0

USD

Search products, brands, workouts...

WE SH IP TO ALGERI A VIE W D E TAILS

5 Supplements Every Guy Should be

Taking

If you want to build lean muscle mass, then there are 5 key
supplements you should add to your supplement regimen right
now. Read this article to learn more!

There are three kinds of people in this world:

 1. People who spend thousands of dollars a months on supplements.
2. People who think supplements are a scam and a waste of money.
3. People with their head screwed on right.

The third type of person is someone who knows that not all supplements are necessary
but some supplementation may help people improve their health and overall fitness by
being smart about them.

When we talk about supplements there are some that stand out as ones that virtually all
people would benefit from taking, especially men who are focused on training hard and
being as healthy and fit as possible.

The list we are going to cover is straight to the point.

No BS or unnecessary things are listed. Heck, I even wrote this thing to be as distilled
and to the point as possible.

1. Whey Protein
For several decades the recommended daily allowance for protein was 0.8 grams per
kilogram per day. This was held as gospel, immutable, divine information given from the
nutrition gods above.

Related: Whey Protein Powder - Complete Guide For All Types Of Whey

However, more recent evidence has shown that intakes of 0.8 grams per kilogram per
day are often not adequate to thrive and maximize health and lean body mass. That RDA
was the point at which you were likely to prevent anything bad from happening, not the
level at which you would thrive.
It turns out that intakes much higher than this appear to be much more suitable for
optimizing lean mass, bone health, longevity (still debatable), and overall thriving as a
human. The newer, more rigorous data suggests that most people, especially active
people, should be consuming in the range of 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram per day.1

Now for many of us this level of intake might be hard to achieve for a host of reasons:
time, availability, convenience, or even the fact that cramming down 5 large chicken
breasts a day might give your jaw muscles a serious case of the DOMS.  This is where a
high quality whey protein can step in and fill a role in your diet.

Whey protein should be viewed as supplemental; it should not replace whole food
sources for a variety of reasons: micronutrients, food volume, palatability, etc. However,
when used as a supplement to your diet it can be incredibly helpful as a snack or protein
booster for certain meals (e.g. in your oatmeal, smoothies, post workout shakes,
pancake batter, etc.)

2. Vitamin D
Vitamin D deficiency is quite common, with roughly 42% of people living in North
America having vitamin D levels that fall in the “deficiency” range2. This is due to things
like: genetics, latitude, our mostly indoor lifestyles, and micronutrient poor diet.

While the huge vitamin D craze of the mid 2000s may have blown the negative aspects
of low vitamin D out of proportion, low vitamin D levels are certainly associated with
higher rates of upper respiratory tract infections (e.g. colds and flus)3, associated with
lower performance in some athletes4, and may impact your bone health.
Virtually every study on these parameters has shown that shoring up a vitamin D
deficiency reduces your risk of all of these, so if you are deficient you should aim to get
that fixed.

Related: The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Bodybuilding Supplements

Outside of moving to a tropical island, or eating obscene amounts of vitamin D rich

foods, your best bet to address vitamin D deficiency is to supplement it. For most
people, you can take 2,000 to 5,000 international units (IUs) of vitamin D3 a day when
you have low blood levels of vitamin D (<25 ng/mL).

3. Creatine
In the world of supplements, there is one supplement that has stood up to 30+ years of
extensive research to show repeatable, reliable, results for improving training capacity
and aiding in training volume based muscle gains: creatine monohydrate.

Here is what it is, what it does, why it’s so effective, and how to take it.

What it is: Creatine a polypeptide made up of glycine, arginine, and methionine that is
found naturally in the human body and is accumulated in muscle tissue primarily
through dietary sources and endogenous production.

What it does: Creatine’s main function in the human body is to provide a phosphate
source to replenish ATP rapidly during short, intense bouts of training.

Why it is so effective: During short, intense bouts of exercise, your stores of creatine
phosphate deplete quickly, limiting your ability to create ATP and contract your muscles.
Supplementing with creatine increases your creatine phosphate stores and extends your
capacity to produce ATP.

