Supplement Industry: Fraud or Magic?
This topic could very well be the most debated in the entire fitness industry as a whole...and for good reason. The supplement industry has exploded and become a literal billion dollar market. Back in my earliest of training years I was in the same exact boat as most...taking a bunch of crap without knowing anything at all about what it was doing. Now, much of my supplement knowledge comes from those years of blind self-experimentation and I don't regret it because I learned a lot. As I advanced in training, I started to do my research and can safely say I can tell the bullshit when I see it.
All Supplements are Fake...
There is a HUGE percentage of people who think that everything at your local Vitamin Shoppe or GNC is completely worthless and a complete waste of money. If you hear this argument, in my humble opinion, they are an idiot when it comes to the subject. Is there a large amount of pills and powders which consist of rice flour that will do 100% nothing for you? Yes. But, we'll get into that later on.
Three absolute basic supplements and they happen to be the three I started with from the beginning are: pre-workout, protein and creatine. Most people who have worked out more than 4-5 times have tried pre-workout and it can be debated as the most important of all useful supplements. The amount of caffeine I consume in a week through pre-workout supplements could rival a small army of 18-30 year old women at a Starbucks convention, and I genuinely think it is one of the more important parts of my regiment. If it can push me to workout when I don't feel like it, push through some more exercises and make the most of my workouts as a whole then how can you debate that it's use is invaluable? Pre-workouts are relatively consistent across the board. Some are better than others but try a few and see which you like best.
Protein: The building blocks of your muscles...now this is a supplement which I am hesitant to tell people to use because it is largely misconstrued by people who are inexperienced in training (especially younger male clients). A lot of people think that a post workout protein shake is getting them massive gains all by itself. Supplements are NOT replacements for real food and other sources of nutrients. If you can eat a real meal with high protein after a workout you will be much better off than the guy who just drinks his protein shake. And that rule goes for supplements across the board but quite frankly, it's near impossible to cover that range of vitamins minerals etc. from all "natural" sources. Post-workout protein however is quick, convenient and super easy to get into your system. If your crunched for time and don't have access to real food, it's crucial for your diet regiment. Don't go for any super expensive brands here...it shouldn't be your main source of protein anyways.
Ahh the most annoyingly debated of them all. Creatine. No, creatine isn't a PED and no you don't get fat from all the water weight. I've been taking creatine for around 10 years and I'm still waiting for that dramatic 50 pound loss of muscle everyone seems to talk about. What creatine is truly doing is facilitating production of adenosine tri-phosphate or "ATP" in your muscles. ATP is what allows you to do 10 reps of bench, do 50 squat jumps or really...do anything at all. You would die without it. Creatine simply helps you produce it faster which allows you to have the potential to gut out a few more reps when you start to burn out. I'm truly not sure where the concept came from that creatine was created in some laboratory but there's those people who say, "I don't take creatine, I'm all natural." Nah you're just an idiot. Creatine is naturally occurring in your body and technically you could get the desired amount per day naturally. From eating about 12 pounds of fish. I don't know about you but I'd rather throw some powder in my gatorade and call it a day. There's a few different types of creatine. In my experience monohydrate accomplishes the same as "blends" and is super cheap.
I'm not going to go through every single supplement I take or have taken and explain how it works and why it is or isn't B.S. (I will attach what I currently take at the bottom) but the bottom line here is that before adding anything to your regiment, do a little research and figure out what it is actually doing. But, try telling any modern day pro fitness athlete or pro bodybuilder that supplements are all fake and I bet they laugh in your face.
The Supplement Industry Is Moral and Ethical
If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm pretty sarcastic. This is a subject I can speak personally to because in my first few years of training I fell into more than my fair share of complete crap supplements that costed a ton of money and did nothing for me. To start, every single supplement you buy from protein to multivitamins will have a big fat label on it saying it's not FDA approved. This essentially means they can put whatever they want in it and not tell you. If you think that I'm wrong I strongly urge you to watch "Bigger, Faster, Stronger" by Chris Bell. He literally makes his own supplement which is pure rice flour, labels it with some ridiculous name and puts on the ingredient label that theres a whole bunch of stuff not actually in the capsules. He gets it on the shelves for 60 some odd dollars. That isn't too far off of what some major supplement brands do and majorly profit on.
These supplement companies are smart. They make really cool labels, say some scientific study put 12 pounds of muscle on someone in 3 days while also giving them the power of flight and the worst part is...people buy it. Like many industries, brands differ in quality as well as quality of products within those brands. We are lucky enough to live in an age where any product is reviewed on multiple different websites. Use that to your benefit. See what people say about the products and while this is never a fool proof screening tool it's a place to start. Now, if you heard about a product or something catches your eye and you have absolutely no clue what it is...leave the store and go do your research. With zero disrespect to employees of supplement stores, the things I've heard some of them say to customers is so far on the comedy spectrum I almost burst out laughing in front of them. Chances are they have no clue what they're talking about and remember, they're salesmen.
The Trial and Error Method
Like I said, I have taken essentially every type of supplement from every brand you can think of. This was when I was a young uninformed teenager, didn't do my research and just simply wanted to get bigger. When I say "trial and error" method that DOESN'T mean to not do any research first. I can absolutely say I have had better results from some brands of creatine than others. I can say that I've found supplements which are identical in makeup and results which are 10 times cheaper than other brands. Aaaand I can say that I've bought random pills that didn't do a damn thing.
The bottom line is that supplements are just like anything else when it comes to your body. Every. Person. Is. Different. The first time I took creatine my body responded at an alarming rate. I put on a lot of muscle and maintained a ton of strength after around two months of consistent supplementation. I have friends who were just as obsessed with training who took creatine with little to no results. Just because something worked wonders for someone else doesn't mean the same results will happen to you and vise versa. The rookie mistake is when you do your research and find something that is a legitimate supplement and then you go buy the most expensive product in the store. That must mean it's the best right? Definitely not. Many times you can find off brand supplements with identical ingredients to accomplish the same exact thing for a fraction of the cost.
Are Supplements Even Necessary?
Can you get incredibly strong, big, cut, fit whatever your goal may be without any supplements? Of course you can. Supplements aren't steroids and they won't produce results like steroids. Even those 'crazy' testosterone booster kits on the top shelf that are $160 (many of which are the largest culprits of B.S.) aren't going to make you Captain America in a month.
Like I stated before, supplements aren't replacements. Whatever you can feasibly get naturally you absolutely should. But, like I also stated before...that essentially isn't possible. Keeping all that in mind your diet is 10,000 times more important than any supplementation. The fastest and most noticeable results you're going to see is from your diet and training. Supplements should always come secondary to those two things.
So why take them? I've always imagined in a perfect experiment I could see myself after lifting for ten years without a single supplement and see what the difference would be to myself now. In my opinion, the difference would be pretty significant. Just like your training and your diet you have to think LONG TERM. Nothing happens overnight or in a month and depending on your goals not in a year. I believe after 10 years of consistently being on some sort of supplement regiment it has made a significant difference over that long period of time. The bottom line here, don't make the same mistakes I made. Do your research and you'll save yourself a lot of wasted time and money. Get the right stack going and you'll see the right results, in good time.
What I Currently Take:
-Pre-workout, Creatine, BCAA's, Glutamine, Whey Protein, Casein, Animal Pak Multivitamins
I'm relatively consistent with this stack. Only changing minor things such as a mass gainer. But, 99% of the time my supplement regiment will look like this.