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Way to Go Nutrition Issue No. 037 · Boulder, CO
Issue No. 037 · Boulder, CO Updated Q4 2024 · Maintained by R&D, Way to Go Nutrition, Inc.
An ongoing research dossier

Twelve peer-reviewed papers. One ISSN benchmark table. The working file behind every Way to Go formula.

The page that follows is the internal reference document our R&D team maintains for performance staff. It catalogues the twelve papers our nutritional scientists have independently published since 2019, scores our dosing against the ISSN exercise-nutrition position stands, and walks through one flagship ingredient monograph (creatine monohydrate) the way a hospital pharmacy would. If you are a CSSD dietitian or a strength and conditioning coach who needs to defend a protocol to a head coach, this is the page you cite.

Compiled by Sara Halverson, MS RDN CSSD · Dr. Marcus Yi, PhD
In-house reviewers 4 PhD nutrition scientists · 2 RDs
External framework ISSN Exercise & Sports Nutrition Review, 2017–2023
A printed Certificate of Analysis document on a laboratory bench — the kind of artifact every Way to Go batch produces.
Fig. 01 — One of 41,000+ certificates of analysis published to our searchable database since 2018.
§ I — Publication record

Twelve independently peer-reviewed papers since 2019.

Every study below was authored by a member of our in-house R&D team, conducted with an institutional or applied-partner cohort, and published in a journal indexed in PubMed or Scopus. We do not commission review articles and we do not list white papers here. A full bibliographic export is available on request to verified performance staff.

  1. 01
    2024 JISSN · Vol. 21, Issue 14

    Creatine loading kinetics in NCAA Division I sprint athletes: a 14-day dose-response trial.

    Halverson, S., Yi, M., Park, J., & Castaneda, R.

    Finding — 0.20 g·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ over 14 days saturated muscle stores in 92% of athletes by day 11, supporting a compressed loading protocol during preseason microcycles.

  2. 02
    2024 Nutrients · 16(8), 1192

    Beta-alanine loading in female endurance athletes: paresthesia-tolerant dosing and 3-km time-trial outcomes.

    Yi, M., Okafor, C., & Halverson, S.

    Finding — Divided 6 g·day⁻¹ dosing reduced paresthesia episodes by 64% versus single-dose loading with no attenuation of carnosine saturation at day 28.

  3. 03
    2023 JISSN · Vol. 20, Suppl. 1

    Peri-workout carbohydrate window revisited: 90 vs. 120 g·hr⁻¹ in trained cyclists.

    Yi, M., Thompson, A., & Halverson, S.

    Finding — No significant glycogen-repletion difference above 90 g·hr⁻¹ when 2:1 glucose:fructose ratios were held constant; informs the carbohydrate ceiling in our Endurance Stack.

  4. 04
    2023 Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab · 33(5)

    Whey isolate vs. concentrate in collegiate resistance-trained athletes: leucine threshold and MPS response.

    Park, J., Halverson, S., & Yi, M.

    Finding — A 40 g isolate dose cleared the 2.5 g leucine threshold in 100% of subjects vs. 71% for concentrate at matched protein, validating isolate as the protocol default.

Papers 05–12 (covering caffeine timing, nitrate loading, vitamin D status in indoor athletes, electrolyte composition in sweat-replacement drinks, iron supplementation in distance runners, magnesium glycinate vs. citrate, omega-3 eicosanoid shifts, and a 2022 cohort study on third-party label-claim accuracy across 47 sports-nutrition SKUs) are available in the Transparency report and as a downloadable BibTeX file on request.

§ II — Dosing scorecard

The ISSN threshold versus what is on the shelf versus what we ship.

The table below is built from the ISSN Exercise & Sports Nutrition Review position stands (Jager et al., 2017, updated 2023). For every ingredient we ship at clinical dose we list the ISSN-recommended minimum, the average across the eleven highest-selling competitor SKUs in the same category, and what is in a single serving of our product. Under-dosed entries are reformulated, not relabelled.

Ingredient ISSN minimum
per serving		 Competitor avg.
per serving		 Way to Go dose
per serving		 Status
Creatine monohydrate 3.0 g 2.5 g 5.0 g At clinical dose
Beta-alanine 3.2 g 1.6 g 3.6 g At clinical dose
L-citrulline malate (2:1) 6.0 g 4.0 g 8.0 g At clinical dose
Caffeine anhydrous 3.0 mg·kg⁻¹ 1.8 mg·kg⁻¹ 3.0 mg·kg⁻¹ At clinical dose
Whey protein isolate (leucine) 2.5 g leucine 1.9 g 2.8 g At clinical dose
Sodium (peri-workout) 500 mg·L⁻¹ 300 mg·L⁻¹ 920 mg·L⁻¹ At clinical dose
Vitamin D₃ (winter, indoor athletes) 2,000 IU 800 IU 2,000 IU At clinical dose
Iron bisglycinate (distance runners) 18 mg elemental 9 mg 18 mg At clinical dose

Competitor average is calculated from a blinded 2024 audit of the eleven highest-selling SKUs in each ingredient category, sampled across Amazon, GNC, and direct-to-consumer sports-nutrition storefronts. Source data and methodology are published in JISSN Vol. 21, Issue 14, Appendix B.

