Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Post-Workout Supplements That Do and Don't Work

Episode Date: November 20, 2015

In this episode I talk about all the popular post-workout supplements like protein, BCAAs, dextrose, beta-alanine, and more, and explain which are worth the money and which aren't and why. ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS VIDEO: How to Lose Fat Faster With Fasted Cardio (and Keep Your Muscle): https://legionathletics.com/fasted-cardio/ The Ultimate Guide to the Best Protein Powders: http://www.muscleforlife.com/best-protein-powders/ How Insulin Really Works: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-insulin-works/ The Definitive Guide to Beta-Alanine Supplementation: https://legionathletics.com/beta-alanine/ 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/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audio books and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient

and we cite all supporting studies on our website, which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission

for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike from mostforlife.com and welcome to another episode of the World. about one type of supplement in particular and just kind of going down the list of the most popular supplements the ones that are most heavily marketed and best-selling and post-workout supplements are definitely one of the best-selling categories because they include various things like your i mean bcas for instance are you'll find that if you go to bodyline.com or go to

amazon or look up for post-workout supplementation, there's going to be a million BCAA products. You have obviously different types of protein powders that are sold as post-workout protein powders specifically. You have carb powders and other things that we'll talk about. So I want to go over just what you'll most commonly find, more specifically in terms of ingredients, because you'll find that obviously a supplement can have some fancy name, but what's actually in it? So we'll talk about what are actually in these supplements and basically what's worth actually taking and what's not. And as you'll see, it's a lot of the same with supplements.

it's a lot of the same with supplements. I mean, I don't know if you saw or heard about the Department of Justice, what they are going to, basically the announcements that they're going after the supplement industry, which I think is great. There was a, I saw the transcript, I guess it was live streamed. I don't even know who it was. It was from the DOJ. And I saw, they saw the transcript and I was laughing because it was like, as if I wrote this transcript, where basically what this DOJ and I saw the transcript and I was laughing because it was like as if I wrote this transcript. We're basically what this DOJ representative was saying is it's not that all supplements are bad. It's that the supplement industry and a lot of supplement in the supplement industry in general is bad. It just is.

It's a scum industry and that you have a lot of bad people and bad companies in this industry selling bad products and just lying because it's so unregulated and you can get away with basically anything. That's how it's been. It's been a Wild West type of marketplace that now the government's going to be doing something about it. So they're going to bring lawsuits against GNC for stuff that they're selling, which is hilarious because one of GNC's things, they explicitly say they don't immunospike their proteins. I've seen it on the internet. It's a little marketing piece where they talk a little about immunospiking, which we talked about last week, and that they don't do it and they don't stand by it and blah, blah, blah.

And then in third-party lab tests of their proteins, their amino spiked, of course. So the DOJ is bringing a lawsuit against the GNC, against a vitamin shop, against other specific supplement companies. We'll see that apparently it's going to be a, almost like a governmental task force with different agencies. Obviously the FDA is going to be involved. And they're going to start going after supplement companies, which is great. I can't wait to see what comes out of it because it's about time. It just feels like vindication on a personal level of just the stuff that I've been saying since the beginning. I mean, I've only been in the fitness space for a few years now, two and a half years, three years. And in terms of supplements, I've only been in the supplement business for a bit about maybe a year and a half.

So it's kind of like from the beginning, this is what I've been saying, is that the supplement industry is a bunch of bullshit. A lot of these companies are bullshit. A lot of these people are bullshit. They're just scum. They just don't care. You know, I've written about it. I might even have spoken about it, but here's the, here's the, your average supplement seller. Here's, here's that, here's that person. So I knew someone that was, uh, in the supplement space. He was selling like weight loss pills and, um, he was doing about four to $5 million a month in revenue. And he

was spending about $2 million a month in, in advertising. Um, so there was obviously a big spread there and it was, it is an internet business. So low overhead. Um, and in a child, one, I was, this is before I was even in supplements and I was just curious, like, what is it, what are you selling? What's your cost of goods? What are the margins like? And he was like, the margins are really good. And I'm like, well, what are you selling? He's like, pills in a bottle, man. I'm like, what do you mean pills in a bottle?

What are they? He's like, I don't fucking know. Pills in a bottle, dude. I don't care. I'm like, right. Okay. So that's there. That little anecdote kind of just encapsulates the supplement industry in general.

