5 Best Muscle Building Supplements
Most people want to gain lean muscle a.k.a. "get big and strong," but how exactly do you do that?
I pride myself on being straight-forward and honestly, building muscle takes a lot of work. Part of that involves improving your overall nutrition, which can include supplementing with products that help support your ability to build muscle.
THE 5 BEST MUSCLE-BUILDING SUPPLEMENTS
Building muscle requires a lot of work, and while I could write an entire book on all of the different supplements that can help you grow your muscles, reduce your fat, and help you perform better at the gym, I won’t.
Instead, we’ll keep things simple and prioritize the ones that have the most research and backing behind them. Here are the 5 best supplements for building muscle you need to know about (in no specific order):
1) CREATINE
Creatine is an organic chemical compound that is beneficial for our body and performance. It is taken to help improve strength, increase lean muscle mass, and recover quicker during and after exercise.
It has been shown to help increase overall athletic performance and the ability to push the body during a training session.
Creatine is especially popular among weightlifters, but there are some athletes in almost every realm who consume some form of creatine.
You can find creatine in a variety of different forms.
Pills and powders are the most common, and they can either be stand-alone products, or combined with other ingredients to fit a specific purpose.
The company I recommend offers three different types of muscle building supplements that contain creatine.
• Micronized Creatine Monohydrate
• Project-1
• Endura-formance
Each of these supplements work in a slightly different way, so it’s important that you learn what each supplement is designed to do, consider your fitness goals, and pick the one best-formulated to help you meet that goal.
2) POST-WORKOUT SHAKES
One of the most popular health & fitness goals amongst people is to lose weight, but what do people who want to gain weight do?
Let’s say you’re looking to increase your “gains”, hence increase your overall weight. Most people in this situation want to put on muscle not fat. A big part of that comes down to overall calorie intake.
Or, another situation, let’s say you were in a weight-classed sport like MMA or wrestling. You may want to go up a weight class. If so, you’ll need to find a way to increase your weight (and ideally pack on lean muscle mass while you're at it).
Whether you are trying to gain weight or lose weight, understanding that maintaining/building muscle should be a key focus is going to be an important part of reaching your goal(s). It’s important to understand that while lifting, you are not actually building muscle. In fact, in this situation you are breaking down the muscles you are using. This is where a post-workout supplement can be extremely effective! The crucial key is to give your body the specific nutrients it needs as quickly as possible helping the recovery process and signaling your body to start rebuilding the muscle/stop the muscle breakdown process. The better we can recover from the gym, the better we can build the lean muscle we are working so hard for. Then, once we've satisfied that need, our overall nutrition and calorie intake will dictate whether we'll gain weight or lose weight.
The company I recommend offers the following post-workout protein supplements to help with this:
3) BETA-ALANINE
Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid. It’s considered non-essential because our bodies will make some of its own beta-alanine based on the foods we consume. Even though we make it naturally, we can benefit from a concentrated dose prior to training in the gym. This can benefit muscle growth by increasing the total work we can put in at the gym.
But what does beta-alanine actually do? It helps aid in the production of carnosine in the body. Carnosine is a chemical compound that plays an essential role in muscle endurance in high-intensity exercise. If we are lifting heavy, or training with intensity at any level, we need carnosine to keep pushing through our workouts and improving our PRs. The more carnosine we need (due to increased workout intensity), the more beta-alanine we need.
The company I recommend offers the following supplements that contain beta-alanine.
Both products are pre-workouts. That means you’ll start feeling the beta-alanine kicking in right as you start ramping up your workout.
Side note: It is very normal to get a slight tingly feeling when taking beta-alanine the first few times. This is not a bad thing at all, and it can be a good indicator that it's kicking in!
4) PROTEIN SUPPLEMENTS
Protein is the primary macronutrient we need to build muscle - there’s just no getting around it. Our muscles are made of protein. Majority of our bodies have a hard time building more muscle because we aren't giving it adequate amounts of protein to repair the muscle we already have.
The company I recommend offers several different protein supplements for a number of different goals and needs. Here are some of our most popular protein supplements for muscle building:
• Phormula-1
• Level-1
• Vegan Power Pro
• Collagen With Dermaval
• Phormula-1 Natural
• Collagen Natural With Dermaval
• Level-1 Bars
• Protein Sticks
You’ll notice that there’s more than one way to get your protein through supplementation, so it's important to find what works best for you and your personal lifestyle. Whether you prefer meat sticks, protein shakes, or even protein bars, this company can help you get the protein you need, whichever way(s) you choose to consume it!
Something to note is that protein shakes can also double as “weight-gainers” if you consume them in high enough quantities. The protein benefit alone in a protein shake should be able to help you gain the muscle mass you’re working so hard for in the gym. If you need extra calories on top of that, you can mix them with milk, honey, peanut butter, or look for other ways to add calories.
Essential Amino Acids (EAA's) are specific amino acids that our body cannot produce on its own, needing to be consumed through our food or supplements. Keep in mind, these EAA's are naturally occurring in a complete protein source like eggs, chicken, fish, meat, some dairy, and whey protein supplements.
They play a key role in overall health, not just building muscle. To name a few, proper amino acid intake can affect things like hair, skin, nails, hormones, and immune function.
So ensuring we are getting an optimal amount of these essential amino acids can be very beneficial. When it comes to putting on muscle, they're great for recovery, building muscle, and may even help prevent muscle fatigue. This translates to being able to train harder, shorten your recovery time between workouts and ultimately pack on the lean muscle you're after!
The company I recommend has the following supplements that contain EAA's:
Note that many protein supplements will have the various EAA's in them. In fact, the 2 supplements listed above contain specially-formulated mixes of BCAA's to make sure you’re getting them in just the right amounts with each serving!
When looking to put on more muscle, supplementing your current efforts can help with your ability to earn better results. You can’t build muscles back bigger and stronger than before without increasing your work output and making sure your body has the nutrients it needs to build and repair those muscles.
