Sports nutrition products are expanding, not so much with science and technology, but in how they relate to more and more consumers as lifestyle support supplements. Here’s what’s trending and why.
Not too long ago when adults wanted to get into shape, men primarily lifted weights and women did Jazzercise and other aerobics. Or, they would jog. Sports nutrition was in its infancy, dominated by proteins powders for bodybuilders.
Currently, Americans spend more than $30 billion on gym memberships, a lot of which are left to flounder as many people cite “finding the time” to work out regularly in the gym as a reason for not using the membership. That doesn’t mean that all those who are not using gym memberships are not getting into shape; the workout-at-home trend (Pelotron, etc.) is gaining traction.
“Virtual or at-home workouts are quickly gaining momentum,” agreed Corey Friese, vice president of product development and compliance at Vital Proteins. “The use of at-home indoor cycling programs and the growth of YouTube influencers are paving the way for just about anyone to workout remotely, away from a formal gym environment.”
Smartphone technology has gotten into the “work out anywhere” act. To help people navigate fitness trends and find workouts that work in their busy schedules, a new app, Gixo, has been launched that features more than 180 live fitness classes, spanning all levels, allowing the user to customize his or her fitness regimen and more likely to stick to.
Friese added that there has been a transition away from “big box” gyms and common routines toward a sharpening focus on boutique or specialized training programs, such as HIIT (high intensity interval training) group classes like Orange Theory and trainer studios. “People are very busy nowadays and are seeking out convenient forms and avenues to exercise,” he commented. “Group classes are becoming more popular because personal training is very expensive.”
Knowing fitness trends clarifies educational communication and provides strong purchase incentive in the sports nutrition department in your store. “The fitness community in general, is experiencing an upward trend, which drives the foot traffic in the retail health market,” agreed Jennifer Weinhardt, research and development specialist, Texas-based Bluebonnet Nutrition.
According to Weinhardt, The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) just released an article that identified the top 20 fitness trends for 2018. Among those in the top 10 are HIIT, yoga, strength training and body weight training. Interestingly, or maybe not surprisingly at all, wearable technology was the number three fitness trend for 2018. It’s an important tool for some individuals to track and measure their fitness progress.
The trend Allen Lim, PhD, founder, Colorado-based Skratch Labs, declared he wants to see is “sucking it up and getting out the door.” However, he noted, trends in the fitness world have primarily been about easy fixes. “When it comes to getting fit, however, there’s absolutely no easy way. It takes consistency, sweat, and the kind of hard work that you have to fall in love with for it to be sustainable. With that all in mind, the most interesting trend I see is the crossroads between virtual reality and fitness. Soon, a lot of us will be boxing Godzilla to get our daily workout.”
Whether boxing with Godzilla, or golfing, swimming, Cross-Fit, etc. – there are always new people to fitness, and therefore, sports nutrition. Deciding to become fit, for many adults who never were athletically inclined and who never worked out routinely is laudable, but many feel highly overwhelmed both by the fitness environment and getting started, and the vast array of sports nutrition products facing them on the shelves. Most “newbies” at this point know that when they start dieting and exercising, they also need to start supplementing to achieve their fitness and health goals. But they often make mistakes going it alone.
Shaye Lupton, business and marketing manager for SANP International, LLC of Florida, maker of the new Multiforce line of powdered fitness supplements, said, “One thing we know for sure is that the market of sports nutrition is a complicated one, especially if you are new to it. We often see people ending up using products that their bodies don’t need or just starting products because it is the latest trend and is what everyone uses. We always suggest someone starting out to ‘get back to basics’ since it’s all about refueling with good wholesome fresh food, drinking lots of water, sticking to basic minerals the body requires (and uses more of when exercising) and listening to the signals your body is sending you. Best advice we can give is not to overcomplicate it.”
Weinhardt said that rookie work-outers often make the mistake of “grabbing the most popular or least expensive item on the shelf and assuming it’s the best.” Many individuals are not well educated about sports nutrition supplements and don’t know how to choose. For example, she offered, “many sports nutrition products are laden with excess stimulants, large amounts of sugar, artificial sweeteners, flavors or colors, etc. If a consumer doesn’t know what to look for, it would be difficult for him/her to find the quality products in the sea of products available in the sports nutrition market.”
Lim noted that the most common mistake made by people new to the category is using sports nutrition supplements without cause. For example, he offered, if an athlete is feeling fatigued and discovers that his iron levels are low he will start taking extra iron and many people new to the category will see this and begin to take iron without knowing what their own iron levels are.
