Archive for the 'Dietary Supplements' Category
With whey protein, creatine, nitric oxide, and BCAA’s your probably obsessed with building muscle, and you’ve probably taken each of these muscle building supplements. They are cost effective, and help you to train stronger, longer and to look better. But I want to ask you a question:
How often do you consider your overall health?
Sure, you eat right and train hard. You are healthy. No doubt about that. But are you as healthy as you could be? I know, I know. I am starting to sound confusing. Let me explain what I mean.
A Muscle Building Supplement Story
I have been training for over two decades. During this time I was obsessed with muscle building supplements. I wanted the best whey protein, and the latest research on creatine. I wanted to know what supplements would boost my testesterone and growth hormone levels.
But I never thought about the basics…supplements for overall health. Supplements that I should be taking, but wasn’t. Supplements like a quality multivitamin, a supplement for joint health and essential healthy fats (fish oil and flax seed oil). I was trying to build muscle, but wasn’t giving my body 100% of the necessary building blocks to function properly on all levels.
You see, nutrition and muscle building is easy. You need to start from the ground up. First, you begin with supplements for overall health. Supplements that provide ALL the necessary vitamins and minerals you need to pack on mass. Supplements like fish oil that assist with proper heart and brain functioning.
Then, once you have prepared a healthy foundation, it’s time to add the muscle building supplements. But I had this all wrong. More than that – I was ignoring the basics. I was trying to run a muscle car using the worst possible fuel.
Muscle building is an exciting and life changing process, but it is also hard on the body. Major changes are taking place. You are lifting heavy weights, tearing down muscles over and over again, rebuilding them stronger each time. If you don’t provide you body with the basics, as you age, you are opening the door for your body to break down.
This is exactly what I had been doing. Years passed by, and slowly – despite my training and diet – my age started to catch up with me. I wasn’t feeling like my old self. I had less energy, and more aches and pains. And I didn’t feel mentally alert and aware.
Supplements for General Health
Don’t be like me. Don’t ignore the small stuff. Make sure you focus on supplementing with the basics. Here are some supplement “basics” I strongly recommend you consider:
A Multivitamin:
Not just any multivitamin. A quality multivitamin. And along with this, I would also recommend supplementing with some addition Vitamin C. The vitamin requirements of anyone who partakes in intense training is higher than a sedentary person. Training depletes vitamin stores in the body. These stores need to be replaced to allow for optimum energy levels and recovery times.
A good multivitamin product will fill in all the "holes" in your diet. The multivitamins listed here are designed for athletes, bodybuilders and anyone who trains hard. A good multivitamin is often one of the supplements that’s overlooked, but is one of the most important. What’s the point of having a good diet and training program without backing it up with a solid multivitamin?
Fish Oil:
Fish oil, or healthy essential fatty acids, should be a staple for anyone that trains hard. Healthy oils and essential fatty acids are well known for improving overall health, vitality and brain function. But healthy oils also play an important role in muscle building and fat loss. A Danish study proved that supplementing with the correct ratio of essential fats can increase stamina, improve muscle development, speed recovery and improve cardiovascular function.
Joint Health Supplement:
Muscles aren’t the only thing in the body that takes a beating from hard, intense cardiovascular and weight training. Every time you train with weights, go for a run, or play sport you’re putting your joints under pressure. Weight training is especially hard on the joints! To get the most out of your training schedule and protect yourself from joint injuries you need to take care of your joints. Joint health supplements can help protect your joints from damage, and help you recover from a joint injury.
Thanks to Muscle & Strength for providing the article!
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Fat loss supplements are a very popular and effective way to burn fat. But did you know you can amplify the benefits of a fat loss supplement by doing a few simple things? You sure can! This article will provide some tips on how to maximize your fat loss while taking a fat burner or fat loss supplement.
Before we dive into the tips, let’s take a brief look at 4 common fat loss supplement categories:
Thermogenic fat burners are designed to raise your body temperature, your metabolic rate and the amount of calories you burn. This means you will burn more calories during the day, even when resting. Stimulant-Free thermogenics fat burners are designed to provide amazing results for those who prefer to steer clear of stimulants.
Appetite suppressants help you to feel full, and to reduce hunger. Since you won’t be craving food, it becomes easier to lose weight. The last category of fat loss supplements is thyroid regulators. A thyroid regulator helps you to achieve consistent and proper thyroid functioning, and allows the body to burn fat properly.
Tip 1: Eat Your Protein
You don’t need to be a bodybuilder to benefit from additional protein consumption and supplementation. Protein is the most thermogenic macronutrient. It requires more energy to process protein than it does carbohydrates or fats. Therefore, protein is nature’s fat burner of choice.
By eating a larger percentage of your calories from high protein foods, you will burn more fat, and assist your body in retaining lean muscle mass while dieting.