Pills in a bottle, powder in a bottle with a bunch of bullshit. And in that case, that guy was doing the whole shady rebuild scam, which funny enough, I've been approached by various companies to get in on, you know, to set up something like that for Legion and for, for muscle for life. And they don't have any idea who I am or what I'm kind of, what I kind of stand for, what my philosophies are. They just see a money opportunity. So it's been funny emailing with some of them. Um, and, and what they tell themselves, uh, you know, I remember one guy, he was trying to pitch me on it and I was like, nah, I'm, I'm not really into scammy rebuilding, uh, rebuilding. Thanks though. And he's like, nah, I'm not really into scammy rebilling. Thanks, though. And he's like, well, that's an interesting way to look at it.

I'm like, yeah, motherfucker, that's what it is. You're tricking people into getting $1 bottles, and you're rebilling them on average three or four months before they cancel. And you make it super hard to cancel. And he's like, well, okay, you just keep doing what you're doing then. I'm like, all right, bye, dude. They're like, well, okay, you just keep doing what you're doing then. I'm like, all right, bye, dude. So there's a lot of bad people in this space for whatever reason. I don't know.

I mean, obviously, there's a lot of money to be made, but there's a lot of money to be made in other industries as well. Who knows? Maybe this is how it is in every industry. Maybe every industry is – or a lot of industries out there are just kind of dominated by people that have zero moral, uh, their moral compass is just completely broken. So anyway, that's the whole DOJ thing. Check it out if you haven't, if you're interested, because it's going to be interesting, it's going to get interesting for sure. Um, so back on track this week, let's talk about post-workout supplements. So, um, let's just talk about BCAs first first because BCAAs are the most popular out of all the post-workout supplements that are sold. BCAAs are definitely the most popular and

definitely the most best-selling. And they're also, I think, one of the most overrated supplements out there, period. It's because if you're eating enough protein in your diet, which is going to be somewhere around a gram per pound of body weight, you don't need BCAAs. You just don't unless you're training fasted, which I've written a lot about and I've spoken a lot about. So I'm not going to go into the mechanics of fasted training. I will link an article down below. And if you're listening, you can go to Muscle for Life and just search for fasted cardio and you'll see an article I wrote on it. I also have an article on Lesions Blog as well, if you want to check that out.

So in that context, BCAs have value. And actually it's really just the leucine has value, which is what I recommend. Uh, well, I recommend now a product that I created, um, which has something called HMB, which is kind of an overrated, uh, supplement in terms of muscle building, but it is great for, uh, muscle preservation and muscle preservation is what you want when you are doing fasted training. Um, however, before I had this supplement that I now use, it's my supplement called forge. It has HMB. It has your him bean. It's, it's really the main reason to train fasted is if you're cutting. So if you're going to, if you're going to do that, you might as well add some yohimbine so you can burn more fat when you're training fasted. And then a forge also has something

called CDP choline, which can help with focus because a lot of people find when they train fasted, um, lower energy levels, more mentally cloudy, uh, just because you don't, you know, having carbs 30 minutes before your workout can just make quite a big, a different, quite a big difference in terms of your performance and how you, how you feel mentally. Um, so if you, before I had that product though, I would just use straight leucine, which is an amino acid that's most directly responsible for initiating protein synthesis. And BCAs, uh, is there's three amino acids, branched-chain amino acids. You have leucine, isoleucine, and valine. So leucine in particular is what you would take before the fasted training

because the one downside of fasted training, besides potentially some people feel weaker, less energy, and so forth, is that muscle degradation rates are higher. So you're breaking down more muscle when you're in a fasted state. And again, check out the article. I talk about why that's – it's not necessarily as bad as it sounds, but it is a downside and you do want to counter act it and leucine counteracts it. Now BCAAs, you have isoleucine and valine. Isoleucine and valine are, valine is just kind of worthless

in general. At least, at least, well, it's not worthless as a whole. I mean, it's an essential amino acid. But in terms of like taking it before a workout or supplementing with additional valine doesn't make sense. Isoleucine has similar effects to leucine but much weaker. So when you buy BCAAs to take for your fasted training, it's not that it's bad, but you are paying more than you like what I did personally. And what I generally recommend before I have this new, this product now that I would, that I use over leucine is, uh, just buy leucine in bulk because you're gonna get the most value for your money that way, as opposed to buying some fancy PCA product, which you're paying for the other

