Best Supplements for Building Muscle

When most of us think of supplements in a specific sense, our minds tend to jump towards those compounds that either improve our performance or help us change the way we look – and if we consider the nature of the supplement industry (and how health conscious we are as a nation), this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

With this in mind, this area of the supplement industry is arguably the largest, with supplements suggested to improve our ability to build muscle making up a huge part of this.

Although building muscle is unquestionably a good thing for those of us who enjoy going to the gym and want to see some results from our training, it also has a host of other benefits associated.

As muscle tissue is considered ‘active’ in nature (meaning it requires energy to survive and function), those individuals with more muscle muss tend to have a greater resting metabolic rates. This means it is much easier for them to lose fat specific weight as they use more energy on a daily basis.

An increase in muscle mass has also been shown to improve our ability to manage both our blood sugar and blood cholesterol levels. This can significantly reduce our risk of developing metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, while also protecting our cardiovascular system form disease and illness.

And finally, having more muscle mass on our frame has been shown to improve our ability to function on a day to day basis. As we age, this means maintaining our ability to complete tasks essential to daily living, while also reducing our risk of falls substantially.

In short, maintaining muscle mass means maintaining our independence.

So yeah, building muscle is important.

What Do Muscle Building Supplements Do?

Now here’s the kicker.

Muscle building supplements have the potential to help us build muscle.

When I say help, I am insinuating that they can’t do it all for us – because they can’t. 

Muscle building supplements have the potential to enhance the effectiveness of a good quality diet and a solid resistance training routine. Now don’t get me wrong, if we have these things in place already these supplements have the capacity to take our muscle building to the next level.

They can increase our ability to perform in the gym, meaning we promote the growth of more muscle tissue. They can also provide the body with essential nutrients required to build muscle after a workout, speeding up the rate at which we can build muscle.

They can supplement (pun intended) a good diet and exercise regime to help us build more muscle at a much faster rate.

What Should I Look for in a Muscle Building Supplement?

While there is a vast number of compounds that have been suggested to help us build muscle, only a few have an abundance of scientific evidence to support their use. These include:

• Creatine: is a compound found in our muscle tissue that can be used to produce energy at an extremely rapid rate. As such, the supplementation of creatine has the potential to increase the amount of energy we have available to perform weight based training. With this in mind, the consumption of creating in conjunction with resistance training has been shown to cause substantial increases in muscle mass – especially when compared to those individuals who train without supplementing with creatine ^[1].
• Whey Protein: is a specific type of protein supplement that is absorbed rapidly into the body. As protein is what makes up our muscle tissue, consuming whey protein after we exercise provides the muscles with nutrients essential to building new muscle fibers. This can led to substantial increases in muscle growth ^[2].
• Nitrates: are a specific type of compound that are found in beets, which are turned into nitric oxide once consumed and absorbed by the body. Nitric oxide promotes the flow of blood to the muscle tissue, which can increase its ability to get essential nutrients. As such, the supplementation of nitrates have been shown to cause an increase in muscle growth ^[3].

Best Supplements for Building Muscle Reviews

Now the issue with these types of supplement being the most popular within the industry, is that the market has become somewhat compromised with a host of subpar options. These are typically full of low cost and ineffective fillers that render the supplement completely useless.

With this in mind, we have gone ahead and done all the hard work for you, finding what we believe to be the best three muscle building supplements on the market today.

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein Powder

It’s really all in the name.

This Optimum nutrition protein powder is free of any fillers, providing you with a pure and solid serving of high quality whey protein. This makes it the perfect supplement to be consumed post workout, providing the body with those nutrients essential to build new muscle tissue efficiently and effectively.

Optimum Nutrition Creatine Powder

In a similar vein to the protein powder outlined above, Optimum Nutrition also produce an extremely high quality creatine powder that is also devoid of all fillers. This makes it the perfect option to take daily as a way to ensure our muscle cells are completely full of creatine.

As an added bonus this particular form of creatine has been micronized, meaning it is absorbed much more easily into the body.

Nature’s Way Beet Root Powder Capsules

This particular supplement is derived solely from beets, making it an excellent source of nitrates. With this in mind, it should be taken before exercise to promote blood flow to the muscle tissue, increasing the availability of nutrients to our muscle tissue.

This can lead to a large increase in the body’s ability to build muscle, while also enhancing our rate of recovery after exercise.

Take-away Message

Muscle building supplements are one of the most scientifically supported in existence, with the only caveat being that they are only really effective when combined with resistance training exercise.

It is worth noting that their effectiveness increases if our diet also provides the body with essential nutrients required to enhance function and recovery.

If you have had any experience with the three excellent supplements outlined in this article we would love to hear about it, so drop us a comment and we will get back to you ASAP.