When it comes to finding the best muscle building supplements, there’s a big difference between effective supplements that can get the ball rolling and those that just hype things up.
Depending on a number of factors, including age, genetics and training status, experts say the average amount of muscle you can legally packing on your body (read: no steroids) is one to two books per month. Can you build more than that? Maybe. But it takes the right combination of regular workouts, proper diet and targeted supplements to outperform the average.
What are the best supplements for muscle building? The list of ingredients that really work is shorter than you think. But if your goal is high performance, this is where supplementation can make a real difference.
What is the best supplement for gaining muscle?
Protein powder is the foundation of your muscle supplementation plan.
What are proteins used for?
Intense muscular effort can cause damage, and protein is needed to help your body recover and repair that damage, a process known as muscle protein synthesis. When you repair muscle fibers broken down by strength training, they grow.
This is why high-quality protein powder is so beneficial. Taken in sufficient quantities, it provides your body with the nutrients it needs to support muscle growth.*
All proteins are made up of amino acids, and some of them, like leucine (one of the three BCAAs), are more important for promoting muscle growth. The International Society of Sports Nutrition recommends protein sources that are high in leucine and include a balanced array of essential amino acids, so called because they are not produced naturally by the body and therefore must be consumed through the diet.
How much protein should you eat?
In general, you want to eat about 1.4 has 2.2g of protein per kilogram of your current body weight per day. So, if you weigh 180 pounds (about 82 kg), you should eat about 115 to 180 g of protein per day.
That’s why protein powders are the foundation of your muscle-building plan: they provide a concentrated amount of protein that’s easy to consume.
What is the best form of protein?
Your best options, depending on your dietary preferences, are whey protein and pea protein.
Whey is derived from milk and is the fastest digesting form of protein. It mainly comes in two formulations: concentrate and isolate, with whey protein isolate being the purer of the two and also the form used in Beachbody Performance Recovery.
If you follow a vegan or vegetarian diet, or are sensitive to dairy, pea protein (like that used in the plant-based formulation of Beachbody Performance Recovery) is your best choice due to its high leucine content. Most other plants, such as rice or hemp, offer less complete protein profiles.
What is the best way to consume protein
Aim for approximately 20 to 40 g of protein per meal from any source. Protein powders are most convenient about two hours before or after your workout.
You can also take a slow-digesting protein, such as casein or milk protein isolate, before bed to promote muscle growth while you sleep.
What other muscle building supplements actually work?
Different supplements take different approaches to achieving the end goal of muscle growth. Here are the main ingredients and their different mechanisms of action.
1. Creatine
A compound commonly found in meat, creatine helps increase strength, endurance and power and supports muscle growth. Perhaps most importantly, it is the most clinically tested performance supplement you can buy.
Creatine is found in many foods, including beef, chicken, milk and cheese, but in amounts so small that you would have to eat it two to three pounds of meat per day to get the same benefit from about a teaspoon of powder.
How does creatine work?
Creatine provides extra energy during brief, intense periods of anaerobic activity, providing additional phosphate to the cycle that produces ATP, your body’s primary fuel source. And that extra energy can make a significant difference to your strength: in a review of 22 studiesParticipants who used creatine showed an eight percent increase in strength compared to those who did not use it.
And the boost you get during strength training also shows up in short-duration activities like sprints, leading to improvements in speed and recovery between efforts. It can even help speed up the process by which you regain lost muscle.*
What is the best way to consume creatine
Your best option is creatine monohydrate; no other form comes close in terms of clinical research. In general, aim for 5g per day, and up to 10 g if you have more muscle mass. It also doesn’t matter when you take the supplement, as long as you take it regularly every day.
Some favor a “loading” period in which larger amounts of creatine are initially taken daily for a brief period before progressing to an ongoing program of regular servings.*
You can mix creatine in hot or cold liquids, but the hotter the temperature, the faster the creatine will break down before consumption. Creatine remains stable in liquid for only short period of timewhich makes its powder form the most reliable.
2. Beta-alanine
If you want to build more muscle, there are three main ways to do it: muscle tension, metabolic stressand muscle damage. All three are triggered by training harder and longer. This is where beta-alanine is your friend.
How does beta-alanine work?
Beta-alanine contributes to the production of carnosine, which helps reduce muscle fatigue and improves endurance during intense, intense exercises like weight training.*
What is the best way to consume beta-alanine
To see the effects of beta-alanine, you need to consume at least 1.6 g per day, with an upper limit of 6g per day. It will take some time for beta-alanine to build up in your system. It is therefore important to take beta-alanine regularly. Noticeable benefits may require four to eight weeks of regular consumption.
For some people, beta-alanine may trigger a mild “tingling” effect that some people find unusual. The more beta-alanine you take, the more likely you are to feel this tingling sensation.
To help overcome this effect, you can consume a time-release beta-alanine formula, split your dose, or take it with food and extra water. For example, by taking Beachbody Performance EnergizationIf you don’t like the tingling sensation, simply mix it with more water and take it with food.
3. HMB
Hydroxymethylbutyrate (HMB) is a compound resulting from the metabolism of leucine in the body. Often taken to help curb muscle loss due to aging, HMB supplementation taken for exercise was also found to have a positive impact on muscle mass, performance and recovery.
How does HMB work?
THE effects of HMB are twofold: on the one hand, it helps to promote muscle protein synthesis, the process by which proteins become muscle after exercise, and on the other hand, it helps to decrease the breakdown of muscle proteins.
THE result is increased muscle growth, strength and power with improved recovery. However, HMB requires a level of activity sufficient to cause muscle damage – either high intensity and/or high volume – in order to to be the most effective.*
What is the best way to consume HMB
The International Society of Sports Nutrition said HMB can be consumed for its chronic (continuous) and acute (momentary) benefits. In either case, you will need to consume more than 600 g of protein per day to synthesize the amount of dietary leucine (60 g) needed to obtain the recommended daily dose of HMB used in human studies. HMB is therefore generally increased via supplementation.
For chronic benefits, the ISSN recommends consuming 3 g of HMB, divided into three servings per day, for two weeks before an intense workout sufficient to cause muscle damage. For acute benefits, the organization suggests taking 3 g of HMB at least 60 minutes before intense exercise, longer if accompanied by glucose.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
