Bodybuilding supplement guide

Bodybuilding Supplement Guide

You've got your workout regime set, so you need to make sure that you nutritional intake is appropriate for your muscle-building goal. Your muscles don't grow in the gym, muscle growth occurs when you feed your body the right nutrients to enable mass gain.

Due to this fact, supplement companies go to every effort to design bodybuilding supplements that can pack on muscle mass to your frame as quickly as possible. There is a huge list of supplements that could help you, but I will list the most common so you can make a decision on what can work for you!

Creatine
Creatine is a naturally occurring substance that is used by your body when you undergo high intensity physical exertion such as weight lifting. Supplementing with a creatine product makes sure that your muscles a fully loaded with creatine to enable you to train at full intensity during your workouts.

There are no calories in creatine, so by itself it cannot make you gain muscle, this is down to your diet, but creatine will help with strength levels and performance intensity which, teamed with the appropriate nutrition plan will enable faster muscle growth.

There are different forms of creatine available with creatine monohydrate being the most cost effective. Newer forms of creatine are slightly more expensive, but manufacturers claim that their new creatine compounds such as creatine ethyl ester, or creatine magnesium chelate have a higher absorption rate and therefore act to build muscle quicker than regular monohydrate. People react differently to the different types of creatine available so you should try both and test the results.

Recommended Creatine Monohydrate: Agora Creatine Monohydrate
Recommended New Age Creatine: Magnum Big C

Protein Powder
As creatine itself has no calories people will often also choose a protein powder to supplement their protein intake. Protein is absolutely essential to building muscle mass because it is what the body uses to build and repair muscle tissue.

When you train in the gym your requirement for protein is much higher than a normal person. It is recommended that you eat between 1 and 1.5g of protein per lb of bodyweight when looking to build muscle. Eating this much protein form meat sources can be expensive and time consuming, so many people will chose a protein powder as they are very cost effective and convenient to use.

Recommended Protein Powder: Champion Nutrition Pure Whey

Weight Gain Powder
Weight gainers include protein, carbohydrates and fat, with some premium powders including a vitamin and mineral mix and other muscle building ingredients such as creatine.

Weight gainers are used to supplement your daily intake of the three macronutrients to ensure that your meet your calorie target when trying to gain muscle. It can often be hard to eat the required amount of calories on a daily basis to gain weight, so weight gain powders ensure that you can fit the calories into your regime.
Most people will use a weight gainer between meals or after their workout to flood the body with muscle building nutrients.

Recommended Weight Gain Powder: Allmax Quick Mass

Multivitamin
Multivitamin supplements are often overlooked by people wanting to build muscle mass. The advertising pull of some muscle gain powders on the market makes consumers favour these over the 'boring' essentials. But when it comes to building muscles it's the essentials that you have to get right, and only then you should consider other supplements.

It's absolutely essential that you consume the required amount of nutrients and when you workout your body requires much more than the normal person. The great thing about bodybuilding multivitamins is that they are relatively cheap compared to some other muscle gain supplements, so there is no excuse not to be taking your vitamins!

Recommended Multivitamin: Animal Pak

Natural Test Booster
Your anabolic hormones are responsible for building muscle mass. The higher the amount of anabolic hormones you have available the more muscle you will grow. Natural testosterone boosters can naturally raise the amount of anabolic hormones such as testosterone in your system. If you have a high amount of testosterone in your system it will be easier to gain muscle.

Recommended Test Booster: Dymatize Meth-X