Nutrition
Best Bodybuilding Supplements & Ingredients
If you’re someone who’s involved in the sport of bodybuilding, you should be taking great care with what you do in the gym as well as with what you put into your mouth. Diet and exercise go hand in hand in making sure that you are able to generate lean muscle mass over time and improve your physique. In addition to that, you should also be taking the time to learn about some of the supplements that can help you boost your success and see faster gains.
All of this set, which combination of ingredients from both foods and supplements will deliver time and time again? That’s a great question. Let’s walk you through the big players so that you can make sure they are in your overall protocol.
The Ultimate Supplement Stack
First, you need to get your supplementation down pat. Choosing the right blend of supplements will help to ensure that your money gets put to good use and that you give your body the nutrients and effects that your diet just can’t offer you. There are five products that will really deliver the best benefits and results. These include:
- testosterone booster
- protein powder
- creatine
- quality multi-vitamin & fish oil
Why choose these?
A quality testosterone booster such as TestoFuel needs to form the foundation of your supplement stack. Without adequate levels of testosterone in your system, muscle building will be slow at best. For most men, testosterone is currently on the decline and each year it’s only going to get worse. TestoFuel helps you reverse this trend so that you can keep seeing progress with your muscle-building results.
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After that, a protein powder will supply your body with the fast-acting protein you need in the critical post-workout window. Skip this and you won’t recover as quickly, meaning your rate of progress is going to be much lower than it should.
From there, creatine helps to ensure full saturation to this high-energy precursor that will make sure each muscle contraction takes place as it should. If you are depleted in creatine phosphate, you’re going to have a very hard time working as hard as you should. In addition to this, creatine may promote a leaner body composition as well through increased lean muscle mass and enhanced fat burning because of it, as was noted in a study published by the Scandinavian Physiology Society.
If you suffer from a deficiency in even just one nutrient, it will impact your training intensity, your recovery, and your overall well-being. It can be hard to get everything you need from diet alone, which is where the multi-vitamin comes in helpful. It’ll provide you with the back-up mental assurance that your needs are being met.
Finally, fish oil is a must for overall health’s sake, but also to help boost insulin sensitivity, which then helps make sure that you are using the carbohydrates you feed your body properly to spark new mass gains. Those who have poor insulin sensitivity will come to find they’re getting fatter rather than more muscular when following a bulking diet program.
If you can get these supplements working on your side, you can feel confident progress will be occurring.
The Best Vegetables To Enhance Gains
Now, you’ve heard before that you should ‘eat your vegetables’. But, they’re so low in calories, how could they possibly help with muscle building?
One of the key reasons to add more vegetables to your diet is that they will help to prevent your body from moving into a very acidic state thanks to all the meat that you’re consuming. If your body does not maintain a proper pH level, muscle building will start to suffer, not to mention you may start to feel unwell. In addition to this, vegetables will provide a host of antioxidants that will help offset the free radical damage that can occur due to intense workout sessions, so this can also help to keep you recovering as quickly as possible. While all vegetables are going to be a great choice, the top choices include kale, spinach, and broccoli. Eat these daily if possible.
The Top Proteins You Should Consume Daily
Moving along, you also need to make sure that you are eating enough protein on a day to day basis. Since protein is what will provide the building blocks for muscle to be built up, if you aren’t getting enough of it, you aren’t going to be seeing results. It’s pretty much as simple as that.
Additionally, one study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism noted that men who were not taking in enough protein on a day to day basis showed higher rates of testosterone decline then men who where.
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In addition to that, add chicken, turkey, organic whole eggs and egg whites to your diet as well. All are very lean sources that will deliver almost 100% pure protein. The only exception here is the whole eggs, which will supply some saturated fat, but that is important for maintaining adequate testosterone levels, so still a great choice for your diet plan.
Must-Eat Carbohydrate Sources
The next component of your diet is the carbohydrate component. Do not neglect this one. Far too many men attempt muscle building without enough carbohydrates and this is a gigantic mistake. The reason this is so problematic is because of the fact that carbs provide the fuel for not only the workouts you do, but also for the process of building muscle in general. If you don’t take in enough, it’s hard to keep growing. You do, however, want to take in slower digesting sources as this will keep your insulin levels stabilized and prevent a spike and crash that could lead to hunger and a catabolic state.
Best choices to include are sweet potatoes, brown rice, quinoa, barley, and oatmeal. Stick to these rather than processed carbohydrates and you’ll do much better.
If you eat too much sugary carbohydrates, you can actually see a decline to your testosterone levels because of this as well, seriously slowing down your progress.
Fats For Faster Progress
Getting enough dietary fats is also a requirement of success for any man on a muscle building program. The healthy fats are going to help keep your testosterone levels up as high as they should be, while also providing energy so that you aren’t just burning up carbohydrates for fuel. If you can use fat as energy as you move throughout your day to day tasks, this means that you can then leave carbohydrates for use during your intense workout sessions, so you won’t be come depleted as fast and hit the point of fatigue. Dietary fats also help to stabilize blood glucose levels as well, which is important for maintaining an even keel of energy all day long.
When it comes to fats, you do want to take in some saturated fat as this is required for testosterone formation. About 15% of your total fat intake can come from this source and then after that, you’ll want to focus more on the unsaturated and omega fats instead. These are the ones that will keep your hearth healthy, your skin looking its best, and your body feeling as healthy as possible. This means great options include nuts and nut butter, olive oil, flaxseeds and flaxseed oil, coconut, fatty fish, avocado, and grass fed beef (which is high in CLA fats as noted above).
Fats should make up around 20-35% of your total calorie intake depending on how many carbohydrates you are eating daily. Some men will feel better eating fewer carbs and more fats while others do best doing more carbs and fewer fats.
Learn your body and what feels best and go from there.
So there you have the main muscle building ingredients that should be in your program plan. All of these will work together to deliver you optimal results so if even one is not part of your current equation, you are not going to be seeing the results you should be.
Remember that there is no exact one formula you must use for results. Rather, it’s all about testing different strategies and seeing what delivers you the results you’re looking for. What works best for your best gym buddy may not work at all for you, so pay attention to how your body is responding and adjust from there. Continual adjustments mean continual results.
References:
Feldman, H.A. (1999). Diet and Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Vol. 85, Issue 1.
Earnest, C.P. Et al. (1995). The effect of creatine monohydrate ingestion on anaerobic power indices, muscular strength, and body composition. Acta Physiology Scand. Vol. 153, 207-209.
