The process of building muscle in the body is nearly an art form. There are thousands of people who go to the gym every day in order to build more muscle. Unfortunately, many of these very people are stuck in a hopeless pursuit because they are not doing things properly to help the body build muscle. Let’s check out the best muscle building supplements.
On top of exercising and maintaining a good diet, there are also supplements you can take that will help to give your body the boost it needs to build the muscle that you want. In this article, we are going to take a look at three of the best mucle building supplements that you can buy to help your training regimen produce the results that you want.
You do not need to have a filing cabinet full of supplements in order to have an effective and rewarding training schedule. In fact, you only really need a few things. For the body to be put into a hypertrophic state it needs proper nutrition, rest, and training.
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How do muscle building supplements work?
If you are trying to produce more muscle for your body it is important that you understand how the body grows. For the body to produce more muscle it means to enter a hypertrophic state. This is the opposite of an anabolic state where the body is broken down.
To enter a hypertrophic state you need to eat more calories than you burn, take in more protein than you use, rest well, and train regularly. Even if you are able to do all of these things perfectly it does not guarantee that you will be able to build more muscle for your body. Here are three of the best supplements that can help push your training regimen to the next level in terms of results.
Best Muscle Building Supplements
Creatine
Creatine is produced within the body naturally and is also one of the best supplements that you can have for building more muscle. According to the NIH, who performed a study on how creatine affects the strength of the muscles in the upper body, the supplementation of creatine is effective for producing more muscle and strength in the upper body. The way that creatine functions are by helping to replenish the phosphate that is taken from the ATP molecules used whenever a muscle is activated.
If you take creatine supplements then it is actually possible to bring your body’s levels above what they otherwise would have been naturally. As the body’s energy, it metabolizes the adenosine triphosphate to produce energy that will be directed to the muscles. This energy is what you exert any time that you are lifting a weight or moving in general. After the adenosine triphosphate has been metabolized by the body it loses one of the phosphate molecules that must be replaced before it can be put in use again.
Creatine actually replaces this phosphate ion almost instantaneously and because the level of creatine in your body is directly committed to the amount of power that your muscles can output it will teach you to have an increase in your strength. The increase in your strength will allow you to more weight while you are working out. This, in turn, will lead to you having more and better results from your workout routine over time. Creatine also will bring water into the muscle cells that can increase the level of growth-promoting hormones like IGF-I.
Creatine has been extensively studied and of all the supplements that are sold for athletic performance enhancement. The standard dose of creatine monohydrate is 5g, and it is one of the most well-supported supplement in terms of actual evidence showing it improves athletic performance.
Protein Powder
Protein powder may be more common than some other types of supplements and for good reason. For the body to build muscle it must bring in more protein than it breaks down during the exercise. If it does not then all that will happen is that muscle is broken down and not enough is build back up to replace that which was lost.
While technically it is possible to get every gram of protein that you need from your diet if you are training athletically this is exceedingly difficult to do so the further along in your career you progress. Instead of relying solely on your diet to provide all of the protein that you need you can try out a protein powder supplement instead. Today there are multiple types of protein powder supplements you can take. Some of them are made to be broken down and absorbed by your body instantly for use immediately after a workout while others will stay around and break down over a longer period of time to make sure that your body always has plenty of protein.
Increasing your total caloric intake is important but it has been shown that people who eat high carb diets actually produce less muscle gain over time than people who consume more of their diet from protein.
If you are actively trying to develop more muscle than the right amount of protein for you to consume my daily basis is around 0.5 to 1 g of protein per pound of bodyweight. If you are able to consume this much protein on a daily basis then you should have more than enough to grow plenty of muscle.
Branched-Chain Amino Acids
Branched-chain amino acids are part of the building blocks of protein. In total, around 14% of the protein in your body is made up of branched-chain amino acids. They are a critical component of the muscle-building process and can be consumed as a natural part of your diet or through specific bodybuilding supplements.
Branched-chain amino acids are made of three different types of regular amino acids isoleucine, leucine, and valine. Research has shown that these types of amino acids are essential for the growth of your muscles but it does seem that supplementation is not as powerful as some of the other bodybuilding supplements that are available.
One of the things that it did do incredibly well as prevent the body from breaking down muscles that already existed. This means that these particular supplements could be beneficial if you do not have enough protein in your diet and need to increase your intake of amino acids or if you are trying to take a supplement to prevent your body from breaking down the muscles that you have already built. In either of these scenarios, these particular supplements should do wonderfully.
Final Thoughts
Building muscle isn’t rocket science – combine training with proper nutrition and rest, and you’re bound to see results. Incorporating the three supplements we’ve covered in this article is icing on the cake, and can help get you the results you’re aiming for.
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