Top Supplements for Muscle Building
A dietary supplement is intended to supplement the diet and contains a vitamin, mineral, herb, and/or amino acid. Supplements are also known as ergogenic aids and are taken to enhance athletic performance. For the purpose of this article, I will be talking about my personal selection of the top nutrition supplements for muscle building.
I have been taking supplements for over 20 years and first started supplementing with protein and creatine as a teenager to help build muscle and support recovery following the ferocious six days per week of physical activity. I was extremely active, I would wake up for school around 6:30 am, go to school from 8:00 am-2:30 pm, go to sports practice (football or track), then after track practice I would then hit the gym for another hour.
I felt very good – great even. It was very mentally stimulating for me. I can recall the books I was reading during my workouts and how I was striving for excellence. I remember looking at myself in the mirror imaging what school I would end up at or how far I could take myself with my athletic ability. I ate a fair diet: large bowl of Raisin Bran Cereal with 1% milk for breakfast; school snack and a good well-balanced lunch; prior to practice, scarf down a protein bar and afterward a protein shake, then dinner was the specialty large plate of spaghetti my mom would make.
My goal was to be the fastest, strongest athlete possible. I always had this desire. As a kid, I would dress in football sweats my mom bought me and run around the yard. I was a born athlete; my dad taught me karate and had a small weight set I started using when I was eight.
In middle school, I had a friend with multiple brothers. His older brother was taking a bunch of supplements and had creatine in the kitchen cabinet. I would go over to their house almost every day and stare at the supplements on the counter or in the cabinet every time we would reach for a snack. I was curious about creatine. It was kind of a taboo word, like steroids even until this day… It doesn’t sound natural, like, “Give me some of that creatine.” I bet if it was called vitamin Creatine, it would be much more highly accepted. Well anyway, this was around the time Mark Mcgwire was slamming home runs and he said he was taking creatine.
One day at my friend's house around 8th grade, we decided to both take creatine. He filled up half a plastic cup and smashed it down so I could take it with me on my bike ride home. I was pumped! However, I did have to get past one barrier: my dad. I had to ask him if it was okay for me to take creatine. He said emphatically, “No!” He just wasn’t sure what it would do to me, and he cared so much that he wouldn’t want to approve something that would later be potentially harmful. This really fueled me and I was super disappointed. I then started my first research and began reading up on creatine, sharing several articles that I scoured from the internet.
After a couple of years, my dad finally gave in. Some of his friends were bodybuilders and they gave my dad confidence that it would be okay for me. I took it for a summer or so, and couldn’t tell if it was from all the excessive training or the addition of creatine, but I was chiseled and fast! No more than I would otherwise naturally be, but supplements certainly can have a placebo effect. I told my track coach I was taking creatine and he said, “You’ll burn your liver up!” I thought that was nonsense since I was so educated from reading some online articles that said it was safe. Later in college, I learned that creatine is not metabolized by the liver, but that it is bypassed and used directly by the skeletal muscle.
All-in-all I did not write this to make it all about creatine, but I wrote this to share the interest in supplements for a young athlete, who like many of you are likely looking to be stronger, faster, leaner and muscular. We all want to go about it in the right way, and not waste money on snake oil. Besides a recent article showed that the Sports Nutrition Market Size Worth $31.0 Billion By 2027 | CAGR: 8.9%.
Because of the loose supplement regulations and saturated market for supplements, it becomes somewhat of the Wild Wild West. I’d like to direct you and support you by providing some credible resources and references for the top sports nutrition supplements, which may have a benefit for performance.
Here are my top choices:
1) Creatine - increases ATP and power output; take 5g per day of creatine monohydrate, which is the best product on the market despite what all the marketing says.
2) Whey protein - helps meet additional protein needs affiliated with muscle-building when participating in a resistance training exercise regimen; take within 30 minutes after your workout or in the morning with your meal
3) HMB - a metabolite of leucine; helps to reduce muscle protein breakdown; take as a stack in conjunction with my recommended top muscle building supplements
4) BCAAs - Branched Chain Amino Acids are essential amino acids (isoleucine, leucine, and valine); you want to select a product which will provide a 2g leucine for every 1g of isoleucine and valine. I like to take BCAAs during workouts to encourage hydration, as many of these supplements come in the powdered, flavored form and contain electrolytes; it helps to reduce central fatigue and may be considered as a supplement to consume between meals to continually stimulate muscle protein synthesis in the setting of inadequate protein intake, post 3-4 hours after meals when the protein has been broken down and digested
These are the four core supplements I would recommend to support muscle building. Other supplements are out with research supporting their use for muscle building, such as nitrates, caffeine, beta-alanine. These are substances you can find in a pre-workout, which is a totally different topic of discussion.
Lots of people are concerned about the efficacy and safety of supplements, and rightfully so. I am certainly a food first advocate, but I believe supplements can play a role in improving health and performance in some instances. Not all supplements are created equal, which is why you should use references such as www.Labdoor.com, consumerlab.com, the NSF for Sport ® App , Informed Choice and www.examine.com to do your research on what products and name brands are credible. The other issue you could run into when it comes to the efficacy and safety of supplements is how much of it you should take and the indications for use. Too much of anything may be harmful, so you want to stick to the suggested serving sizes.
To conclude, aim to choose reputable and credible products, eat a healthy diet with good exercise habits, plenty of protein, fruits and vegetables, and use portion control of serving sizes for weight management. There are some people who are skeptics of supplements, which is perfectly fine. I believe that it is an individual choice. Personally, I find that taking supplements is fun, tasty and exuberant, and without a doubt gives me an additional boost during my workouts and helps support recovery! There is never a guarantee that it will give you the results you seek, so make sure to research, find out what will be best for your goals and physical activity or sport, and check with your regulatory guidelines if you are a student or professional athlete. Of top importance, utilize the supplement to assist with meeting your fitness or health goals, not as a substitute for healthy eating and exercise.
At the end of the day, hard work and dedication will trump any supplement or magic bullet! This blog is intended to be used for educational and information purposes only. I am not advocating nutritional supplementation over proper medical advice or treatment. If using any pharmaceuticals or drugs given to you by a doctor or received with a prescription, you must consult with the doctor in question or an equally qualified health care professional prior to using any nutritional supplement. If undergoing medical therapies, then consult with your respective therapist or health care professional about possible interactions between your treatment, any pharmaceuticals or drugs being given, and possible nutritional supplements or practices suggested by JLucas Nutrition.