bigforearms
Don Juan
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2003
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I see a lot of misconceptions about supplements on this board. This started as a reply to one of the numerous threads saying that you need massive amounts of protein to get huge, but I moved it here when it morphed into a general supplement tutorial. In any case, if you're new to the health industry, you need to know a few things about the way it works.
Okay, eating protein is important. And it's often quoted to be 1-1.5 g of protein per pound (not kilogram) of bodyweight. You'll often hear that advice on this site.
Realistically, about .6-.8 g of protein per pound of bodyweight is more than adequate. Want to guess where the claims of 1-2 g per pound of bodyweight come from? The supplement industry. They know there's no realistic or convenient way for a normal person to pack in that amount of protein per day without protein powder supplementation, and the more they can get people to take per day, the better their bottom line.
Remember, the muscle magazines, online bodybuilding sites, and even the vast majority of the "research" you see quoted in ads and in muscle magazines are heavily spun and influenced by the supplement manufacturers. And yes, the columns and articles that are ostensibly written by experts in the field or independent writers from the magazines are heavily spun to favor the supplement companies. After all, the people paying these graduate students to do research and the magazines to keep printing are the supplement companies. In some cases, health magazines and supplement companies are owned by the same person/corporation.
A very good recent article on the topic by the NYTimes can be found at
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0613F73F5F0C708EDDAF0894DB404482
Unfortunately, you need to pay to see it, because it's archived now (it's from June 23).
It's going to be difficult to sift through the garbage (and the vast majority of it is garbage) to figure out what really gets you results. The entire fitness industry is a gigantic money-making machine, and its consumers are heavily saturated with b.s. marketing claims, so even asking your local gymrat isn't necessarily going to help.
A few tips I can give:
Don't be impressed by extra ingredients beyond what you're looking for in a supplement. They're often useless herbs, etc, used to differentiate a product from others. Buy based on price per unit, and buy the cheapest items you can find.
Never pay more than the lowest price per pound you can find for a whey powder. The only exception to this is if you really hate the taste of a cheap brand, but absolutely love the taste of a more expensive brand. But don't think that more expensive = better tasting; the ultra-cheap brand I use is actually the second best tasting powder I've ever tried. Every dollar beyond the cheapest protein you spend is spent on their marketing machine. There is essentially no difference between wheys.
MRPs are often just sugar (they'll specify the kind of sugar to make it sound fancy) and whey powder with a higher mark-up. You're better off buying whey and mixing it with fruit juice and fruit in a smoothie as a weight-gainer. MRPs can be convenient if you're on the go though.
$2.50 is too much to spend on a protein bar. Look around for a protein bar with about 20 g of protein for about a buck and buy them in bulk if you like protein bars.
Creatine will help you, but you only need about 5g per day. You piss the rest out. The loading period some people advocate is bull**** and is designed to sell more creatine. Creatine from almost any manufacturer is extremely pure, so buy any brand that's cheap. Under no circumstances should you buy liquid creatine. Creatine is not stable in liquid form, so you're paying extra for spoiled creatine. Under no circumstances should you buy a creatine mix like Cell-tech. It's just sugar mixed with creatine with a gigantic mark-up. If you're worried about spiking your insulin, you're probably being a bit picky, but you can do it with juice. If you're trying to cut to a specific weight (to make weight in wrestling, powerlifting, etc.) do not take creatine. It'll add several pounds of water weight to your body.
If you're looking to lose weight, an Ephedra-Caffeine-willow bark compound MIGHT help you (see that NYTimes article). The reasons it might help you is because it'll make you lose a lot of water weight (it's a diuretic) and it will make you hyper for most of the day, so you might become more active. I personally think ECA stacks are overkill, and ephedra is probably bad for you. In any case, the same rules apply: read the labels to look for the main ingredients (the three I quoted above), and then look at the price per unit so you get the cheapest brand. Xenadrine (the most popular of these) is too expensive. Don't take an ECA and creatine at the same time.
A multivitamin can be useful. Go to Target or some other huge retailer and buy a cheap, generic one. You probably won't need any other vitamins. ZMA is just another vitamin supplement you don't need.
You'll often hear glutamine is a must-have supplement. It's not. It's useful if you aren't getting enough protein in your diet, but the first thing most people supplement with is protein.
Pro-hormones are garbage. If you're going to be an idiot and **** with your endocrine system, take real steroids. They're more effective, cost about the same, and have basically the same side effects. In either case, be honest and don't compete in things that ban hormone supplementation. And don't ***** when you're dying at age 50 from overdoing on the steroids when you were 20.
Most of the rest of the stuff you see at your local health store is garbage. When you go into a health store, be sure to go in with the thing you want in mind and only buy that thing. A lot of these places have salesmen that work on commission, and besides being generally ignorant of what they're selling, these people will also advise you buy lots of supposedly complimentary supplements to go with what you bought ("I see you're buying protein powder; you'll need this $30 bottle of enzymes to properly digest all that"). These complimentary products are like undercoating on a car--pure profit garbage.
Supplements are useful in some cases, but keep in mind that the vast majority of what's out there is pure marketing. Getting big is not a matter of eating 2 g of whey per pound of body weight, drinking 15 g of creatine with dextrose, or taking ZMA to spike your testosterone. Getting big is about eating more and lifting weights. Similarly, losing weight isn't about taking Xenadrine, l-glutamine, and CLA. Losing weight is eating less and/or working out more. NitroTech is NOT 800% more effective than regular whey, people using Xenadrine did NOT lose 300% more body fat than placebo, and you should NOT believe anything you read from the fitness industry.
