Power Output
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Human Effect Matrix
The Human Effect Matrix looks at human studies (it excludes animal and in vitro studies) to tell you what supplements affect power output.
| Grade | Level of Evidence [show legend] |
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Robust research conducted with repeated double-blind clinical trials |
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Multiple studies where at least two are double-blind and placebo controlled |
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Single double-blind study or multiple cohort studies |
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Uncontrolled or observational studies only |
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Level of Evidence
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The amount of high quality evidence. The more
evidence, the more we can trust the results.
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Supplement |
Magnitude of effect
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The direction and size of the supplement's impact on
each outcome. Some supplements can have an increasing effect, others have a decreasing effect, and others have no effect.
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Consistency of research results
?
Scientific research does not always agree. HIGH or
VERY HIGH means that most of the scientific research agrees.
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Notes |
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Strong
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Very High See all 66 studies |
Creatine is the reference compound for power improvement, with numbers from one meta-analysis to assess potency being "Able to increase a 12% improvement in strength to 20% and able to increase a 12% increase in power to 26% following a training regiment using creatine monohydrate".
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- | Moderate See all 12 studies |
Limited evidence supports the increase in power output, which may be due to chance; more often than not, there is no significant influence
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- | Moderate See all 28 studies |
Although technically an increase in average power output may occur during exercise associated with the 'burn' (metabolic acidosis) to the degree of 1-2%, saying this is an inherent or reliable increase in power would be misleading; it is an attenuation of the decrease in power that acidosis is able to induce
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Frequently Asked Questions about Power Output
Are energy drinks bad for you?
Case studies have linked energy drinks to adverse effects, especially on the cardiovascular system, but the overall risk of something bad happening is low and context-dependent.
References
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- Hammond D, Reid JL. Exposure and perceptions of marketing for caffeinated energy drinks among young Canadians. Public Health Nutr. (2018)
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