Muscle mass also helps you to burn fat. The more muscle you have, the more calories your body will require each day. Muscle mass provides a natural boost to your metabolism, so the more you have, the easier it becomes to burn fat.
Protein supplements such as whey protein powder, casein protein powder, protein bars and meal replacements can assist you in making sure you eat enough daily protein.
Tip 2: Get Stronger
We have already discovered that muscle helps you to burn fat. But how do you build muscle? How do you train to hold on to as much muscle as possible while dieting? The answer is simple…train to get stronger.
Push yourself on every set of every workout. Try for more reps, and add weight when you can. By doing this, you are encouraging your body to hold on to as much muscle as possible; you are giving your body a reason to burn fat instead of muscle.
Many people make the mistake of training with light weight and high reps when they are attempting to lose fat. By using lighter weights, you are telling your body I no longer need all of my muscle, so it’s ok to burn it as an energy source.
Training for strength does not require you to train like a powerlifter. Simply continue to use your current workout plan, and work hard to push yourself.
Supplements such as creatine, BCAAs, and glutamine can help you to maintain as much strength as possible while cutting fat.
Top 3: Use a Pre-Workout Supplement
Training while on a diet is not always easy. There are days in which you will feel tired or unmotivated. We’ve all been in this position, and know that one missed workout can often lead to another, and another. When you start missing workouts, it’s easy to say I quit…let me start again next week or month.
Pre-workout supplements are designed to give you nutrients to enhance your workouts. Increased blood flow, better mental focus, enhanced muscle pumps and increased energy are just some of the reasons why more people are using pre-workout supplements. One of the most common and popular pre-workout ingredients is nitric oxide.
A pre-workout supplement allows you to train longer, stronger, and with more energy. Simply stated, a pre-workout supplement functions in a synergistic manner with your fat loss supplement, and with your aggressive training approach, amplifying your efforts and maximizing fat loss.
Tip 4: Eat Your Healthy Fats
There is a deep rooted myth in dieting that eating fat makes you fat. The reality is that fats do not make you fat. Only eating too many daily calories can make you fat.
Most of us have packed on extra weight because we ate too many white poisons – sugar and flour-based foods. It’s not the fat that caused your bulging waist line. It was the cookies, donuts, sodas and chips.
Now that you are eating healthy and dieting, do not avoid healthy fats. Your body needs healthy fats to function properly, and without them you actually make it more difficult to lose weight.
Supplementing with fish oil, flax seed oil and other essential fatty acids (EFAs) can help to insure that you are eating enough daily healthy fats while on a limited calorie diet.
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Your body uses vitamins for a variety of biological processes, including growth, digestion, and nerve function. There are 13 vitamins that the body absolutely needs: vitamins A, C, D, E, K, and the B vitamins (thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, biotin, vitamin B-6, vitamin B-12 and folate). AAFP cites two categories of vitamins.
Water-soluble vitamins are easily absorbed by the body, which doesn’t store large amounts. The kidneys remove those vitamins that are not needed. Fat-soluble vitamins are absorbed into the body with the use of bile acids, which are fluids used to absorb fat. The body stores these for use as needed.
How Vitamins are Regulated
Vitamin products are regulated by FDA as “Dietary Supplements.” The law defines dietary supplements, in part, as products taken by mouth that contain a “dietary ingredient” intended to supplement the diet.
Listed in the “dietary ingredient” category are not only vitamins, but minerals, botanicals products, amino acids, and substances such as enzymes, microbial probiotics, and metabolites. Dietary supplements can also be extracts or concentrates, and may be found in many forms. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 requires that all such products be labeled as dietary supplements.
In June 2007, FDA established dietary supplement “current Good Manufacturing Practice” (cGMP) regulations requiring that manufacturers evaluate their products through testing identity, purity, strength, and composition.
Fat-soluble Vitamins
- A (retinol, retinal, retinoic acid): Nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, blurred vision, clumsiness, birth defects, liver problems, possible risk of osteoporosis. You may be at greater risk of these effects if you drink high amounts of alcohol or you have liver problems, high cholesterol levels or don’t get enough protein.
- D (calciferol): Nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, constipation, weakness, weight loss, confusion, heart rhythm problems, deposits of calcium and phosphate in soft tissues. If you take blood thinners, talk to your doctor before taking vitamin E or vitamin K pills.
Water-soluble Vitamins
- B-3 (niacin): flushing, redness of the skin, upset stomach.
- B-6 (pyridoxine, pyridoxal, and pyridoxamine): Nerve damage to the limbs, which may cause numbness, trouble walking, and pain.
- C (ascorbic acid): Upset stomach, kidney stones, increased iron absorption.