How to take it: Creatine works by accumulating in the muscle tissue, meaning, at the
muscle level it does not truly act acutely, so you can take it at any time of the day. This
also means in takes several days to a week to fully saturate creatine stores and elicit its
ergogenic effects. There have been several studies published showing how to take
creatine and there are two main ways of taking it:

1. Load creatine 15-20 grams per day for 3-5 days and then 5 grams a day thereafter.
2. Take 5 grams per day from day 1.

Either way will eventually saturate your muscle creatine stores, the first option just
accelerates the saturation process. Some people experience GI issues taking 15-20
grams a day.
4. Fish Oil
The fatty acids that float around in your body matter, not just because they provide
energy but they regulate a lot of your body’s biological functions, including inflammatory
processed and intracellular signaling.

Two main classes of fatty acids that we hear a lot about are omega-6 and omega-3 fatty
acids. They are both important in our diets; however, we often get more Omega-6 fatty
acids than we need and not as many omega-3 fatty acids as we need. Fish, specially
their oily fats, are an excellent source of omega-3 rich fatty acids.

For many of us, eating high-quality Omega-3 rich fish like salmon is a difficult task due to
lack of available fish or the expense of fish. When you break it down per serving, a high-
quality fish oil becomes an incredibly cost-effective, convenient way to get more omega-3
fatty acids in your diet.

5. Sleep
Sleep is my favorite supplement. If you want to recover better, get stronger, stay healthy,
and live longer, supplement with sleep.

Related: Hacking Your Sleep 101 - Nine Tips For Better Gains

If you are training hard, eating right, but sleeping like a jerk, you are leaving a lot of gains
and progress on the table.

Here are several ways to “supplement” your sleep to get more:

 1. Turn your TV off a few hours before bed.
2. Turn the lights off in the room.
3. DO NOT use your phone in bed.
4. Develop a sleep schedule. Seriously, this will change your sleeping habits
immensely.
5. Experiment with minimally invasive sleep aides like meditation, magnesium,
reading, white noise, etc.

The Wrap Up
Most people have some holes in their diets that can be shored up with minimal, but
smart supplementation.

Whey protein can help people hit their protein requirements while Vitamin D can help
maintain adequate vitamin D levels during winter months and fish oil can help provide
essential fatty acids for land-locked people.

Creatine is a cheap, safe, effective way to increase your training capacity.

references
1. Protein “requirements” beyond the RDA: implications for optimizing health
2. Prevalence and correlates of vitamin D deficiency in US adults.
3. Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections: systematic review and meta-analysis of
individual participant data
4. Plausible ergogenic effects of vitamin D on athletic performance and recovery

Join over 500k subscribers who receive weekly

workouts, diet plans, videos and expert guides
from Muscle & Strength.

First Name

Email

Choose Your Goal

Subscribe Free

360 SHARES
 3.8 6
RATE THIS
STARS VOTES

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

4 Overlooked Supplements You Should Be 4 Supplements You Should Take This 5 Facts Every Hardgainer Should Know
Taking Bulking Season About Protein

Intraworkout Carbohydrates: Hype or Should You Take a Whey Protein Isolate? Should You Take Creatine Pre Or Post
Help? Workout?

About The Author

Brad Dieter
Brad is a research scientist, nutrition coach, and aspiring Olympic
weightlifter. He received his M.S. in biomechanics and his Ph.D. in exercise
physiology. His goal is to bridge the gap between science and the public
and to bring the best information to the industry.
View all by Brad Dieter »

0 Comments + Post Comment

HELP & SH IPPING M&S RE WARDS

Help C enter How to e ar n points?
C ont ac t Suppor t Rewards Cat alog
Your Ac c ount FOLLOW M&S
Order S t atus
Shipping & Retur ns

C ONTACT U S
Muscle & S treng th, LLC
1180 Fir s t S treet S outh
C olumbia, SC 29209
PH : 1 - 8 0 0 - 5 3 7 - 9 9 1 0
Email : click here

JOIN OUR NE WSLE T TER

Build muscle, lose fat & s t ay
moti vated. Join 500,000+
new slet ter sub scr iber s!

First Name

Email Address

Choose Your Goal

Sign Up

About Ca re e r s Wr i te fo r U s A ffi l i a te s Te r m s o f U s e P r i va cy Po l i cy C o o k i e Po l i cy
© C o py r i gh t 2 0 0 5 - 2 0 1 9, M u s c l e & S tre n g th L LC . I m ag e s c o py r i gh t o f th e i r re sp e c ti ve ow n e r s .