If you want to build muscle, one thing that you’ve likely considered is which weight lifting supplements you should be using to take your progress to the next level.
Before I go any further let me just cut to the chase and give you my top recommended weight lifting supplements. You can click on each of them for more information:
- Creatine – This basically allows you to work out harder and longer resulting in more muscle gains. It has also been shown to help with protein synthesis.
- Whey Protein – This is great to ensure you’re getting enough protein in your diet each day. It’s not so easy to get all your calories in each day. Whey protein powder gives you a quick and easy fix of protein when you need it.
- Glutamine – Supplementing with glutamine can help keep your immune system in check and increase growth hormone levels.
- Essential Fatty Acids – You can get these through products like fish oil capsules and flax seed oil. High quality fat sources like these are necessary to build quality muscle mass and produce optimum levels of testosterone in your body.
- Multi Vitamins – When you work out in the gym your body will most likely need more vitamins and minerals than you can get through your diet alone. Supplementing with a multi-vitamin can speed up your recovery from a workout.
Listen, many weight lifting supplements out there aren’t much more than hype and fancy marketing.
Truth be told, many companies put more money into their marketing budget than they do their research and development budget because they know hype sells. Once you’ve bought the product, they’ve accomplished their mission.
So with this said, how can you tell which products will deliver and which won’t?
If you do a bit of background research on a particular product before making your purchase, you can increase the chances of choosing one that will deliver and produce the desired effects it claims to.
Let me give you a quick guide as to what to look for when selecting your weight lifting supplements.
The Company’s Background
The very first thing that you’ll want to have a brief look at is the background of the company that is producing the supplement. How long have they been in the industry? Have they had other best-selling products before or does it appear as though they have very few products to speak of?
Have they had any negative feedback in the media or is their track record pretty clean?
Some of this may take some digging around to find, but if you can do some reading up on them and how long they’ve been in the supplement game for, that can really put your mind at ease as to whether their products are legitimate.
If a company is brand new on the market, this doesn’t necessarily mean their products won’t work, but it does mean you need to be a little more leery of them.
User Testimonials
The second thing that you’ll want to look for when assessing weight lifting supplements is whether there are good user testimonials to go with them.
Have others found good results from them? If not, again, this throws up a red flag. If the particular supplement is brand new then that could be the primary reason for the lack of testimonials, but if it has been around for a while, you should be able to find something on it if it’s worth the money.
Most people who do get good results from a particular supplement will speak up about it to give others awareness about the benefits it has to offer.
Likewise, if it has a slew of negative reviews, this really should make you think twice about the results it produces – or lack thereof as the case may be.
Research Studies Cited
The next thing that you should check for when considering purchasing a particular supplement is if any research studies have been cited by the company during the research and development process.
Products that are backed by positive research have really proven themselves in the lab and it’s more likely that when used properly with your diet and workout, it will lead to positive effects.
Supplements that have no research done on them or don’t reveal any ingredients that have been included in research studies before are highly questionable and you should steer clear of these completely. It’s hard to know with certainty whether those ingredients will bring about any of the desired results you’re after.
If you do come across a supplement that has gone through extensive research processes, then you also want to take this one step further and see if you can read up on the research that was performed. As you read through the research, check to see if it was a sound study that was performed.
Was the sample size utilized relatively large? Research performed on a group of 5 people won’t be quite as conclusive as research that was performed on a group of 50 simply due to the small sample size that was used.
Likewise, if there seems as though there could have been other variables at play influencing the results that were achieved, that also will make the particular ingredient studied more questionable.
Proper study procedures will be planned so that they are doing everything they can to minimize this so that’s what you really want to be looking for.
Validity Of Claims Made
Moving along, the next important thing that you’ll also want to think about is the validity of the claims made by that supplement company in general.
Does the company promise that you’ll gain 20 pounds in a month by using their product? If so, that immediately should throw up some red flags in your mind.
Even under the best of circumstances pure muscle gain will not happen this quickly, even if you were on steroids… So if that’s their claim, they’re out to lunch.
The best supplements on the market often have no claims whatsoever about the rate of weight gain you’ll experience as the products simply are aimed at influencing one of the factors that goes into the process of weight gain.
Good companies realize that the rate of weight and muscle gains will be highly unique to each individual and what kind of weight gain program they’re on. Therefore, a quality supplement company won’t make any fancy claims stating otherwise.
Using Weight Lifting Supplements Properly
So once you’ve done your background research and have found a few products to try out, it’s imperative that you make sure you’re using these correctly.
This means taking them at the appropriate times during the day as well as using them in a correct dosage. Don’t think that just because you want faster results, this means you can double or triple your dose.
If you do that, all you’re doing is putting yourself at risk for side effects. Always start off with the lowest recommended dosage and build up from there depending on the results you see.
That is the sure-fire way to see safe and effective results.
These are a few of the important points that you should be considering when looking at weight lifting supplements to add to your muscle building protocol. If chosen properly and used correctly, they can definitely help boost your rate of muscle growth.
Add comment