amino acids in there. You're paying for whatever other random shit they put in there. You're paying for the fancy packaging. You're paying for the brand and you're just paying a premium basically. And when you could just go to like, uh, you know, bulk powders, I think is the name of a company and just, just buy bulk leucine. Um, or, you know, now I would say you do use HMB, which is a metabolite of leucine. So it's, it's a substance that is produced when your body metabolizes leucine when you eat it and you ingest it and then your body breaks it down. One of the molecules it breaks down into is, it's a long word and it's called HMB. I'll link an article down below where you can read about it. Well, actually you can just read about it in the

fast cardio article. I talk about HMB. So back to BCAs, that's really the only legitimate use is before fast training. There's no reason to be supplementing with large amounts of BCAs throughout the day if you're eating enough protein. When you see different studies that are thrown around showing that BCA, you know, the people that took BCAs had higher protein synthesis rates when they're working out. A lot of that research is, I mean, at least any of the studies, I don't remember one where it compared if you had a group of people eating protein before they work out versus BCAAs. I don't know of any studies that show that BCAAs are any better in that condition. Where they are better is when you have fasted training. So somebody, you know, they sleep all night.

They haven't eaten food and whatever it eight, nine hours, they go work out versus someone that does that or the people that do that. And they have BCAs before they work out. Yes. The people that have the BCAs before they work out, uh, you could say that they're in their body is more anabolic, but again, a, you could just take leucine and save money, or HMB. In terms of dosing, it's about the same. The three to five grams of leucine, two to three grams of HMB. Or B, you just have protein if you're not training fasted.

So having BCAAs post-workout, again, just eat protein. There's no need to have BCAAs. Protein contains BCAAs, of course. And especially if you're having a high quality protein like whey protein, which is just kind of a segue into next post-workout supplement that's out there, which is just different types of protein powders. This is one of the reasons why whey protein is particularly popular as a post-workout supplement. And there is some research to show that whey protein in particular is better than slower burning forms of protein like casein or egg just for the post-workout meal when the body is particularly responsive to protein. And that's because whey contains a high amount of leucine. That's the main reason why.

It also just has a great amino acid profile in general, meaning that it's very high in the essential amino acids that you need to be getting from your diet, but it's very high in leucine. And there's research that shows that the leucine content of a meal directly correlates to the amount of protein synthesis that occurs as a result of that meal. So having a leucine rich meal after you work out makes sense. Is it a game changer? No, not at all. Um, you know, I've said this many times that as a natural weightlifter, what you're trying to do is gain a lot of little edges, I guess you could say. So even with, whether it be supplementation or a little diet tweaks, a little training tweaks, you're trying to gain 3% here and 4% here and 2% here and all that adding up to something actually significant. But you have to balance the cost of those advantages, both in

terms of money and in terms of just time and lifestyle. So there's certain things that if it costs, you know, a lot of money for a little bit of gain, is that really worth it? That's up to you. Depends how much money I guess you have to spend on this kind of stuff. Uh, is it, you know, if it costs a lot of time, so let's say, you know, let's say you had a workout program that scientifically was as good as any workout program could ever get, but it required three hours in the gym a day split up into three different one hour sessions and so forth. Well, that's doesn't really matter then it's not practical because who can do that. Um, so you would have to settle for something suboptimal basically because you know, they just, it costs

too much time. And then in terms of lifestyle cost, uh, take a diet as an example. If you had the ultimate diet, if that were somehow conceived of or discovered or put together, but it doesn't fit your lifestyle at all, if it means that you can't eat any foods that you like, you have to eat on a schedule that you don't like, et cetera, et cetera. Again, I would say that's not worth it. It's better just to be suboptimal and and and something doing something you can enjoy and stick to over the long term then try to force yourself into this straight jacket of a of a diet that you know makes you just live in in constant anxiety about eating so the same goes for for supplements and in terms of post-workout supplementation with whey protein

i think it's worth it because, uh, it is probably giving you a slight gain over other forms of protein. And chances are, you're going to need a protein powder anyway, because if you need to be eating quite a bit of protein every day, which you do, uh, most people find that getting it all from food is just a bit impractical and protein powders are very convenient. And then, so if you're going to get a protein powder, you might as well get a very high quality one. Whey is a very high quality one. And so take it after you work out, simple enough. There are also protein blends that are out there. And I do like that idea. I do like the idea of a blend of a fast digesting protein like whey

and a slower digesting protein like casein or egg. I'm going to look at doing something like that myself. It would be part of a meal replacement shake though or a weight gainer. I mean, I don't really like that term, but it would be a shake that contains quite a bit of carbs and it contains some fats. It's a real meal replacement. It's not just a protein powder. And so is it worth though, buying a whey protein to have, let's say pre-workout or in other times and then, and buy a blend to have post-workout and other times? I don't think so. Personally, I would, I just use whey and I just genuinely recommend just stick with whey because it's simple. Yes, there is some research that shows that when you're talking about eating protein powder multiple times a day, that a slow-burning protein powder like casein or egg may be better for muscle building over time than a fast-digesting protein powder like whey.

