3 ­groups. Sig­nif­i­cant (p≤0.05) ­increases in ­body ­mass (BM) and fat-­free ­mass (FFM) ­were ­observed in CHO/PRO and CHO com­pared to ­CTRL. ­Mean (± SD) ­increases in BM ­were 3.1±3.1 kg and 3.1±2.2 kg, respec­tively. Fat-­free ­mass sig­nif­i­cantly (p≤0.05) ­increased 2.9±3.4 kg in CHO/PRO and 3.4±2.5 kg in CHO. Mus­cular ­strength, as meas­ured by a one-rep­e­ti­tion max­imum in the ­bench ­press, leg ­press, and lat-­pull ­down ­increased sig­nif­i­cantly (p≤0.05) in all ­groups. No sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in ­strength meas­ures ­were ­observed ­among ­groups fol­lowing ­training.
Con­clu­sions. ­Results indi­cate ­that ­high-cal­orie sup­ple­ments are effec­tive in ­increasing BM and FFM ­when com­bined ­with RT. How­ever, ­once indi­vidual pro­tein require­ments are met, ­energy con­tent of the ­diet has the ­largest ­effect on ­body com­po­si­tion.