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Hey Life Warriors!
Supplements are a part of the fitness industry that moves millions year after year. There are supplements of all kinds: to lose weight, to gain muscle mass, to sleep better, to train better… Today we want to share with you truthful and proven information about which supplements can help you and which ones are simply going to empty your pockets.
As we explained in this post , supplements have a fairly limited ability to influence our results. If you have the fundamentals (training, nutrition and rest) under control, the right supplements can give you a plus, but if you fail in some of the fundamentals, there is no supplement that can make up for it.
That said, we’re going to talk to you about the supplements that, in our opinion, can help you achieve better results.
- Protein
There is little left to say about proteins that has not already been said. In this article we tell you why to take protein and what amount you should take per day (between 1.6 g and 2 g per kilo of ideal weight per day). While it is true that it is feasible to reach this amount based on real food, it is also true that it can be complicated. In this sense, protein supplements provide us with a convenience factor: It is always more comfortable to have a chocolate shake in the morning than to eat two chicken breasts…
How to take protein supplements?
These supplements are available in a multitude of forms (shakes, bars, yogurts…). Take them as best suits you. Although for years there has been talk about the famous anabolic window (the protein synthesis that occurs after training) and that we had to take the protein as soon as we finish our session, today we know that, although it exists, this anabolic window lasts up to 36 hours, so there is no rush 😉. Remember to measure the amount you take. If you don’t know how to, in this post we show you how to do it.
What will I notice if I supplement with protein?
If you were not taking enough protein and you start supplementing to reach the necessary amount, you will quickly notice that you recover better after training and that it is much easier for you to preserve and increase your muscle mass (provided you are training properly and having enough rest). But not only that; Protein-rich foods are rich in tryptophan, an essential amino acid with two very important qualities. On the one hand, it is a precursor to melatonin, the sleep hormone. This means that taking protein in sufficient quantity will help you sleep better. On the other hand, tryptophan is also a precursor to serotonin, a great regulator of your mood, so your proteins will also help you be in a better mood.
In any case, don’t think that protein supplementation works like steroids. Depending on your age and how many years you have been training, gains of around 1% of your muscle mass each month would be pretty good. You have to be patient😉
- Creatine
As we explained in this article , creatine is one of the supplements with the most abundant scientific evidence, safer, cheaper and more versatile: it helps us increase our strength and muscle mass, improves our sports performance in general, and helps us recover better. If this were not enough, it also provides benefits for cognitive functions such as memory and attention. It is important to note that people with kidney or liver problems should not supplement with creatine. If you have any of these problems, consult your doctor.
How to take Creatine?
Creatine is a supplement that works by saturating our deposits, so the time of day we take it is irrelevant. The most common form of consumption is creatine monohydrate to dissolve in water or any other drink or food. There are multiple brands on the market, but make sure the one you take has the “creapure” seal. The dosage varies from person to person, but is between 3 and 5 grams per day.
What will I notice if I take creatine?
Supplementing with creatine will give you a considerable increase in your work and recovery capacity. You will notice that you can increase sets and repetitions and that you recover better from hard workouts. Of course, this effect is much more noticeable at first, and is not linear. As you progress, the effect will be more maintenance than increase. That is, you will notice more by stopping taking it (maintaining the level of your training will be very difficult) than by continuing to take it.
- Caffeine
Caffeine is possibly the most consumed supplement in the world, as we explained in this post . We can find it in a multitude of products (energy drinks, pre-workout supplements , coffee, tea…), although it is not equally effective in all its forms. Caffeine works by blocking our adenosine receptors, thereby influencing the release of adrenaline, dopamine and acetylcholine. The mechanism of action of caffeine is very well explained in this video:
How to take Caffeine?
As we just mentioned, caffeine is not equally effective in all its sources. If we want to take advantage of its benefits for our training, the ideal is to consume it through a pre-workout supplement. There are many of them on the market, and their effectiveness is supported by scientific evidence. You should take this supplement at least half an hour before starting to train and monitor the daily dose you take (do not exceed 6 mg per kg of weight per day).