But I think it's, uh, it's, it's speculative. I mean, I I've seen maybe one or two studies that, um, were not conducted over large periods of time. It was, there weren't a lot of people involved in the study. I don't know. It's not something like in terms of where I'm looking at it for, for Legion, I wouldn't feel comfortable, um, using that as a selling point personally. Like I wouldn't have a slow burning protein and point to point to one of those two studies. I've seen one or two and then say, see,

this is better for building muscle period. It's, it's very much a research suggests there might be something here, but we don't know. And that, I mean, obviously that's not, that's not a strong marketing pitch.

I don't make, I wouldn't make a product on that. Like, I don't know, maybe this is a little bit better, maybe not, but if you want to buy it, buy it. That's not a very marketing pitch. I don't make, I wouldn't make a product on that. Like, I don't know, maybe this is a little bit better, maybe not, but if you want to buy it, buy it. That's not a very good pitch, obviously. Um, so for protein powders, I would say just stick with whey. Um, if you don't do well with whey, uh, for whatever reason, then don't worry. It's not like you're missing out on some huge thing. Just make sure you have some protein after you work out,

uh, anywhere from, you know, 30 to 50 grams is fine. And you can be food, or it could be a different powder. It could be casein. I mean, if you don't do well with whey, you're probably not going to do well with casein. So it could be egg, although egg is super expensive now. So that's up to you. Or it could even be like a brown. If you want to do something plant, it could be brown rice. It could be pea. Or again, just eat food. All right. So now let's move on to the next type of post-workout supplement that is pushed pretty heavily. And these are carb powders, which are usually just dextrose. And dextrose is, it's made from corn. It's glucose.

It's a slightly modified form of glucose, which is blood sugar. And the idea is that for replenishing glycogen stores, and just as a, in case you're not familiar with the term, glycogen is a form of carbohydrate that is stored in your muscles, primarily in your muscles and in your liver and your body can burn it for energy. Just keep it simple. And when you are working your muscles, uh, like when you're doing resistance training, for instance, or even high intensity type of exercise that, that really pulls on it, it's, it's, it's it's beyond your aerobic threshold.

It pulls heavily on your glycogen stores. So the idea is replenishing those glycogen stores after you work out. Now that sounds good. And there are, again, this is something that is generally oversold. It's overhyped as if this is super important. It's definitely important if you're training twice a day or if you are working out in the morning and you're going to be doing some sort of sport or physical activity later in the day that also requires collection stores. Yes, that is important. But in terms of building, if you're just someone like me, you go to the gym, you work out, and then you might do some cardio later in the day, but you're more or less done, and you're just looking to build muscle and strength, it's not all that important. Having protein after you work out is more important than having carbs. That said, there is a benefit to elevating your insulin levels after you train.

Insulin is the hormone that drives nutrients into your cells. And generally speaking, when it comes to building muscle and building strength, elevated insulin levels is just generally a good thing because insulin isn't anabolic like testosterone, but it's anti-catabolic. And I've spoken about this many times, so you probably know I'm not going to go into the details, but when you look at what it takes, you know, you have protein synthesis and protein breakdown. You can do things to raise protein synthesis, and that obviously increases net muscle gain. You can do things to reduce protein breakdown, and that will also affect net muscle gain. So when your insulin levels are just generally higher, which they will be when you,

you know, have a high, have a high carb diet, your protein degradation rates are going to be generally lower. That obviously bodes well for, for muscle growth over time. So that is, that's the simple, or that's like, and it's not a super compelling argument for having carbs after you train, but there is something there that you're training, you're breaking muscle down and you've initiated this process whereby muscle proteins are being broken down and you want to halt it. And you want to, or, you know, that, that, that's really like, that's why you're eating after your training. Um, also your body can start the repair process when you give a protein, obviously. So protein, it does elevate insulin levels, but not as long as, you know, if just a meal of like, you know, two scoops of whey, yes, it's going to elevate insulin levels quite a bit, actually, but not nearly as much, not for, not as long as if you had two scoops of whey and let's