Many new athletes are swayed by marketing, he added, and become convinced that they need a product without doing the due-diligence to find out if they actually can benefit from it. “Further, after they begin to take supplements, they don’t often keep track of their performance well enough to know if it helps or helped. My advice is to listen to oneself, not the hype. And if it sounds too good to be true, then it is.”
Category Evolution
Due to increased growth, the category has witnessed several evolutionary points in only the past decade.
In 2009 and 2010, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) stepped up its regulatory enforcement of sports nutrition products in general and “especially those renegade brands that were making unsubstantiated bloated claims and asserting exaggerated results in their advertising,” Weinhardt described. “Some of these tawdry sports nutrition supplements were found to contain synthetic steroids and other contaminants.” This was soon followed by the “Supplement Safety Now” program launched by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to work with the industry to provide consumers with clean, safe products.
She also pointed to the launch and advent of NSF’s Certified for Sport initiative as having major influence in the growth of sports nutrition sector; every lot of Bluebonnet Nutrition’s Extreme Edge line is Certified for Sport. NSF tests for more than 270 banned substances and also: ensures the product does not contain undeclared ingredients or unacceptable levels of contaminants; regulates conformance to currently required industry cGMPs (current good manufacturing practices) for dietary supplements; and verifies label claims against product contents.
Extreme Edge, Bluebonnet Nutrition’s sports nutrition line, said Weinhardt, is formulated for bodybuilders, strength/resistance-trained athletes, and even weekend warriors to take before, during and after training. These three sports nutrition formulas are not only free of excipients, binders, hormones, antibiotics, artificial sweeteners, flavors or colors, and are safe for athletes to take for optimal muscle recharging, refueling and recovery. Additionally, Extreme Edge has ancillary products that are designed to complement the core regimen including Extreme Edge Nitro which is formulated to boost nitric oxide (NO) levels, which promotes the relaxation of smooth muscle in blood vessels, thus increasing blood flow to the heart and working muscles.
For years, athletes and those who work out consumed sports drinks to replace electrolytes (primarily sodium) that is lost via sweat; but, said Lim, it’s only recently that it’s been easy and convenient to get accurate measures of lost electrolytes. This technology is borrowed from cystic fibrosis knowledge—a high-sodium sweat concentration is an indicator of the disease. “This technology has allowed us to better match the sodium concentration in our Sports Drink Mix to what the majority of the population loses when they sweat,” Lim explained.
Skratch Labs’ flagship product is a sports beverage that contains an electrolyte ratio and amount that matches what is lost in sweat; an “anytime” energy bar that has a macronutrient profile “appropriate for fueling as a snack or when out on the field;” energy chews, and a milk-based recovery drink with lactase and bacillus probiotics. “All of our products solve nutrition problems for endurance athletes,” he said. “Many of those problems center around staying fueled and hydrated in extreme conditions without the gastrointestinal distress or flavor fatigue common to most sports nutrition products. Real food ingredients that serve a functional purpose characterize all of our products.”
According to Friese, Vital Proteins Sports Greens combines collagen and watermelon seed protein, making it a much easier-to-digest protein for than dairy, with the added benefits of organic cocoa, organic greens, hyaluronic acid and probiotics. “Maintaining collagen in the diet is critical to recovery from the stress of a workout. Supplementation is important to maintaining joint and ligament health and strength,” he commented.
Quicker recovery of muscle fatigue has also become a highly sought-after solution for many athletes and gym-goers. By speeding up recovery, they can work out more, resulting in quicker physical goal achievement. Part of this process involves the acid/alkaline (pH) ratio.
“With more Americans than ever before embracing extreme sports and demanding workouts, and with the majority of us still favoring processed foods over nutritious fruits and vegetables, we’ve achieved perfect storm-level conditions for making excess acidity one of today’s most problematic health concerns,” said Lupton. Lots of foods are responsible for generating acid-forming chemicals in the body that over time can lead to muscle fatigue, slowing down muscle recovery.
Multiforce, a natural alkaline powder formulated to address the acid-based causes of muscle fatigue, features the citrate form of minerals which, she noted, can neutralize three acid molecules and are much more easily absorbed by the body. In addition, Multiforce works systemically in the whole body as opposed to just zoning in on one select part. It is offered in three flavors: Natural Lemon; Natural Mango; and Naturally Unflavored.
These product examples resonate with all active consumers, especially today. Barri Sigvertsen, marketing manager, New Jersey- based Lonza Consumer Health & Nutrition, observed that for years, “sports nutrition” has been a niche category of food and supplements for elite athletes competing at high levels of physical skill and intensity.
