To some, I am preaching to the choir. To others, they will just disregard what I am about to post and continue doing what they do. For the rest, hear me out.
Supplements and supplement timing is such a huge part of weight lifting. It's actually become overwhelmingly so, and some push it as far as being almost a mental disorder. There was a time, a few years ago, that I felt I had to squeeze every bit of nutritional "tactic" as possible. I Would set my timer, eat my simple carbs PWO, take my pre workout Whey, and make sure to eat a good meal at the 1 hour mark. I literally followed all the rules, had all the science to back it up etc.
Then came a day that I wanted to get lean after having several bad attempts at it. My focus was only to get ripped. I figured out that calories and macros were king, and everything will follow. I stopped all of my supps, all of the timing BS, and wouldn't you know it, I not only lost fat, but my gains were incredible. All these years I just hadn't been eating right. All of the supps and tricks in the world couldn't make up for my bad diet.
Sure, to this day I am still not "huge". I am pretty sure I am a just short of having the genetics of a 10 year old girl, but it was a damn good wake up call for me. I made more gains in the last 2 years than I had in almost 4 years of training total prior to that.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are circumstances where supps are good; Loss of appetite, on vacation and/or traveling and packing meals isn't an option etc. OTOH, to depend on supps and expecting good progress based solely on those, you're not going to be making optimal gains, IMHO.
On a final note, regardless of whether you're dieting or bulking or maintaining, it's always the same; food, food, food, THEN training, then rest, then, in a very far last place, supps.
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Absolutely ON SPOT Shorty. However should anyone be surprised considering the dearth of evidence supporting the use of "supplements", NIMO!
On a final note, I would add one daily multivitamin MAY be a worthwhile expenditure for some athletes, in addition to protein supplementation, especially ESSENTIAL Amino Acids.
What about AA makes them so important. CONVENIENCE and bioavailability are realities of the fast paced life we all live and if your attempting to create an environment for SKM hypertrophy the maintenance of a POSITIVE NITROGEN BALANCE at all times is optimal.
The latter feature of AA supplementation is one reason they have become an trite component of most Body Builders diet.
How MUCH protein is ENOUGH? There is NO DIRECT EVIDENCE BASED ANSWER to that question BUT many sports medicine physiologists suggest a DOUBLING of the RDA which approximates ONE GRAM PER KILO! So now we are at ONE GRAM PER POUND OF TBW!
For many that quantity approaches the impossible ABSENT SUPPLEMENTATION, when their lifestyle, employment and exercise routines are taken into account.
Obviously the quality of protein itself is very important. Indeed that's why it's so difficult for VEGETARIANS to improve MASS compared to their CARNIVOROUS competitors, because almost ALL vegetable protein is incomplete (does NOT contain all nine essential amino acids) the exception being except SOY and QUORN.
The other factor which is also very important is the bioavailability of the protein ingested. That's what so sublime about the new generation of protein supplements.
After years of improvisation the separation of milk protein into it's constituent parts (carbs, protein, fats) has been markedly simplified thru the use of en bloc Ionic Protein Electrophoresis (IPE) at a HUGE cost saving to the consumer. The end result is a variety of complete protein products which are relatively inexpensive, with EXCELLENT bioavailability and reasonably flavorful, IME.
BEST
JIM