say 80 grams of carbs. So that's why I recommend that you do have carbs after you train about, I think it's about a gram per kilogram of body weight is a good target to shoot for. And then a few hours later have about half that. Again, this is a minor point of dietary optimization that, um, is, is I just think it's worth doing because there's also no downside to it. The only real reason to not have carbs after you train is if you really want to save those carbs for later, which is actually what I personally do now because I'm in this kind of maintain holding pattern in my training. And I'm not, I'm not really trying to push myself to gain more muscle and strength because I, a, I don't

want to bulk and B, I don't really want to be much bigger. It's just kind of physique that I want. So I'm at a, at a maintain point. Um, so I get to now play with my diet more just to my, my eating preferences and my eating preferences are, I like to eat a majority of my food late at night. Well, I wouldn't say late at night. I like to eat a decent dinner, and then I like to eat a lot of carbs at maybe like 10 p.m. That's just the way that I like to eat. So by the time 10 p.m. rolls around, I've eaten less than 100 grams of carbs for the day, probably closer to 50, 60, and I've eaten a lot of my protein, the majority of my protein,

but now I have a lot of carbs that I can eat, and I also save a bit of my fats for that majority of my protein, but now I have a lot of carbs that I can eat. Um, and I also save a bit of my fats for that meal. So that's just the way that I like to eat. But if I were some, if I were, let's say you're looking to, you know, you're still building your physique. I wouldn't do it that way. I would definitely be spacing my carbs throughout the day. And it would start with, um, I work out early in the morning.

I get up at about six, then go to the gym. So I would start after, you know, once I'm, once I get to the office here, it'd be protein carbs. Um, and, and then I would have carbs throughout the day just to generally keep my insulin levels higher and no, that doesn't make you fat. And I'll link an article down below. So if you want to go check that out, um, that insulin is not your enemy. Uh, it's your enemy. If you're overweight and sedentary and eating way too much food. But if you are at a normal weight, if you're relatively lean and you work out regularly, insulin is not your enemy. So back to carb powders that are, it's a, you know,

dextrose, for instance, is a glucose rich carb source, which is good for replenishing muscle glycogen stores. It is because fructose, which you find in fruit is not, it's good for replenishing liver glycogen stores. It's not the glycogen replenishment that matters so much with the post-workout carbs. It's the insulin response. If again, if you were, let's say working out first thing in the morning and then in the afternoon, you had to like go to football practice or something like that, then yes, you definitely want a glucose rich, uh, carb source after you work out in the morning because

you want your muscle glycogen levels to be maximally replenished as much as you can get them basically for that, for that, you know, uh, for the practice later in the day. But if you're, if you're like me and you're, you know, yeah, you have some, maybe you're gonna do some cardio later, but it's not like you're, you know, you're not racing. You're just doing some cardio to burn some energy. Um, it's not all that important. So I don't really, I'm kind of like whatever about dextrose in that regard. And I kind of don't like it because I think that it's much smarter, especially if you're going to have like 80 grams of carbs from dextrose, which is what you would get probably anywhere from 50 to 80 grams. If you're using those products the way that you're

supposed to use them, um, you should be, in my opinion, you should be eating food. Like carbs, it's not, remember, like flexible dieting and watching your macros and everything, it's not, there's more to diet than just macros. You have the micronutrient side of it as well. You have a lot of vitamins and minerals and other things that your body needs to stay healthy and be able to perform optimally. And you're not going to get any of that from dextrose. And that's why I much rather see people just eat food, fiber-rich foods,

nutrient-dense carbs, like oatmeal is a great post-workout carb. Starchy carbs are as well. Potato is always a great choice. I mean, potatoes are very filling. They're very carb dense. They're very micronutrient dense. It's just a great food. Even if you like different grains, it could be bread, it could be pasta. I'd rather have people see people eating that kind of stuff than just drinking dextrose. So maltodextrin is another corn based or corn derived carb that you'll find in post-workout supplements. And the story is more or less the same that it's fine as a carbohydrate. It's fine for replenishing glycogen stores, but it doesn't

have any nutritive value. So personally, I tend to stay away from carb powders. I generally recommend people stay away from carb powders for that reason. You're not really gaining much of anything and you could be getting nutrients, especially fiber. A lot of people's diets are low in fiber and especially low in soluble fiber. Insoluble fiber, which is the rough stuff that we can't digest that kind of just bangs around. Our diets tend to be higher in insoluble than soluble, which is the type of fiber that you'll find in Quest bars, for instance. That's their whole net carb thing. They're saying that the soluble fiber that they have in there is that it doesn't have calories when it does. Soluble fiber does have calories.

