Need Workout Supplements? Here are Your Options

If you're serious about getting into shape, one of the best things you can do is invest in a good workout supplement. Workout supplements are being used more frequently as people realize how effective they are in achieving their goals. For example, many people are looking to lose weight and have been using workout supplements to help them lose weight and gain muscle simultaneously. Unfortunately, many different workout supplements are out there, so it can be hard to know which one to use.

Workout supplements are commonly defined as any nutritional supplement taken to enhance physical performance in sports. There are three principal categories of supplements, pre-workout, during your workout, and post-workout. So how would you know which workout supplement is right for you?

It Depends On Your Goals

To get the best results from any form of supplementation, you need to consider what your goals are. As seen at Wilson Supplements, supplements depend on whether you’d like to increase stamina and endurance or are trying to gain muscle. These are two very different disciplines that require additional supplements. You can always use different formulations together, for example, by using pre-workout energy enhancing supplements to give you the required energy to provide you with the vigor to push through your workout. Then you could use a more traditional whey protein shake post-workout to help in the muscle rebuilding process.

Whatever your goals are, you should make sure only to use the highest quality products. Once you have determined what you want to get from your supplements, you need to consider what possibilities are available.

Building Muscle

When people think of supplements, often the first thing that comes to mind is protein. Essentially when you lift heavy weights, you are creating minuscule tears in your muscles. Your body needs protein to repair the muscles, and it requires a lot of it to rebuild them larger than before.

Lean animal protein is usually considered the best option for this, but it is often not feasible from a cost and time point of view. This is when protein shakes come in useful. They make life far more straightforward for bodybuilders as they come in powder form, and you can keep the powder in your shaker, take it to the gym and then fill it up with water and consume post-workout.

While protein powder is a staple if you want to gain muscle, there are many other aspects to understand. As is the case with most sports these days, bodybuilding is more of a science than a sport.

Some of the other options available to those looking to gain muscles include:

Amino acids: Found in food, and certain types cannot be made by your body. They are beneficial for building muscle and reducing soreness, aka Delayed Onset Muscles Soreness (DOMS).

Creatine: This helps boost the amount of energy that your muscles produce, consequently increasing the amount of weight you can lift. In other words, it enables you to push harder.

Nitric Oxide: When stressed, nutrients and oxygen are delivered more efficiently to muscles thanks to nitric oxides. This means that it takes longer for your muscles to become fatigued.

There are many more different types of supplements that you can use for bodybuilding, but these are the most common.

Increase Stamina

To get the most from a workout and get the gains you desire, you must be able to push past fatigue. Using supplements that enable you to exercise harder, you will be placing stress upon your body, which should result in significant increases when used in conjunction with the correct nutrition. The most obvious and well-known supplement proven to boost endurance is caffeine. You can consume it in its usual form of a cup of black coffee before you hit the gym, or you can take it to another level and get caffeine powder to enable the correct dosing for your needs.

With any supplement, you should be cautious and try not to get carried away, as too much can adversely affect your health. The exact supplements used for helping with building muscles are also used to enhance stamina. For instance, as mentioned already, creatine raises the amount of power your muscles can produce before becoming fatigued. This is just as beneficial in sports such as sprinting as it is in weight lifting.

Recovery

People say that muscle mass is gained in the kitchen and not in the gym! While it is evident that you need to lift heavy weights or exercise to gain muscle and strength, what you do post-workout can indeed make or break your efforts. The recovery phase is vital, and there are different stages to adhere to to get the most benefit.

The first is immediately after your workout. This is usually a protein shake or other form of protein supplement that enables your muscles to receive an instant amount of what they need to heal themselves. The longer you take to feed your muscles, the more likely they will be unable to repair themselves correctly or deficiently. A high-quality Branched Chain Amino Acid (BCAA) will also do wonders in giving your body a surge of oxygen and nutrient-enriched blood. These are best when used in combination with the protein powder as it means that it will reach your muscles far more efficiently.

The next step for recovery is not anything to do with supplements but rather making sure that you eat healthy and clean food. By this, we mean to stay away from processed foods or those high in sugar and worthless carbohydrates. Eat regularly and ensure that you get enough protein for your body weight, often stated as 0.5 to 0.8 grams per pound of your mass.

With hundreds of workout supplements on the market today, it can be a real challenge to know which supplements are worth your money. By understanding your goals and abilities, you will be able to use supplements to your advantage. It is also important to realize that they are merely a tool to help you push harder, but you must also eat properly and live your life healthily.