Creatine - anyone using it to enhance their meet performance?

I can personally attest to the ice baths after a workout. We used to do this during pre-Olympic days after workouts. Warm water, followed by cool water, and then finally warm water followed by cold water. The increase in blood flow to tired muscles was awesome. The next day, you could hardly tell that you had a blitz of a workout the day before. Granted, it was very uncomfortable to say the least, but hey, we weren't wimps. Nowadays, people are always hunting for something in a bottle instead of basic tried and true methods and using natural foods that they may not have tried to aid in combating training fatigue. And with the advertising so in our face, it is easy to fall prey to "new" things to try, which I might add, are very expensive. I remember when people used to swim the English Channel and rely on apple juice and oatmeal cookies. Now everyone seems to want to say they are taking "this product" or "that product." And the question remains: do they work and how much benefit are they? Or are we all just walking advertisements. On my 18 mile swim, I am keeping it simple: gatorade mixed with honey, oatmeal cookies with cranberries or raisins (minimal sugar), teaspoons of peanut butter, lots of H20, and low-fat chocolate milk with some coffee mixed in. And this last one will probably be a surprise, but a piece of plain, white bread settles my stomach when I get nauseous from the wave action; actually better than Saltines. There may be some good products out there to supplement and aid, but I don't think my checkbook will allow me to experiment and find out. donna

I can personally attest to the ice baths after a workout. We used to do this during pre-Olympic days after workouts. Warm water, followed by cool water, and then finally warm water followed by cold water. The increase in blood flow to tired muscles was awesome. The next day, you could hardly tell that you had a blitz of a workout the day before. Granted, it was very uncomfortable to say the least, but hey, we weren't wimps. Nowadays, people are always hunting for something in a bottle instead of basic tried and true methods and using natural foods that they may not have tried to aid in combating training fatigue. And with the advertising so in our face, it is easy to fall prey to "new" things to try, which I might add, are very expensive. I remember when people used to swim the English Channel and rely on apple juice and oatmeal cookies. Now everyone seems to want to say they are taking "this product" or "that product." And the question remains: do they work and how much benefit are they? Or are we all just walking advertisements. On my 18 mile swim, I am keeping it simple: gatorade mixed with honey, oatmeal cookies with cranberries or raisins (minimal sugar), teaspoons of peanut butter, lots of H20, and low-fat chocolate milk with some coffee mixed in. And this last one will probably be a surprise, but a piece of plain, white bread settles my stomach when I get nauseous from the wave action; actually better than Saltines. There may be some good products out there to supplement and aid, but I don't think my checkbook will allow me to experiment and find out. donna