ZMA

Is It The Missing Link You Need To Grow?

By Xavier Fox

You are lying on your back, the barbell feels like a truck pressing down on your arms, and you feel the rep slipping away. You just can’t sustain the high levels of energy you need to train like a man possessed, and your strength has seen better days. If you want to step on stage one day with the likes of Dorian, Ronnie and Jay, sputtering out during an intense training session is simply unacceptable. The road to the Promised Land takes a lot of hard work, and the amount of energy and strength you have will be what drives that work.

Research shows that bodybuilders have low levels of zinc and magnesium, and the reason is due to the severe stresses they put their body through on a daily basis. Moving mountains tends to burn up a large amount of nutrients. Forcing their bodies to go through extreme physical workouts is not the only thing that creates a need for large amounts of nutrients in bodybuilders. In addition, the extent of repair the body must endure in order to recuperate from those workouts generates a hefty need all by itself. It is easy to understand why keeping up with a bodybuilder’s nutritional demands requires supplementation… especially when it comes to zinc and magnesium, since they are involved in many of the systems that govern hormones, the development of skeletal muscles, and the ability to generate and sustain energy. A lack of these two nutrients can reap havoc on your system and make it very difficult to be successful on the bodybuilding stage.
Magnesium is a necessity in over 300 metabolic functions in the body… without it your entire metabolic system would go completely haywire. Some of the metabolic functions that magnesium is part of that are critical to bodybuilders are glycolysis, fat and protein metabolism, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthesis. Sit back for a moment and think about the magnitude of importance magnesium plays in bodybuilding.
If the glycolysis process is impaired, then carbohydrates are not being broken down at the required rate to produce pyruvate and thus generate ATP and NADH for energy. That means the muscles will not have available energy supplies to maintain any type of decent workout let alone the kind of workout needed to be a champion. If your body cannot break down carbohydrates, not only will your energy suffer, but the wasted carbohydrates will end up on your rear-end making it look like 40 pounds of chewed bubble-gum.
If fat metabolism is hampered, the results should be pretty easy to figure out. Speaking of “figure”, yours will not be looking too hot if you aren’t burning fat.
A slow down in your protein metabolism will definitely kill any hopes of making it to the IFBB. The inability to break down proteins goes beyond the problem of not having broken down proteins available to donate compounds used to repair and generate new muscle. Proteins are involved in the production of many of your hormones that control the amount of testosterone, growth hormone and IGF-1 your body produces. These hormones directly affect the amount of muscle that you are able to build and maintain, the amount of fat that you burn, and the amount of energy you produce.
Here is a neat little titbit of information that our iron-hurling friends just might find useful: research has shown that supplementing with magnesium decreases levels of cortisol. Cortisol is to bodybuilding what the Scrooge is to Christmas… it will ruin the party and bring everything around it down. Cortisol is a corticosteroid hormone that is involved in body’s response to stress, and intense weightlifting is very stressful on the body. Cortisol increases blood pressure, blood sugar levels and suppresses the immune system, but worst of all… it catabolises muscle tissue. So unless you enjoy having headaches, gaining fat, being lethargic, catching colds and flus, and having your hard-earned muscle stripped away, keeping cortisol levels as low as possible by maintaining adequate levels of magnesium should be part of your bodybuilding plan.
When talking about bodybuilding supplements, most conversations turns to creatine, glutamine, amino acids, whey protein, or nitrous oxide. Zinc never seems to come up as a topic when discussing the “must-haves” for a bodybuilder’s supplement arsenal. It is unfortunate that more bodybuilders are not aware of how important zinc is. Like magnesium, zinc is very involved in the metabolism of protein, carbohydrates and fat. In addition to the metabolism of protein, zinc is also highly involved in the synthesis of protein, so it not only helps the body break down proteins to be used for thousands of vital functions, it also plays a key role in the synthesizing of proteins used for rebuilding muscles. Zinc is crucial to the production of many hormones, cellular repair, tissue growth, connective tissue growth, prostaglandin production, proper thyroid function, and even sperm production.
Zinc is essential if the body is to maintain adequate serum testosterone levels. If zinc is deficient, the pituitary gland will not release proper amounts of luteinising and follicle stimulating hormones. This situation leads to a slow down in the production of testosterone. Without testosterone… there is no building of muscle, period. Testosterone is the hormone that controls the body’s capacity to add muscle. The amount of testosterone is also associated to the ability to burn fat. Another way that zinc is connected to testosterone and fat is that zinc inhibits the aromatase enzyme, which is the enzyme that converts testosterone into oestrogen. The higher the oestrogen levels, the more likely men will gain fat weight. Fat cells contain aromatase, and additional fat cells mean more oestrogen, which means more fat gain. Zinc’s link to testosterone and the aromatase enzyme makes it arguably the most important of all bodybuilding supplements.
