Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The 3 Best (and Worst) Muscle Building Supplements

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

I've tried a lot of supplements in my 13 years in the gym. Protein supplements, pre-workout supplements, fat loss supplements, and, of course, muscle building supplements. You see, I used to think that supplementation is far more important than it really is. I naively bought into the myth that supplement companies were on the cutting edge of science. That they were in the business of selling legitimate products that delivered tangible benefits. Well, I've since pulled the wool from my eyes. And here's what I've learned: The vast majority of workout supplements--and especially those that claim to aid in muscle growth--do absolutely nothing. Scientifically speaking, they're just overpriced placebos. That said, not all supplements--including muscle building products--are worthless. There are natural substances that are scientifically proven to help you build muscle, lose fat, and stay healthy...if they're used properly. They aren't game changers in the ways that proper diet and training are, but they're result amplifiers. And in this podcast, I want to talk about "muscle builders" specifically. I've wasted a small fortune on these types of supplements over the years, and I don't want you to make the same mistake. Instead, if you're going to spend money on supplements, I want you to get your money's worth. So let's start with debunking three of the most popular muscle building supplements out there... Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for women, thinner,, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean sexy strong and healthy bodies they truly desire and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body then you want to read thinner leaner stronger today which you

can find on all major online retailers like audibleudible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audiobooks. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to thinner,

leaner, stronger for free. All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now. At least let's get to the show. Hey, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics. And in this video podcast, we are going to talk muscle building supplements and in particular, three of the best and worst ones on the market. So the first thing that you need to know about muscle building supplements is that most are worthless. Most do absolutely nothing. And even the ones that can help are supplementary by definition. They are not game changers. They cannot make up for major deficits in your diet or training. They can only help you gain muscle and strength a little bit faster when you are also doing all of the most important

things in the kitchen and gym correctly. And that means then, of course, that you don't need to take any muscle building supplements, even the ones that are good, that can help. You don't need them. So don't feel like you have to take them or if you don't take them, you are at a major disadvantage because that is not the case. And that really goes for all supplements. You don't need any supplements whatsoever. and overall health and well-being from proper diet and proper exercise and healthy living, I guess you could say. So if you get most of your calories from relatively unprocessed nutritious foods and you are active, you are exercising, let's say three to five hours a week. And I would also add to that, it would be best, I think, to focus most

of that time on some form of resistance training and you have good sleep hygiene and you are not super stressed all the time. If you just do all the basic things that make for good health, supplements are not necessary. Okay, so let's talk about muscle building supplements that do not work. The three worst muscle building supplements. So the first is testosterone boosters. And these types of supplements are very popular these days, partly because testosterone levels in men, at least here in the West, have been declining for a number of decades now. And more and more guys are concerned that their testosterone levels are declining as well, or are actually dealing with low testosterone levels. And while it would be nice if you could just pop a few pills of natural safe ingredients every day and experience a significant increase in your testosterone levels, you can't. There currently is nothing natural that we know about that has any sort of valid scientific evidence under its belt that is able to make a significant difference in testosterone production. And if you look at the formulations of many of these products,

many of these testosterone boosters, you will find that most of them are built around or really centered around ingredients that either have no scientific evidence of efficacy or have been proven to simply not work. For example, many of these products contain tribulus terrestris, which is a plant, and many of them contain that as their first ingredient, meaning that it contains more tribulus terrestris than anything else because that's how ingredients work on labels. They are listed by predominance by weight, meaning that there is the most in the product of the first ingredient, the second most of the second, and so forth. And the problem with Tribulus Terrestris is, although it was once

believed due to some rat research that it may be able to increase testosterone in humans, that theory has since been disproven by a number of clinical trials. We know now that tribulus terrestris does not increase testosterone levels. It does not increase muscle growth. It does not increase strength gain. It has absolutely no value as a testosterone booster or muscle builder or strength gainer. Another common ingredient in testosterone boosters that can't live up to the hype is ZMA, which is simply zinc and magnesium. And this is not going to increase your testosterone levels unless you are very deficient in zinc. And in that case, you could just eat a better diet or supplement with zinc. You don't necessarily need ZMA. Now that said,

magnesium, like potassium, is a mineral that many people actually don't get enough of through their diets. And that can be corrected by eating a better diet or supplementation. My go-to advice for everybody is to eat a better diet so you're not having to swallow tons of pills and powders every day just to get enough essential vitamins and minerals. Yet another ingredient that is common in testosterone boosters that is not all it is cracked up to be is D-aspartic acid or DAA. Now, DAA exploded in popularity after a study was published in 2009 that showed that it may be able to significantly increase testosterone levels in both humans and rats. Well, two further studies have been published since then, and they lend a bit more perspective. And while we don't have to go into the details here, the bottom line is that DAA may be able to slightly increase testosterone for a short period of time. I'm talking like two or three weeks in some people and in others, it will do