There's bacteria in the large intestines that do things with it, and it's important for your health, but it does have calories. There's bacteria in the large intestines that do things with it, and it's important for your health, but it does have calories. And that's why that net carb thing is a bit, it's actually just misleading. It's not true that like, if you look at a Quest bar and it says two grams of net carbs, it does not have two grams of carbs for those that are just tracking macros. If you want to know the actual calorie content, you have to look on the back. You have to look at the supplement facts panel. That is the correct calorie count. And as you'll see, it's quite a bit higher than if you were just to say, oh, it has two grams of carbs plus the protein plus a little bit of fat. If you did it just that way, it's probably going to be 60 calories less than what is actually in there because

soluble fiber, I believe it's like two calories per gram, I want to say, as opposed to the four that you'd find in other forms of carbohydrate. So back to post-workout carbs, oatmeal, for instance, is a great source of soluble fiber. I eat oatmeal every day. I eat about a cup to a cup and a half dry every day because I like it so much. I keep on talking about these baked oatmeal dishes that I do because they're just so good. And I'm such a robot with food that I'll just eat the same thing every. And I'm such a robot with food that every, I'll just eat the same thing every day for months and not even realize it because it tastes so good to me every day. So anyways, that's carb powders. You know, when I'm going to be looking into some other

options for this weight gainer or meal replacement shake that I want to make, obviously it needs to have carbs because really the main purpose of this is for people that logistically it doesn't really work. Let's say they need 800 calories after they train. And let's say they go like me. It's straight to the gym and then straight to the office. And getting that in food just doesn't really work. So they want to drink something. So I'm going to be looking at nutritious sources of carbs and more nutritious,

high quality sources of fats. So you're not just drinking dextrose that you're getting your carbs in, but you're also getting micronutrients and we'll see what we can do with fiber and stuff, just to make it a better, make it a more nutritious, healthful product, as opposed to just, you know, cheap sugar basically. And that's what dextrose is so another amino acid that you will find in post workout supplements is glutamine um and glutamine is is a it's good for for immune health and it's good for gut health that's what it's actually good for it's not a muscle builder um whenever you see if you see a company claiming that their glutamine products can help you build muscle just run away and don't buy anything from that company because they're full of shit.

They're one of the companies that the DOJ is saying you should be staying away from, basically, because it's just not true. Sometimes there's even some research that is cited that shows, like, one, usually if it's being sold that way, they're saying that, you know, that glutamine plays an important role in muscle protein synthesis, which is true. But it doesn't mean that supplementing with additional glutamine makes you build more muscle. That's where the disconnect is. It means that if your diet is extremely glutamine deficient, then there might be an issue. If your body is glutamine deficient for health reasons, which brings me to the next

point where there are a few studies that I've seen that show that glutamine supplementation helped people gain muscle back that they had lost, but those people were AIDS patients. And obviously one of the big problems with AIDS is muscle wasting. So one of the reasons why people end up dying from it actually is that they lose so much muscle. There's a point where if your body loses enough muscle, your heart just stops working. It's just, you're done. And that's one of the reasons why maintaining a higher than normal amount of lean mass is actually very healthy. Um, and which is one of the reasons why resistance training is very healthy. And it's something that everybody should be doing. Really, we should be doing it for the rest of our lives. Now, of course we have to adjust things. And as the body gets older,

they can't recover as well as when it was younger and you can't necessarily do everything that you can, you know, that you were doing when you were 20, but you can still train hard and you can still have a, you know, have a great physique and have a large amount of muscle mass, which is just great for, for longevity. Um, so that's glutamine. I, I actually, I don't think I'm, I'm not taking it anymore. Just kind of ran out of it. And I'm just kind of, I already take enough stuff and I had it and now I don't, but I, I'm not taking it anymore. Just kind of ran out of it and I'm just kind of, I already take enough stuff and I had it and now I don't, but I was taking it just for, just for immune health. Cause I hate getting sick.

