Beginners Guide to Building Muscle
How to get big!
Supplements
A vital weapon in your muscle-building arsenal are nutritional supplements.
Supplements come in all shapes and sizes, from tablets to powder to liquid. There
are hundreds of different nutrients available to buy in many thousands of different
products sold by hundreds of different companies world-wide.
Take bodybuilding.com for instance, probably the best US-based supplement website on the web today. Bodybuilding.com offer over 5,500 different products for sale. There's no way on this earth that you'll ever get to try all these supplements, let alone find the ones that work best for you. Because of this, you need to know which types of supplement you need to focus on and also some recommendations on which brands and products within each category are high quality and popular. Please read on to learn what we believe are the supplements you the new bodybuilder should consider using.
Our most recommended supplements
Without a shadow of a doubt the top three supplements we recommend you to take are:
- Protein Powder / Meal Replacement Sachets
- Mega Multi Vitamin and Mineral tablets
- Protein Bars
Why are they so important?
Protein is essential for a muscle-building bodybuilder like yourself - it is the very building blocks of muscle and without enough protein in your diet you will be limiting how quickly (if at all!) you will grow. Why train so hard in the gym but limit how much you will grow by not getting enough protein in? Protein isn't the only macro-nutrient (protein, carbohydrate, fat, water) you need of course, but it is far harder to eat enough or the right type of foods to fulfill your protein requirements than it is with carbohydrates for example. Because of this protein supplementation is critical to your bodybuilding success (Every single professional bodybuilder supplements his diet with protein supplements, for instance).
We highly recommend supplements by Met-Rx, a very reputable and honest US company that have been making fantastic supplements for 10 years or more. If you are on the go lots or want a handy sachet to ensure you get the correct amount of protein powder in each drink we recommend the Met-Rx Meal Replacements
Vitamins and Minerals are also vital - essential in fact (hence why some of them are termed essential vitamins!). Without adequate vitamin and mineral levels various different processes within your body can't function at peak efficient (if at all in the worst cases of vitamin or mineral deficiencies). Also, the body has been shown to work better if higher doses of vitamins and / or minerals are supplemented rather than relying on the small amounts found in food. Vitamin C is a great example of this.
Many studies have shown benefits of supplementing high doses of vitamin C (there are some critics still but they become fewer with each passing year - the experience of mega vitamin and minerals intakes show how beneficial it is!) and many many people supplement their diets with 1 gram or more of Vitamin C daily.
How to get optimum vitamin and mineral supplementation
It can be quite a nightmare buying all the vitamins and minerals you need to ensure you have adequate intakes of them all. You have two choices:
- Supplement with a single mega vitamin and mineral tablet or pack, such as
Techline Vita Tech
and a select few others of your choice, Or
Further Reading
We have an entire section of this website dedicated to Nutritional Supplements, please read on for more supplement information and advice.
Beginners guide sections:
- Training Routine
- Diet
- Supplements
- Rest
- Water