Okay, eating protein is important. And it's often quoted to be 1-1.5 g of protein per pound (not kilogram) of bodyweight. You'll often hear that advice on this site.
Realistically, about .6-.8 g of protein per pound of bodyweight is more than adequate. Want to guess where the claims of 1-2 g per pound of bodyweight come from? The supplement industry. They know there's no realistic or convenient way for a normal person to pack in that amount of protein per day without protein powder supplementation, and the more they can get people to take per day, the better their bottom line.
Remember, the muscle magazines, online bodybuilding sites, and even the vast majority of the "research" you see quoted in ads and in muscle magazines are heavily spun and influenced by the supplement manufacturers. And yes, the columns and articles that are ostensibly written by experts in the field or independent writers from the magazines are heavily spun to favor the supplement companies. After all, the people paying these graduate students to do research and the magazines to keep printing are the supplement companies. In some cases, health magazines and supplement companies are owned by the same person/corporation.
A very good recent article on the topic by the NYTimes can be found at
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0613F73F5F0C708EDDAF0894DB404482
Unfortunately, you need to pay to see it, because it's archived now (it's from June 23).
It's going to be difficult to sift through the garbage (and the vast majority of it is garbage) to figure out what really gets you results. The entire fitness industry is a gigantic money-making machine, and its consumers are heavily saturated with b.s. marketing claims, so even asking your local gymrat isn't necessarily going to help.
A few tips I can give:
Don't be impressed by extra ingredients beyond what you're looking for in a supplement. They're often useless herbs, etc, used to differentiate a product from others. Buy based on price per unit, and buy the cheapest items you can find.
Never pay more than the lowest price per pound you can find for a whey powder. The only exception to this is if you really hate the taste of a cheap brand, but absolutely love the taste of a more expensive brand. But don't think that more expensive = better tasting; the ultra-cheap brand I use is actually the second best tasting powder I've ever tried. Every dollar beyond the cheapest protein you spend is spent on their marketing machine. There is essentially no difference between wheys.
MRPs are often just sugar (they'll specify the kind of sugar to make it sound fancy) and whey powder with a higher mark-up. You're better off buying whey and mixing it with fruit juice and fruit in a smoothie as a weight-gainer. MRPs can be convenient if you're on the go though.
$2.50 is too much to spend on a protein bar. Look around for a protein bar with about 20 g of protein for about a buck and buy them in bulk if you like protein bars.
Creatine will help you, but you only need about 5g per day. You piss the rest out. The loading period some people advocate is bull**** and is designed to sell more creatine. Creatine from almost any manufacturer is extremely pure, so buy any brand that's cheap. Under no circumstances should you buy liquid creatine. Creatine is not stable in liquid form, so you're paying extra for spoiled creatine. Under no circumstances should you buy a creatine mix like Cell-tech. It's just sugar mixed with creatine with a gigantic mark-up. If you're worried about spiking your insulin, you're probably being a bit picky, but you can do it with juice. If you're trying to cut to a specific weight (to make weight in wrestling, powerlifting, etc.) do not take creatine. It'll add several pounds of water weight to your body.
If you're looking to lose weight, an Ephedra-Caffeine-willow bark compound MIGHT help you (see that NYTimes article). The reasons it might help you is because it'll make you lose a lot of water weight (it's a diuretic) and it will make you hyper for most of the day, so you might become more active. I personally think ECA stacks are overkill, and ephedra is probably bad for you. In any case, the same rules apply: read the labels to look for the main ingredients (the three I quoted above), and then look at the price per unit so you get the cheapest brand. Xenadrine (the most popular of these) is too expensive. Don't take an ECA and creatine at the same time.
A multivitamin can be useful. Go to Target or some other huge retailer and buy a cheap, generic one. You probably won't need any other vitamins. ZMA is just another vitamin supplement you don't need.
You'll often hear glutamine is a must-have supplement. It's not. It's useful if you aren't getting enough protein in your diet, but the first thing most people supplement with is protein.
Pro-hormones are garbage. If you're going to be an idiot and **** with your endocrine system, take real steroids. They're more effective, cost about the same, and have basically the same side effects. In either case, be honest and don't compete in things that ban hormone supplementation. And don't ***** when you're dying at age 50 from overdoing on the steroids when you were 20.
Most of the rest of the stuff you see at your local health store is garbage. When you go into a health store, be sure to go in with the thing you want in mind and only buy that thing. A lot of these places have salesmen that work on commission, and besides being generally ignorant of what they're selling, these people will also advise you buy lots of supposedly complimentary supplements to go with what you bought ("I see you're buying protein powder; you'll need this $30 bottle of enzymes to properly digest all that"). These complimentary products are like undercoating on a car--pure profit garbage.
Supplements are useful in some cases, but keep in mind that the vast majority of what's out there is pure marketing. Getting big is not a matter of eating 2 g of whey per pound of body weight, drinking 15 g of creatine with dextrose, or taking ZMA to spike your testosterone. Getting big is about eating more and lifting weights. Similarly, losing weight isn't about taking Xenadrine, l-glutamine, and CLA. Losing weight is eating less and/or working out more. NitroTech is NOT 800% more effective than regular whey, people using Xenadrine did NOT lose 300% more body fat than placebo, and you should NOT believe anything you read from the fitness industry.