nothing. Now, those are just a few examples of some of the common ingredients that you find in these products that are not going to make a difference, at least not going to make any kind of difference that matters. Others include saw palmetto, horny goatweed, uricoma, longifolia, holy basil, and velvet antler. And we don't have to go through them one by one because the story is more or less the same for all of them. They either lack credible human research or just lack research altogether and are being sold on hypotheses that have no evidence and have not been tested. And something else to keep in mind with natural testosterone boosters or really anything natural that you want to do

to increase testosterone production, it could be lifestyle stuff as well, is if you are just trying to have a bit more energy and a bit more sex drive, okay, that's understandable and probably could be accomplished naturally if you are currently doing things, and that could be on the dietary side of things, or it could be more on lifestyle, maybe not getting enough sleep, or maybe not doing enough your natural testosterone levels to accomplish that, to have a bit more energy, a bit more pep, and a bit more sex drive. If, however, your goal is to gain muscle and strength faster, it is very unlikely that you are going to be able to do anything natural to make a big difference there. I would say an exception would be if you had someone whose testosterone was bottomed out, they were at the absolute bottom of the natural range and through fixing their lifestyle and so forth, and it'd be more of those things, it would not be supplementation, but through fixing their lifestyle, fixing their diet, fixing their exercise routine, and so on, they are able to significantly increase

that to, let's say, toward the higher end of what is naturally attainable. That probably would impact muscle and strength gain to some degree. But for the average person who has average, talking men here, really, very few women are concerned about their testosterone production. So you take the average guy with an average level of testosterone, there's nothing he's going to be able to do naturally to significantly increase his muscle and strength gain. That requires pushing your testosterone levels well beyond what is naturally attainable. And the only way to do that is with steroids, is with exogenous introduced from the outside hormones like testosterone, for example. Hey, before we continue, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere,

and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my best-selling health and fitness books. My most popular ones are Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical hands-on blueprint for personal transformation, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever. And you can find them anywhere online where you can buy books like Amazon, Audible, iTunes,

anywhere online where you can buy books like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes and Noble stores. So again, that is Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and one other thing is you can get any one of those audio books 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account. And that's a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. Now, if you want to take Audible up on that offer and get one of my audio books for free, just go to legionathletics.com slash audible and sign up for your account. Okay, so let's move on to the second popular supplement that is not going to help you build

muscle faster. And that is BCAAs or branched chain amino acids. So BCAAs are three amino acids. You have leucine, isoleucine, and valine. And the idea is that because leucine directly stimulates protein synthesis, supplementing with a bunch of it is going to maximize protein synthesis. Isoleucine and valine are kind of just along for the ride there because isoleucine does weakly stimulate protein synthesis but not nearly as much as leucine and valine seems to have no effect in this regard now i wish that bcaas did help you gain muscle or strength faster or did anything worthwhile really because they are very popular. I get asked all the time to make a BCAA supplement or asked when am I going to make a BCAA supplement and my standard answer is I'm not and I don't plan on ever making one because unfortunately

there is no good use for the supplement other than just drinking tasty water and I explain that to people. I have a whole copy paste and I have articles that I link people to as well if they want to just learn more about the supplement and why I don't offer one and don't plan on offering one. And funny enough, oftentimes people reply and appreciate the explanation and that I have some integrity and I'm not making a supplement that I don't believe in just for the sake of making money, but ask if I still could make one simply because they just like drinking BCAAs, even though they acknowledge that there's probably no reason at all, especially if you had a high protein diet. And that's really what this comes down to is BCAAs could make sense if you are protein deficient, but if you're eating enough protein, you have no reason to supplement BCAAs. And so anyways, people understand that, but still just like drinking them.