What will I notice if I supplement with caffeine?
If you take it responsibly, caffeine will not only help you increase the intensity of your training, but it will also put you in the optimal mood to do so, thanks to its influence on dopamine and adrenaline. However, you should be careful with the use of caffeine if you train in the afternoons, since its effects remain in your body for hours and can affect the quality of your sleep.
Other supplements that may be helpful
- Magnesium
Magnesium is used as a natural tranquilizer, which will help you sleep better and will also be a great ally for your muscle recovery. There is also scientific evidence that supports the effects of magnesium in reducing blood glucose and blood pressure. The recommended dose in supplementation would be between 250 and 450 mg per day, depending on how much magnesium there is in our usual diet.
Not all magnesium supplements are equally effective; The most preferable form would be magnesium citrate , due to its bioavailability and high tolerance index. Other less preferred forms would be magnesium carbonate or magnesium oxide.
What will I notice if I supplement with magnesium?
Magnesium supplementation will help you sleep better and you will also notice that your muscles recover better after intense training sessions.
- Ashwagandha
This adaptogen, from Ayurvedic medicine, has had a lot of notoriety recently. The truth is that there is a lot of scientific evidence that supports its benefits and it is quite safe; Reports of side effects are rare and in any case disappear when you stop taking this supplement.
Ashwagandha provides proven benefits in terms of reducing stress and anxiety . It also seems to contribute to the reduction of cortisol levels and a slight increase in testosterone levels, which will improve our performance in strength training and also our sexual health.
The recommended dose is between 300 and 600 mg per day.
What will I notice if I supplement with Ashwagandha?
This supplement will help you sleep more and better, and you will also notice that your stress levels decrease, by reducing your cortisol levels.
What commonly used supplements do we not recommend?
- Fat-burners
Although these supplements are usually the most demanded, their actual usefulness is more than questionable. The two active ingredients most used in this type of supplements are L-carnitine and caffeine.
L-carnitine has a spread and unjustified reputation as a fat burner. The reality is that, although it does have some use for people who suffer from Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) and can help people who suffer from infertility, its effects as a fat burner in healthy people have not been demonstrated.
Caffeine has some usefulness in this sense, since it promotes the release of adrenaline, and, with this, promotes the mobilization of fatty deposits. However, we should not confuse mobilization with utilization. Once mobilized, we have to train intensely so that this fat is used and “burned”, and this is where most people fail. However, to take advantage of the benefits of caffeine, it is not necessary to resort to one of these supplements, since we have good doses of caffeine in pre-workout supplements and we also have the option of consuming caffeine in the form of an isolated supplement.
- Supplements to gain weight or mass-gainers
It is very common that, especially young boys, want to gain muscle mass and get very big as quickly as possible, and for this, the proposal of mass-gainers is very tempting. However, it is important to keep several things in mind. The first is that if we enter a very “radical” volume phase, that is, with a large caloric surplus, we are going to gain weight very quickly, but most of that weight will not be muscle, but fat. Just as we said when we were talking about protein, the net muscle mass we can expect to gain in a month is around 1% of our lean muscle mass. The rest we gain will be fat, and then we will have to lose it in the definition phase. The second thing we must take into account are the ingredients of these supplements. On the one hand, they will have a protein contribution similar to protein supplements, and on the other hand, what they usually have is a large caloric contribution in the form of carbohydrates and fats, generally of quite low quality.
If what you want is to gain muscle mass, our advice is to be in a moderate caloric surplus (200-300 calories above maintenance) and to achieve this surplus through good quality, unprocessed foods.
- Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s)
Supplements with BCAAs are usually consumed during training, with the aim of promoting muscle growth and relieving fatigue. However, studies have concluded that supplementation with BCAAs does not produce these effects if the minimum protein intake does not occur. Yes, a slight effect of reducing muscle fatigue has been found, but this effect does not translate into better or faster recovery. If you train on an empty stomach, supplementing with BCAAs can help reduce muscle catabolism, but this effect is not very pronounced either.