Folic Acid (folate): High levels may, especially in older adults, hide signs of B-12 deficiency, a condition that can cause nerve damage.
Taking too much of a vitamin can also cause problems with some medical tests or interfere with how some drugs work.
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Nitric oxide (NO) is an important signaling molecule that acts in many tissues to regulate a diverse range of physiological and cellular processes. It’s role was first discovered by several groups who were attempting to identify the agent responsible for promoting blood vessel relaxation and regulating vascular tone.
This agent was termed endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF), and was initially assumed to be a protein like most other signaling molecules. The discovery that EDRF was in fact nitric oxide – a highly reactive gas – has led to an explosion of interest in this field, resulted in over 60,000 papers published in the last ten years and won the Nobel prize in 1998.
Nitric oxide has now been demonstrated to play a role in a variety of biological processes including neurotransmission, immune defense, the regulation of cell death and cell motility.
Wondering if nitric oxide supplements will benefit you? Here are 5 reasons to take a nitric oxide supplement:
Nitric Oxide Provides An Energy Boost
To gain muscle you must train hard. Intense training sessions require an abundance of energy, yet we all have our days where we feel fatigued either prior to, or during our workouts. If fatigue is an issue, a nitric oxide supplement can help you.
Nitric oxide helps to deliver oxygen to hard working muscles. Because of this, you will not only be able to train deeper into sets, but also deeper into grueling workouts. Nitric oxide allows you to train longer and stronger, and in this sense, works as an energy booster.
Nitric Oxide Helps To Burn Fat
Everyone wants to keep bodyfat levels to a minimum. Whether you are trying to cut fat and hold on to muscle, or build muscle while minimizing fat gain, you want to keep your metabolism running as fast as possible. A nitric oxide supplement will help you in the battle against fat.
Not only does nitric oxide give you an energy boost, helping you to train longer and more effectively, but it also encourages the body to burn body fat as fuel. A study in the American Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism revealed that 9 subjects supplementing with L-arginine (a nitric oxide precursor) had more glycerol and an increased concentration level of nonesterified fatty acids. These factors indicate a potential to burn more fat.
Nitric Oxide Helps You Recover Faster
Proper recovery is key to building muscle and maximizing athletic performance. When it comes to recovery, you will want all the help you can get. Life doesn’t always cooperate; stress and lack of proper sleep can impact how fast you bounce back during and after a workout.
Nitric oxide improves blood and oxygen flow to the muscles, allowing faster delivery of muscle repairing and fatigue reducing nutrients. Cells will be able to get what they want, when they need it. A nitric oxide supplement will assist you in bouncing back, and prep you for the next workout to come.
Nitric Oxide Pumps You Up!
There is nothing better then feeling jacked in the gym. You hammer out set after set, blasting a muscle beyond fatigue and into the growth zone. Yet many times, it’s hard to tell if the muscle group you are targeting is getting properly hit.
A nitric oxide supplement pumps you up! Nitric oxide contributes to mind blowing muscle pumps, providing confidence that you are properly blasting a muscle. Your muscles will feel full, swole, and ready to burst, motivating you to train harder and longer.
Nitric Oxide Helps You Gain Muscle
Think about this for a moment…if you are able to train longer, stronger, with more energy and motivation, and more focused, what will the result be? The answer is obvious! Faster gains.
Nitric oxide supplementation will directly (and indirectly) lead to increases in muscle mass and strength. Because you are able to train longer, you will train stronger. Because you are able to punish your body with greater weight and intensity, the result will be faster gains.
Conclusion
Nitric oxide products are some of the most popular supplements in the muscle and strength building industry. Why? Because they work, and work well. If you haven’t tried a nitric oxide supplement, now’s the time! It is recommended that you try several different products to see which is best for you.
Here are some of the best selling nitric oxide supplements currently on the market:
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The role and goal of this energy system is to maintain optimal stores before training/ intense training and help maximize resynthesis (rebuilding a damaged section) during exercise. This energy system is very important for athletes involved in strength training programs and intense sports because it helps to fuel “maximal physical effort” during the entire competitive exercise/ game – also it is near impossible to use food sources to load the phosphocreatine system, so supplementation is the best alternative. Phosphocreatine is also called creatine phosphate.
Creatine is a substance found in skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle. Creatine synthesis occurs in the liver, kidneys, and pancreas from the amino acids methionine, glycine, and arginine (Sorry had to get technical). The majority of the body’s creatine resides in the skeletal muscle, which is where about 1/3 of creatine exists. Typically, the body produces about a 1 gram of creatine, obtains 1 gram from food, and loses about 2 grams. The average concentration of total creatine in skeletal muscle varies between 100 and 150 mmol/kg in average weight humans like 160-175 lbs.
See the Phosphocreatine product that I recommend
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