a supplement saying, hey, basically this supplement isn't going to do any of the things that other people say it does and aren't going to do any of the things that probably brought you here in the first place, but they will make your water really tasty. Now, one slight exception here, one valid use of BCAAs is with fasted training. So if you are training in a fasted state, let's say you're cutting and you're wanting to use a supplement like yohimbine and maybe combining it with something like sinephrine and some caffeine to get a fat loss boost, and that does work. One of the downsides of fasted training is muscle breakdown rates are higher and really start to ramp up afterward. And so it can make sense to have, it's really what we're talking about is leucine. It can to have two to three grams of

leucine before you go into that workout. And yes, that is going to slightly and temporarily raise insulin levels, but not nearly as much as food, not as much as having a scoop of protein powder, for example. So oftentimes people will take BCAAs instead of straight leucine because they either don't know that it's really just the leucine that they're after, or they don't like how leucine tastes, which I understand if you buy bulk leucine and try it, you will get it too. It's very bitter. It is bad. Now that said, I prefer HMB over leucine for use with fast training, which is a perfect segue into leucine metabolism in the body. So when your body breaks leucine down, HMB is one of the substances that is produced. Now, I just said that I like HMB for use with fast training.

And now I'm saying it's a bad muscle builder. What gives? Well, it is a bad muscle builder, which is how it is most often sold. In fact, over the years, it has even been sold as more effective than steroids. There is a very controversial study that was published years ago that seemed to demonstrate just that. seemed to demonstrate just that. I don't remember the exact numbers, so don't quote me on those, but the concept that I have is correct. And it was a 10-week study, I believe. And basically what it came down to is what this study quote-unquote found is that HMB supplementation resulted in, I want to say say somewhere around eight to 10 pounds of muscle

gain and three to six pounds of fat loss, something like that in 10 weeks, period, just caused by a supplement. Yeah, I don't think so ever, ever. A few other studies have been published over the years as well that seemed to demonstrate more moderate benefits in terms of muscle and strength gain, mostly not fat loss. But one of the big problems is those studies were funded by Steve Nissen, who is the inventor of HMB and the owner of the patent. Conflict of interest? But several independent studies have also been conducted and the consensus is that HMB does not affect body composition. In fact, I will quote a review here that was conducted by scientists from Massey University. They looked at all the existing literature on HMB and here's what they said. Supplementation with HMB during

resistance training incurs small but clear overall and leg strength gains in previously untrained men, but effects in trained lifters are trivial. The HMB effect on body composition is inconsequential. So the bottom line with HMB is if you are taking it in combination with fasted training to just mitigate some of the acceleration in muscle breakdown rates, that makes sense. However, if you are taking it for any other reason related to body composition, that doesn't make sense. And that is why, by the way, my pre-workout fat burner Forge contains HMB along with yohimbine, which I mentioned, and CDP choline. Okie dokie. So that is it for the three worst, most popular muscle building supplements out there.

Let's talk good ones and let's start with just protein powder. So while protein powder has no special muscle building properties, it does make it easier to eat a high protein diet, which helps you gain muscle faster, period. No question here. There's been a lot of research over the last several decades on protein intake and muscle gain. And the long story short is you want to be eating somewhere around 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day to maximize muscle gain. Now you don't need protein powder to get that much protein, but it is convenient. If you were to do it with just food, sometimes balancing your macros can be tricky. Some people also don't like how much time it adds in terms of shopping and cooking and meal prepping. It also means carrying around more pre-made meals or bringing

more pre-made food to the office. Some people don't like that. And it usually entails eating a lot of a small variety of high protein, lower calorie foods, which gets pretty boring for some people. Now, protein powder, on the other hand, is great because it makes for a quick and easy snack, especially if you have a protein powder that you really like that you can just mix with water and that tastes good. I use my own, of course, which is called Whey Plus. It's a 100% whey isolate, and it is very good with water, I think, and very, very good with milk or a milk substitute. Protein powder can also often be preferable to eating food. So for example, I have a scoop of protein around 3 or 4 p.m. in between my lunch and my dinner.

Just to get some protein in there. And I would much rather have a scoop of my whey protein. Or sometimes I do my vegan protein thrive. Or even sometimes my casein protein. And kind of just whatever I'm in the mood for. But I would rather have a scoop of protein than a hunk of chicken, for example. Another great thing about protein powder is it is often very low in carbs and fat and therefore calories, which is great because I would rather eat my carbs and fats than drink them. And lastly, protein powder

is very affordable, especially when you look at it in terms of price per gram of protein. So that's it for protein powder. That's why I think that protein powder is a great supplement to consider taking for helping with muscle gain. And if you are curious as to what types of protein powder are best, my short list of favorites are whey isolate for whey, micellar casein for casein. Casein is particularly good as a pre-sleep protein because it digests slowly and studies show that having some protein before you go to bed can help you gain muscle and strength faster over the long term simply because it provides your body with a source of amino acids while you sleep whereas otherwise your body would have to be waiting for the next protein feeding

