Starting Strength Coach
Supplements
Creatine, beta alanine, l-glutamine, bcaa, fish oil, carnitine, acetyl, greens+.....
The list goes on, what is your opinion and advice on which supplements are worth using for weight training?
✓ Member
I'd skip the extra glutamine. Here's my supplement list based on relative importance and function. Let your wallet be your guide (although if you don't have shoes, a belt, and a decent coach at various intervals I'd start there first):Originally Posted by Toni
-Creatine
-BCAA's w/ leucine and citrulline malate
-vitamin D
-fish oil
-Beta alanine
-HMB
-D-aspartic acid
-L carnitine
-Betaine HCl/probiotics
-multi vitamin
Member
In regards to creatine, what is your recommended dosage?
I have always just taken 5g a day, which seemed to be the general consensus around the place, but after reading the works of CBL by Kiefer he recommends a lot higher dosage. What's your opinion on dosage.
I live in a hot and humid part of the world and as such my creatine always seems to go lumpy after a month or so, is it still good to go? Will it effect it, if I store in the fridge?
Thanks.
This is an awesome sub-forum and you've been doing a great job.
Member
Don't get me wrong, I understand the value of a good multi-vitamin and eating a lot of fish oil makes my joints feel good, how big a difference does the rest of this make? Obviously I don't expect it to replace 300mg of injectable test per week, but is it really worth the time and money to take this stuff and how has it impacted the trainees you've seen who were both serious and consistent with use?
I'm not meaning to derail anything here it's just that I see an aweful lot of people talk about it both good and bad.
Starting Strength Coach
Exellent. Thank you.
What do you think about greens+?
✓ Member
I like anywhere from 10-20g/day but you need to titrate it up to see if you're getting any good effects (or bad effects) or just wasting money. I take 5g of creatine pre and post workout, then another dose with dinner. More than that and my stomach hurts. I haven't been off creatine in like 2 years so I kind of forgot what I feel like without it. I have no idea if creatine denatures or degrades in the heat you get down there, but if it were me, I'd just buy some more pure creatine monohydrate because it's super cheap. No reason to mess around with potentially expired supps.
It's hard to say because the same type of people who get all the supplements and religiously take them are the type of people who eat correctly, train hard, and take recovery seriously. That's not to say that all of the effects are BS or that taking the stuff will turn you into superman, but there's definitely an ergogenic aid in everything I listed. Whether or not you should get them depends on your wallet and how seriously you take everything else. For instance, if you're not tracking your protein intake to make sure you're getting enough in per day/week then skip the HMB and DAA (but BCAA's would be good for ya).
Overall, I don't use all of these things year round except for bcaa's, creatine, fish oil, and vitamin D, but when I really start prepping for a meet then I hammer down and increase my supplement stash.
Greens+ or superfood is okay, although I have yet to be convinced that getting megadoses of antioxidants and vitamins is helpful at all (in fact, the opposite has popped up in the literature more than a few times). I'd only use either product if I was following a keto diet or had some sort of gut pathology that required abstinence from anything fibrous/roughage-like.
Member
Hi, Jordan--
Thanks for all of your work on this forum! You are providing a great service to this community.
I would like to know if you have any views on the value of ZMA, particularly for recovery. I have heard that it is effective, but would like to hear if you have had any experience with it. Also, are there any problems with ZMA if I am also taking Calcium Citrate (about 600 mg with Vitamin D), which my doc has me doing because of another medication I take. Thanks! And Happy New Year!
✓ Member
I like ZMA and take if pretty frequently. That said, I'm not sure of it's interaction with calcium citrate and/or your other medication. I'd call your doc or preferably, his or the hospital's pharmD about this matter.
Member
Will do. Thanks, Jordan.
Member
I am not sure about calcium citrate specifically, but it is recommended that you not take ZMA at the same time as calcium containing products, because the calcium can bond with the magnissium, reducing the amount of each that can be absorbed. Easiest way around this is don't take them within an hour or 2 of each other.
Posting Permissions
