Shortly after the first of this year (2016) I remember walking down the hall at Europa Sports Products coming upon cases of CytoSport’s ready to drink (RTD) Muscle Milk. Lifting a bottle of the product up, to my amazement a picture on the front of the product was that of Stephen Curry! WOW, that picture brought a flashback in time. You see, Del Curry (Stephen’s father) played for the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA when I was the strength and conditioning coach for the same team 1990 through 2001.

When Stephen was just a kid he would be at practice or before games shooting basketball. I remember Stephen asking me on several occasions to rebound for him and would for a while but then having to tell him that “I must get in the weight room but I’ll rebound for you until I have to go.” Little did I know I was rebounding in years to come for one of the greatest players in the NBA. I also trained Stephen for a short time while he was in his High School years at a sports performance facility, but that is another story for another time.

I must say that CytoSport could not have picked a better person, let alone a great basketball player to represent their product. CytoSport will never have to worry about this celebrity embarrassing their product for sure. But let’s turn the table and not examine Stephen because you can go anywhere on any website and not find anything bad about Stephen, especially as a person. However let’s do examine CytoSport and one of its signature products, Muscle Milk.

Usually a product that has been around for many a year and that has stood the test of time is generally because of the quality of the product and Muscle Milk has done just that! Since 1998 CytoSport has been at the forefront of the science behind Nutritional Supplements and Muscle Milk has lead the way.

Yes, the most important ingredient in Muscle Milk is the type of protein it contains. CytoSport does an excellent job of explaining the different types of proteins. Just go to the Muscle Milk website, www.musclemilk.com and you’ll get all the information you’ll need on the type and quality of the different proteins and protein blends. What I would like to touch base on and what gets unnoticed in a lot of nutritional circles is the all-important “Medium Chain Triglycerides,” (MCT) that is contained in each bottle or container of Muscle Milk.

We’ll get to just what MCT’s are and what they do, but for now let’s focus on just what are Triglycerides? Simply, Triglycerides are a type of fat (Lipid) found in the blood. When you eat your body converts any food that it doesn’t use right away for energy to Triglycerides. So if these Triglycerides are not used over a period of time for energy they are shipped from the blood to fat cells. Later however and between meals hormones release this type of fat for energy if needed. If one eats more calories than they burn one may have high Triglyceride levels which is called Hypertriglyceridemia. That’s why it is so important to exercise, and with high performance athletes, that shouldn’t be a problem!

On a side note one may ask, what is the difference between Triglycerides and Cholesterol? Simply this; Triglycerides are used for Energy and Cholesterol is used to help produce cells and certain hormones such as testosterone.

So then, what are MCT’s? You have to understand first what fats are made of. Fat molecules are made up of chains of carbon atoms. Long-Chain fatty acids (LCT’s), which make up much of the Standard American Diet, are in length from 16 to 24 carbons. However the MCT’s are composed of only and anywhere from 4 to 14 carbon links. And because these MCT’S have fewer carbon atoms they have some advantages over the LCT’s.

Even though MCT’s are fats, they cannot make you fat! In fact, they resemble carbohydrates more than fats. Why, because of only having 4 to 14 carbon atoms they are more easily digested and because they are so easily digested they are more available for energy. Also, because of the low carbon density the body really doesn’t know what to do with them and because of the low carbon numbers they are also hard to store as fat!

MCT’s even yield fewer calories than other fats. Why? According to Bruce Fife, N.D. , author of the book The Healing Miracles of Coconut Oil, “All fats, whether they are saturated or unsaturated, from a cow or from corn, contain the same number of calories. The Medium Chain T’s however are different. They contain a little less and actually yield fewer calories than other fats.”

So with all of this said, what is the major benefit of putting MCT’s in Muscle Milk? As you can see, naturally you have the high quality protein for recovery and to build muscle. You also have the carbohydrates for the much needed energy, but then you also have the Medium Chain Triglycerides as another source of energy. Research is mixed on whether or not MCT’s has a sparing glycogen effect and therefore can delay time to exhaustion. But still the research is clear that they do most definitely supply another source of energy besides the carbs and athletes need all the energy sources they can muster when in the mist of competition or intense training.

So as a strength & conditioning coach and a certified sports nutritionist I see Muscle Milk as not only a high quality protein source but also a sport nutritional supplement that is able to give me the energy that you need when called upon. And with layers of beefed up energy that Muscle Milk contains it’s ready to help you in performing at your very best in your training or competition!

Chip Sigmon CSCS*D, CISSN, USAW, RSCC*E

Strength & Conditioning, Wellness Coordinator, Europa Sports Products chipsigmon@europasports.com

References:

Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCT’s): The fat that Makes you lose Fat By Smart Publications
Does medium chain triglyceride play an ergogenic role in endurance exercise performance? ISSN, On line version, May/June 2003