for it to be able to start building muscle again. Their bodies will have finished processing their previous meals, which means then that their body's muscle building machinery, so to speak, is just going to be idle. It's just going to be waiting for the next meal that provides amino acids so it can get going again because amino acids are the building blocks of muscle. And by having some protein then right before you go to sleep, especially slowly digesting one like casein, or if you want to go with food, something like cottage cheese or Greek yogurt or skier Icelandic yogurt. If you have that before you go to sleep, then your body is going to have a steady stream of amino acids for anywhere from three to six hours, which means that then your body's muscle

building machinery, so to speak, can continue working while you sleep. Anyway, that's one of the reasons why casein is popular because whey is very fast digesting, whereas casein is slower digesting. Now for vegan options, I prefer pea and rice protein. Those are my two favorites and I most prefer a blend. So that's it for my protein powder recommendations. Let's move on to the next muscle building supplement that works and that is creatine, of course. Now, creatine is a molecule made up of two amino acids and it is the most studied molecule in all of sports nutrition. Over the last several decades, there have been hundreds and hundreds of trials and the weight of the evidence is clear. Creatine works. It helps you build muscle faster. It helps you gain strength faster. It helps you recover better

from your workouts. It helps with muscle recovery. It improves anaerobic performance, which means better resistance training workouts and better high intensity type of workouts. And even better, it does all of those things naturally and safely. So the only people, scientifically speaking, the only people that we know of who probably shouldn't use creatine are people with kidney disease or maybe who only have one kidney or something like that. But for your average everyday healthy person, creatine is a great option. And it works in a few ways. I won't get too technical here, but one of the ways that it works is when you supplement with creatine, you increase your

muscles total creatine stores and the creatine in your muscles serves as a source of energy when energy demands outpace your body's aerobic system. So outpace your body's ability to produce energy with oxygen. Now research shows that creatine also increases the water content of muscle cells, which not only directly makes them look bigger, but also helps them actually grow bigger by influencing several factors, including the nitrogen balance and the expression of certain genes related to muscle building. Studies also show that creatine has anti-catabolic effects, meaning that it helps prevent muscle breakdown, which of course also just aids with muscle gain over time. So as far as muscle building goes, creatine is really all pros and no cons. And as far as forms go, there are a number of different forms out there. Just go

with creatine monohydrate. That is the gold standard. It is the most researched. It is the most affordable. It works. Just go with it. Five grams a day. Now, carnosine is involved in a number of physiological processes in the body. And one of them relates to the regulation of acidity levels in your muscles. You see what happens is as a muscle contracts repeatedly, its acidity levels rise. It becomes more and more acidic due to a buildup of various metabolic byproducts. And as that happens, as the muscles become more and more acidic, their ability to contract becomes more and more impaired until eventually they can no longer contract at all. Eventually you hit that point of muscular failure. Now this is one of the ways that muscles become fatigued and carnosine helps counteract it by increasing the amount of work that muscles can do before running out of juice. And so that then is one of the ways that beta alanine can help you gain muscle faster over

time. It can help you get more work done in your workouts. It can help you push your muscles a bit further in your workouts, which then of course over time can translate into better muscle and strength gain. Now there's also evidence that beta-alanine can directly increase muscle gain outside of the increase in performance, which then can compound into more muscle gain over time. There's evidence that similar to creatine, although in different ways, taking beta alanine can just mean gaining muscle faster, regardless of whether you take advantage of the increased performance or not. And like creatine, beta alanine is safe and affordable and easy to take. Three to five grams a day in one or two doses is all you need. And if you are curious

about how to best take it, you can buy it in bulk or you can find a clinically effective dosage in my pre-workout pulse, which also comes both with and without caffeine. You have two versions to choose from. Okay. So to wrap up here, you should be skeptical of muscle building supplements. Most of them do nothing. And that has been the case for many, many years now and will be the case for who knows how long in the future, uh, forever, unless the supplement industry really changes its ways, don't hold your breath. And even ones that can help like protein powder, beta-alanine, and creatine are not necessary. They are supplementary by definition. Remember that proper diet and proper training are the real drivers of muscle gain, not supplements, not pills and

powders. So focus your efforts, focus your time, focus your money on getting your diet and your training right. And then once you have those things solidly in place and you're doing all the big things right, if you have the budget and inclination, me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast

and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mikeatmuscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive

feedback. So please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for women, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you wanna know the biggest lies and myths

that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire, and if you wanna learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you wanna read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not

currently listening to audiobooks. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to thinner, leaner, stronger for free.