In competitive sports, the pressure to outperform other athletes can be fierce. Not surprisingly, many athletes resort to ergogenic aids to improve performance. Ergogenic aids are any physical, mechanical, nutritional, psychological, or pharmacological substances or treatments that either directly improve physiological variables associated with exercise performance or remove subjective restraints that may limit physiological capacity. Purported ergogenic aids abound, but research is limited regarding how well they actually improve performance and long-term fitness. Hubbell, for one, doesn’t use them.

Two ergogenic aids that have been well studied and shown to be efficacious are caffeine and creatine monohydrate. Caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant, has been repeatedly demonstrated to improve performance in almost all high-intensity activities lasting more than one minute, including long-distance endurance events. Studies have shown that supplementing with creatine monohydrate increases skeletal muscle creatine phosphate (recall its role in ATP production) by 10% to 20%. Benefits to performance are commonly seen with short duration, anaerobic, intermittent exercise.