§ III — Ingredient monograph

Creaine monohydrate. A reference monograph.

The format below is the one our R&D team uses internally to defend a dosing decision to an outside sports-medicine reviewer. It is reproduced here, unedited, so that any performance dietitian reading this page can use it as a starting template for the other eleven flagship ingredients in our line.

§ 1 — Indication and ISSN threshold

Creatine monohydrate is recommended by the ISSN (2017, reaffirmed 2023) at a maintenance dose of 3–5 g·day⁻¹ for athletes engaged in repeated high-intensity efforts of < 30 seconds, with an optional loading protocol of 0.20 g·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ for 5–7 days. The ISSN notes that dosing below 3 g·day⁻¹ is unlikely to saturate muscle stores within an 8-week training cycle. Our product is formulated at 5.0 g per serving, which we hold above the maintenance floor to allow a single-serve day without requiring second doses during travel.

§ 2 — Trial evidence we cite

The foundational evidence base is Kreider et al. (2017) ISSN position stand, with supporting human trials including Hultman et al. (1996) on loading kinetics, Volek et al. (1997) on performance outcomes, and our own 2024 NCAA Division I sprint-athlete trial (paper 01 above). Across 312 human subjects in the cited trials, 5 g·day⁻¹ maintenance produced measurable intramuscular creatine saturation within 28 days in 96.4% of subjects with no adverse event above placebo incidence.

§ 3 — How we dose it, and why that is not negotiable

We dose at 5.0 g per serving of Creapure®-grade creatine monohydrate, the source most consistently used in ISSN-cited trials. We do not use creatine HCl, creatine ethyl ester, or buffered creatine: the human evidence base for those forms is at least an order of magnitude smaller, and our buyers — NCAA compliance officers, NFL supplement-review staff, USADA-cleared athletes — do not accept ingredient-substitution risk when the gold-standard form is commercially available at this volume.

§ 4 — How we protect the athlete at the batch level

Every lot of raw creatine monohydrate is screened by our Boulder QA lab for: (a) HPLC-UV purity ≥ 99.95%, (b) dicyandiamide ≤ 50 ppm, (c) dihydrotriazine ≤ 100 ppm, (d) heavy metals against NSF Certified for Sport thresholds, and (e) absence of 211 prohibited substances under the WADA 2024 Prohibited List. The certificate of analysis for every lot is published to our searchable database within 5 business days of release. If a lot fails any threshold, it is destroyed, not relabelled. We have rejected 14 inbound raw-material lots since 2019.

§ 5 — What this means for a team protocol

A head coach reviewing this monograph should be able to read it in three minutes and defend the dosing decision to a compliance officer, a team physician, and an athlete's parent without further reference. That is the bar every other ingredient monograph in our line is held to. If you would like to see the same format for beta-alanine, citrulline malate, whey isolate, sodium, vitamin D₃, or iron bisglycinate, those monographs are available on request to verified performance staff at [email protected].

§ IV — The auditable record

The science here is not asserted. It is documented.

12
Independently published peer-reviewed papers since 2019
41,000+
Certificates of analysis published and searchable on our site
1,847
Verified collegiate and pro athletes on our published roster
0
Positive doping-test results across 9,400+ sponsored-athlete consumptions since 2021
§ V — Next step / For verified performance staff

The dossier becomes a working tool in the CoA database.

Every batch we have produced since 2018 — every raw-material lot, every finished-good run — has a published certificate of analysis. Filter by SKU, lot number, ingredient, or testing date. Download a single CoA as PDF or export a full audit pack for a team's compliance file. If you are an NCAA compliance officer, an NFL supplement-review staffer, a USADA-cleared athlete's representative, or a head physician reviewing a protocol, this is the page you send to the audit team.

View CoA Database → Request a team audit pack
In-house lab Boulder, CO · 6-person QA team · NSF Certified for Sport on 100% of SKUs
Contact [email protected] · +1 (720) 555-0184
Related pages Transparency Report · For Teams · Build Your Stack