And fortunately I don't get sick very often when I do it only lasts a day or two, but you know, anything I can do to, to just stay healthy, I'm all for. So I was taking it for a bit and really just for that reason. Cause I know it's, there's good research in healthy people that shows that it supports gut health, which also supports immune health. And so if that's what you're going for, then sure, take glutamine. But of course it doesn't have to be post-workout. You can just take it whenever. And in terms of dosages, I believe it's, I want to say 0.2 grams per kilogram of body weight, give or take. So for me, that was like, uh, I was taking like 15 to 20 grams a day. Um, and that's it. And see that this is an example of a supplement where

it's something that you, there, you just have to draw the line somewhere, or you just, you're going to be, all you're gonna be doing is swallowing pills and mixing powders all day. So there's, you have a, you have a, a certain threshold of that, that you're, that you can tolerate in terms of how many pills and powders. And so however, whatever that is, you want to be getting the most for that amount. And that's why glutamine is kind of like a, sure. If you have a reason to, let's say if you get sick a lot, or if you know that your gut health is compromised, glutamine would make sense.

Otherwise probably better just to leave it out. Another supplement that you will see in a lot of post-workout supplements or other ingredient is beta-alanine. And I'll link an article down below, or you can go search, go check out at the Legion blog. I just recently wrote an article on beta-alanine. And beta-alanine is great for improving performance. It's great. It's not going to make a world of difference, but you'll definitely have more muscle endurance when you use beta-alanine. And there's also evidence that it may directly contribute to muscle growth, similar to how creatine does, but just not as powerful, not as effectively as creatine. Beta-alanine, I have it in my pre-workout it is what it is something that you need to take every day. And it does, it does, uh, it's not the beta alanine accumulates in the body. It gets turned into another molecule called carnosine that then gets

that then accumulates in the body and specifically in the muscles. And that's where the benefits, uh, come into play. So sure. You could take that beta alanine before workout or after workout. It doesn't really matter. The point is though, you want to be getting about five grams a day. That's the clinically effective dosage to really reap all of its benefits. So I think it's fine that beta-alanine is in post-workout supplements. However, you will find it usually in low dosages and that's not fine. So you'll find it, you know, maybe it'll have one and a half grams, one gram max, max two grams per serving. And that's just low. So if you're having two grams a day, is that going to make a difference? Maybe a half grams, one gram max, max two grams per serving. And that's just low. So if you're having two grams a day, is that going to make a difference? Maybe a little bit, but not as much

as five grams. Um, and the problem there is if you start upping the dosages on your post-workout supplement to hit five grams a bit Allen a day, that's going to get expensive. You're probably going to be burning through two tubs a month. Uh, and, and these, these products are generally fairly expensive. So you're talking about, you know, it could be $60 a month, um, or more just to, to get, I mean, obviously you're getting other things, but you know, it's just, that is something to keep in mind. If what I would do is, uh, I'd probably just get beta alanine in and either get it from a, another supplement, like that has a proper dosage. Like my pre-workout pulse has 4.8 grams. I mean, that that's actually the number for,

uh, there was a meta analysis done, uh, that looked at a, uh, handful of, I want to say like 10 to 12 studies on beta alanine that showed that, you know, improvements in performance and how much do you have to take to get these, these improvements? And it's about 4.8 grams. So that's what's in my pre-workout. Um, so you either find a product that's dosed properly, or you'd have to buy it in bulk, similar to what I was talking about with leucine. Um, citrulline is you'll find that in some post-workout supplements. Um, that doesn't really make sense to me in a post-workout supplement because one, you need to take a lot of citrulline to get its, uh, its benefits, which mainly are related to nitric oxide production

similar to arginine is just more reliable and it's absorbed better in the body, uh, than arginine is. citrulline to get its benefits, which mainly are related to nitric oxide production. Similar to arginine, it's just more reliable and it's absorbed better in the body than arginine is. But it has an acute effect. It's not like beta-alanine, which accumulates in the body. That doesn't make sense to me. You take about eight grams of citrulline if you want to be in the clinically effective dosage range. I mean, six would be on the lower end of that. So you'll look at some of these post-workout supplements and they'll have like, you know, a gram of citrulline malate or two grams or something post-workout. That's kind of just worthless.

