Okay, before getting started, let’s be clear on this…
You just bought protein powder shakes for weight gain or started taking a few pills and thought that you would suddenly become huge.
This is the common mistake that most people are making.
Even the best supplements for muscle mass in the market will not help you if you don’t do your training and dieting correctly; they will only give you very expensive urine.
All the best muscle-building supplements available will give you maximum benefits only if aspects of your program are in order.
From my experience, “muscle gaining supplements” enhances your program by:
- Giving you some convenience: If you are busy and don’t have enough time to get your required nutrients each day, using food supplements like Meal Replacement Powders and whey protein helps to eliminate the common problem of ‘not enough time’. It will give you a quick and efficient way to get your required nutrients daily.
2. Increasing muscle strength and decreasing recovery time: Using vitamin and amino acid supplements helps to minimize the negative side effects of weight training and speed up your recovery.
The Benefits of Convenience
There are many traditional bodybuilders and trainers who say that muscle gaining supplements are useless. They constantly give sermons that they don’t work, and there is no need for them. They are, in fact, correct, somewhat. You should know that supplements were invented only a short time ago.
Bodybuilders built excellent physiques without meal replacement powders, creatine, or prohormones. Exercise machines did not exist at that time. They used free weights and compound exercises which increased their muscular size, making them incredibly strong. So if you look at it that way, it can be done, and you don’t need any supplements.
When making a decision whether or not to take supplements to increase muscle mass, it should come only after considering other factors that may come into play when speaking of dieting today. The first of which is time.
In today’s busy life, people don’t have time to live, eat, and breathe food. Very few people like cooking nowadays, and only a few do cooking in their homes daily. When was the last time that you had six meals that you cooked yourself? People who are against supplements say that you should get all the nutrients you need from your diet. ‘Eat a balanced diet and you will get all the nutrition you need’. Well, 100 years ago that may have been true, but today this type of advice is questionable.
Nowadays, most people think that a good meal is a restaurant or (even worse) fast food. To ask someone to eat specific amounts of protein, fat, and carbs seems like an impossible request considering that most people can’t even get their minimum requirements of good fat or fiber. Experts always want you to eat a balanced diet, while Americans feast on nutritionless fast food and sugar. Our bodies would have to deal with the ever-increasing external stress of today’s life as well as having to combat nutrient-depleting, tissue-damaging exercise.
If there was not an option to supplement my diet with whey protein, I would not have gained as much weight as I have. But I am not saying whey protein is the only reason why I gained weight. But it did help me a great deal.
I am a busy man, and I don’t have the time, and I am not willing to eat 6 planned whole food meals per day. Supplements like meal replacement powders and whey protein give me the required nutrition.
Generally, I consume three real food meals and three protein supplement meals; the required six meals per day are met. When I am not at home or not able to get an adequate meal, my MRP is there at the needed time. It gives me a quantifiable amount of protein so that I can keep track of my nutrient intake. In my opinion, this is much better than just grabbing something and then trying to guess at how much protein, fat, or carbs you just ate. Getting in all of your required meals and nutrient amounts is crucial to your success.
My mass diet requires a very high daily protein intake—over 300g per day. Just to give you an example of how much that is, here are some examples of what 300g of protein is equal to:
- Tuna—50 oz of canned tuna (the average can is 6-8oz.), which is 1,750 calories and 25g of fat.
- Chicken—38 oz of chicken breast (equals about seven 6oz breasts), which is 1,313 calories and 38g of saturated fat.
- Beef—43 oz of lean ground beef (about 2.7 pounds of meat), which is 3,214 calories and 215g of saturated fat.
- Eggs—50 large whole eggs, equals 3,750 calories and 250g of saturated fat.
- Egg whites—100 egg whites, equals 1,600 calories and almost no fat.
- Pure whey protein—15 scoops of EAS Precision Protein, equals 1,500 calories and 7.5g of saturated fat.
By only eating whole foods it is possible to get the amount. But it needs lots of work. Also, as you can see from the above numbers, getting all of your protein from regular food will also bring a lot of unnecessary elements like extra saturated fat. If your goal is to gain mass you should eat a lot of calories including fat. But the main fat intake should consist of unsaturated fats that are liquid at room temperature like olive oil, flaxseed oil, sunflower oil, and safflower oil. Whey protein supplements will help give you extra protein without the fat
Increased Strength and Decreased Recovery
In addition to a whey protein supplement, I recommend that everyone should be taking a multi-vitamin, plenty of vitamin C, and glutamine. Creatine can also be added if you are over 18.
Multi-Vitamin
While doing weight training, our body has an increase in the need for minerals like magnesium and selenium. The multi-vitamin ensures that I am not deficient in any major essential vitamin or mineral. Symptoms of deficiency include muscle weakness, suppression of the immune system, muscle cramping, and fatigue.
Grown men do not need additional iron. I always take a multi-vitamin without iron. We get enough from our food. Men and postmenopausal women should never take iron supplements unless they have iron-deficiency anemia, which is only diagnosed by blood tests. The body has no way to eliminate excess iron except through blood loss. Women who menstruate are protected from iron overload, obviously. Iron is also an oxidizing agent that can cause damage to the heart and arteries and is a major risk factor in arteriosclerosis.
Vitamin C
Free radical damage is prevented by Vitamin C essentials, and by weight training you create heavy trauma which accelerates it. Vitamin C is also essential in helping to repair connective tissue which helps decrease the amount of time you are sore. I am used to training very heavily and extremely hard. When I train my legs, I will usually be sore for about 5-6 days afterwards.
If I do not supplement my diet with vitamin C, I would normally be sore for almost 10 days! So, it really helps me to recover and get back to training. I typically take around 3,000mg in divided doses. That would equal quite a few oranges!
Glutamine
Glutamine is an amino acid that is produced by our bodies, but most of the time our bodies demand so much that it can’t create enough. I supplement my diet with glutamine to increase my levels of glutathione. Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant, which helps to combat the stresses of exercise trauma and prevent muscle protein breakdown.
I especially believe that it helps prevent my body from breaking down my new muscle while I am asleep, so I never go to bed without taking it. I take about 15g per day (in divided doses), which would be impossible to get naturally.
Creatine Monohydrate
Creatine’s purpose is to supply our muscle with energy. It is also found in red meat, but you would have to eat an enormous amount of meat to get the same benefits as taking pure creatine powder. Everyone knows about creatine, so I will not go into it here, but I do want to say that the major benefit from taking creatine is that it will increase your strength.
This will enable you to lift heavier weights, which will stimulate more muscle growth. Many people make a big fuss over the muscle-volumizing effects of creatine because if you stop taking it, you lose that extra fluid that creatine brings into your cells. So what! You certainly DO NOT lose the extra muscle creatine helped you to gain.
I can honestly say that I could not have built the body I have today without the convenience and enhancements supplements provide. I simply don’t have the time or desire to do it any other way. This is a choice that you must decide for yourself. You will be spending your money on these products, so make sure that you know their place in your program.
Don’t get caught up in product hype. Muscle gaining supplements will help, but they will NOT do the work for you.