“Today, there is no typical sports nutrition consumer,” she emphasized. The sports nutrition market has evolved and expanded to become what she dubbed “an active nutrition market” bolstered by varied demographics, such as seniors working out to maintain agility, mobility and independence, to on-the-go, young and affluent users who demand that their sports nutrition products be organic, natural, sustainable, vegan and non-GMO (genetically modified organism).
“This new crowd wants supplements that will generally help them gain more energy and endurance, lose more weight, feel better, perform better, recover better, and relieve muscle soreness,” she described. “With fitness goals programmed into apps, they are following the social media influencers more than the guy on the next machine at the gym much less body builders and extreme athletes. The challenge in the category is to make sports nutrition supplementation easier for those outside of the core to understand.” VR
Side-bar:
Capsule Innovations Drive Sports Nutrition Evolution
By Stan Glab, manager of product development formulations, Lonza Consumer Health & Nutrition
According to the 2018 Natural Marketing Institute’s Supplements, Over-the-Counter, and RX Database study, capsules were the top preferred delivery form for consumers (41 percent) over second-place tablets, soft gels (third), and other novelty delivery systems on the rise.
Lonza’s Consumer Health & Nutrition (CH&N) developed a variety of hard capsule technologies and formulation solutions that can meet delivery challenges that sports nutrition ingredients pose—to enhance effectiveness of the ingredients. These technologies can bolster stability, bioavailability, and targeted or timed release. Some can mask odors and bitter tastes. Some unique formulation solutions can improve bioavailability while also achieving the threshold dose or minimum effect level (MEL).
Understanding how a capsule delivery system can enhance effectiveness of ingredients can help consumers achieve their fitness goals.
Some examples of Lonza CH&N’s hard capsule technologies and their applications:
Vcaps Plus and DRcaps capsules are suitable for acid sensitive ingredients such as creatine, enzymes (amylase), amino acids (SAMe, l-glutathione, l-carnosine, etc.) and probiotics. With a 30-minute release profile, the low-moisture HPMC Vcaps Plus protects the stability of moisture sensitive and acid sensitive ingredients that can be compromised before being absorbed in the intestines. The HPMC DR caps, with a unique acid-resistant characteristic inherent in the polymer (no need for enteric coatings here)—does not dissolve for at least 30 minutes—and in in-vivo testing shows an average opening of 52 minutes before opening. It resists the stomach’s pH of 1.2, fully opening at an intestinal pH of 6.8. These sports nutrition ingredients are acid sensitive; DRcaps can provide protection to deliver the full dose.
Licaps capsules (gelatin, vegetarian, or fish polymers) are ideal for delivery of unstable liquids that can degrade if exposed to oxygen such as resveratrol, krill oil, Carnipure L-carnitine, L-arginine, and HMB. To keep oxygen out, the capsule is flushed with nitrogen during filling and then hermetically sealed.
DUOCAPS capsule is a capsule-in-a-capsule technology for combination products or extended release. For example, caffeine solubilized in vegetable oil is filled in the outer capsule that dissolves first for immediate energy. An inner capsule that dissolves later is filled with caffeine beads of different sizes that dissolve at intervals due to varied thickness of coatings. It is also highly effective for pairing ingredients that don’t mix well such as the CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) oil and Carnipure l-carnitine water-soluble powder, which combined aid in fat loss and promote energy.
Lipid Multi-Particulates (LMP) technology offers a variety of delivery applications, modified release and taste-masking. ZMA power blend of zinc, magnesium, and vitamin B6 for muscle building can be formed into LMP spheres that can be delivered in powder form, suspended in beverages, or included in shots. Delayed release of phosphatidic acid, for example, has been touted as a value for building muscle and recovering from exercise. LMP has been combined in a bulk powder blend that can be mixed with water. The microspheres float in water but dissolve after ingestion so the active is released periodically when it is needed for longer enduring effect.
As another example, the sustained, modified release feature of LMP for beverage application delivery of theacrine, often used synergistically with caffeine, contributes to taste-masking of the extremely bitter supplement at therapeutic levels because it stops dissolution of microspheres until after consumption when the active is no longer in contact with the palate.
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For More Information:
Bluebonnet Nutrition, www.bluebonnetnutrition.com
Lonza Consumer Health and Nutrition, www.lonza.com
SANP International, www.multiforcehealth.com
Skratch Labs, www.skratchlabs.com
Vital Proteins, www.vitalproteins.com