The fact that zinc is significantly involved in tissue growth, connective tissue growth, prostaglandin production and proper thyroid function are just more reasons why it is as important as any other supplement on the market. By playing a major role in tissue growth, zinc becomes an important part of the muscle building process. A deficiency would mean that there was no zinc to support the muscle building process, and this means that all of the muscle being broken down during the workout would not be able to recover or become larger. The bodybuilder would not only be unable to grow, he wouldn’t even be able to get back to normal, because the body would not have sufficient zinc to repair muscle. In addition to this problem, there would not be enough zinc available to keep connective tissues in good repair. If connective tissues cannot repair properly, joints will soon become irritated and weakened. Workouts will not only become more difficult and less effective, but the weakened joints will be very susceptible to injury. Chronic pain and torn muscles are not going to help you get good workouts.
Zinc’s role in prostaglandin production and proper thyroid function will also be essential to a bodybuilder’s ability to compete. Prostaglandin is critical in cell growth, and it also regulates hormone secretion. Thyroid itself is a hormone, and it is the one that controls the metabolism. Obviously, if thyroid production is not normal, the body will not metabolize nutrients as it is supposed to. A slow down in thyroid function also leads to excessive gains in fat. Not exactly what a bodybuilder is trying to accomplish. If cell growth is limited, then your capacity to recover from workouts and build new muscle will be less than optimal. Much of your time and effort in the gym will be spent in vain.
It just so happens that there are supplements out there that combine the great nutrients magnesium and zinc. The famous (or infamous… depending on your point of view) Victor Conte of BALCO Labs developed a supplement known as ZMA, and since then, many other companies have duplicated his formulation. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but as a supplement consumer, it is good for you, because it makes many options available.
ZMA is a formulation of zinc monomethionine aspartate and magnesium aspartate that also contains vitamin B6. Most formulations will contain 20-30 mg of zinc, 400-500 mg magnesium and around 10mg of B6. The companies that produce ZMA recommend that it be taken before bed on an empty stomach (two hours after eating your last meal and at least 30 minutes prior to any other supplements). Due to the conflicting absorption of zinc and calcium, ZMA should not be taken with calcium.
When looking for evidence of ZMA’s potency, many articles point to studies performed by Lorrie Brilla, PhD, sports performance researcher at Western Washington University. The studies were done on collegiate level American football players, and the results were reported in the official ACSM journal, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Vol. 31, No. 5. In this report, Dr. Brilla stated that the group of players who used ZMA each night during an eight-week spring training program had 2½ times greater muscle strength gains than a placebo group. That is a rather significant gain in only an eight-week period. For every pound that the placebo group added to their bench press, military press, deadlift, or other strength movement, the ZMA group added 2½ pounds. What this means is that if you added 10 kilograms to your squat in a two-month period, you should have been able to add 25 kilograms if you used ZMA.
Another interesting finding in the study is that the placebo group experienced a 10% decrease in free and total testosterone levels, while the ZMA group saw their levels increase by 30%! The ZMA group also increased their insulin growth factor (IGF-1) levels to a small percentage while their placebo group counterparts experienced a 20% drop in theirs. Growth hormone (GH) and IGF-1 have many similarities in how they affect the body. IGF-I enhances protein anabolism when in combination with GH, because IGF-1 mediates the protein-anabolic actions of GH in humans. IGF-1 also has properties including the transport of amino acids into cells and inhibition of protein degradation. IGF-1 acts much like insulin when it comes to metabolizing carbohydrates, and it improves insulin sensitivity. Research has shown that IGF-1 is critical in the overall action of insulin on skeletal muscle.
One thing that comes to mind when reviewing the results of Dr. Brilla’s research is that the subjects were already top-level athletes who were accustomed to intense training and proper diet. It would be much more difficult for a supplement to exhibit strength gains and hormone increases on them, because their bodies have had years to adapt to high-level training. Imagine the effect that this study may have had on beginners or athletes that were much less experienced. It is much more difficult for someone that has been training for years to make gains, because their body has adapted to training, and ZMA was able to produce strength gains almost tripling their current level as well as increases in anabolic hormone levels.
Intense exercise is enough by itself to cause a deficiency in zinc and magnesium. Don’t waste time and effort in the gym because your body is unable to operate at full capacity due to a lack of these two nutrients. Keep your energy levels, testosterone levels, GH, and IGF-1 levels at their peak so you can power through those tough training sessions and recover quickly. Many of the systems in your body that operate to make you the best bodybuilder you can be are very dependent on zinc and magnesium. Give your body the tools it needs to give you the muscle mass, strength, and energy that you need to crush your competition.