Welcome to the Get Fit Guys quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up. My name is Ben

Greenfield and I'm the Get Fit Guy. And as the Get Fit Guy, I follow a big variety of health, fitness, and

nutrition blogs and podcasts. And on any given morning, I'll preview a good 40 to 50 different

articles or studies and read the details on at least 10 of them. Well, one of the authors who I

follow is Alex Hutchinson, who's over at runnersworld.com at the sweat science column over there. Alex

and I have actually never met,

but I like his level-headed approach to fitness

and our mutual background in the realm of endurance performance.

So when I saw that Alex had written an article entitled

Advice to a Young Athlete,

which I'll link to in the show notes over at quick and dirty tips.com,

just find the show notes for this episode, episode number 233. I gave that article advice to a young athlete, a thorough read. In the article,

Alex delves into supplements, recovery, nutrition, mental training, and race prep for a young

elite cyclist who had written him asking for performance advice.

And while you may not be young or elite or a cyclist, there are still some very helpful

gems in the article. So in this two-part episode, I'll give you my thoughts and commentary

on a few such tips. Let's start with supplements. When it comes to supplements,

Alex highlights the proven performance-enhancing effects of caffeine, the lactic acid

buffering and muscle burn-reducing effects of baking soda, and beta-alinin, and the endurance-enhancing

effects of beet juice. Now, I completely agree with Alex about the effects of

each of these, but with a few caveats. For example, when it comes to caffeine, many athletes who are

over-trained tend to use coffee and energy drinks to mask fatigue and often dig themselves

...