So that's the long story short. Citrulline, no need to belabor that one. So betaine is another ingredient that you'll find in post-workout supplements, at least in some post-workout supplements. And it's an ingredient that I like. It's an ingredient that's in my pre-workout supplement pulse for mainly for improving strength and reducing fatigue in workouts. But again, you have to take enough. And in this case, it's about two to two and a half grams. And you are not going to, I haven't

seen that amount in any post-workout supplement. That's my, my pre-workout contains two and a half grams, but I've seen anywhere from 500 milligrams, well, less actually, but generally seems to be about 500 milligrams to one to one and a half grams. Are you going to benefit from that? Maybe. I mean, 500 milligrams, you probably wouldn't notice anything. One to one and a half grams, you probably would notice something, but it's not going to be the same as two to two and a half. I mean, obviously one and a half is better. At this point, it's just one and a half is better than one, but it's not where it should be. It should be two to two and a half. And last but not least is creatine and creatine is a peptide. So it's two amino acids that are bound. And, uh, I've spoken a lot about creatine. I've written a lot about creatine. The

long story short is it works. If you are into weightlifting, you should be taking creatine period. It's safe. Um, it's been, there are hundreds and hundreds of studies on creatine. It's probably the most research molecule in the entire space. Uh, you know, this research going back decades and you will build strength, you will build muscle faster. You will get stronger, faster, and you will be less sore from your workouts. Those are the main things you're going to notice with creatine. Um, and about five grams a day is all you need. Three grams would be on the lower end of clinically effective, but five is what I recommend. And five is the, that's the safe number,

quote unquote, for getting everything you can out of creatine. You don't have to take more. Some people will ask me sometimes, so, you know, should I, I saw somewhere that you should be taking 10 grams of creatine a day. No, it's just five grams is really where it's going to cap out. Anything beyond that is diminishing returns to, and you know, fading to the vanishing point where it just doesn't, it's not, nothing is changing just because you're taking more. So of course, creatine absolutely makes sense to include in a post-workout supplement. My post-workout supplement, which is called recharge contains creatine and it contains a form of carnitine called L-carnitine, L-tartrate, which is shown to reduce muscle soreness. Because when I was looking at building

a post-workout, I was like, what are we trying to achieve here? Protein, I'm not going to put in it because people have different, you know, you may want to have whey protein. You may want to have, maybe you don't do well with whey, so you want to have a different type of protein. Maybe you want to eat. So I'd rather just leave that up to you and not force you to have a certain type of protein in the post-workout supplement. Obviously I talked about carb powders. I would much rather see you eat nutritious foods than drink a carb powder. So I wasn't going to put any carb powders in there. As you know, BCAs, it doesn't make sense to have any BCAs after you train. It doesn't make sense to have leucine after you train, just eat food. The only time it would make sense to have leucine is if

you're going, not going to be eating for a while, then you could, it's not a bad idea. Uh, especially if you're training fasted, um, to have some leucine. And then if you're going to eat, let's say you're going to eat four hours after you, after some fasted training, personally, what I would do is I would train, I would have some leucine or HMB before I train, I'd have some after I train, and then I would eat, you know, after when, when, when it comes time to eat. So in looking at putting together post-workout supplement is like, well, what do you, what do we really want out of this? I want something post-workout supplements are, are just inevitably associated with building muscle faster, building strength faster, recovering better. So what can I do?

Uh, that is, uh, basically just what can I put in here that is actually going to make a difference on those points. And that's creatine, uh, and then L-carnitine, L-tartrate, good, good amount of research on it. And, um, it works. I mean, again, these are, I'd say it works in the majority of people. You take any substance and some people just don't respond to it. Even creatine. I've emailed with quite a few people that notice nothing from creatine, absolutely nothing. Not even any more water retention, nothing. They don't, and they track their numbers in the gym, like they know what they're doing. So there are non-responders to anything. I know people that feel nothing with caffeine. I mean, I know someone personally that he takes two scoops of my pre-workout pulse. I mean,

when he was trying it, which is 350 milligrams of caffeine. And he said he felt nothing like he could have just went to sleep. What does that mean? I don't know. Maybe his adrenals don't work or his nervous system is shot. Who knows? So obviously I'm going with things that have good research in healthy adults and ideally in people that are resistance trained or endurance trained or athletes or whatever. And L-carotene, L-tartrate is one of those things. And then finally, an interesting molecule that you don't see in many supplements called corosolic acid, which comes from a plant. Basically what it does is it improves blood glucose control and it enhances insulin's signals, which we're talking a little bit about insulin's role in the body earlier. And the better your

cells, especially your muscle cells respond to insulin, uh, the better that's going to be for muscle growth over time, because that's how nutrients make the way into the cells, which the cells need to grow and so forth. Um, so it's an interesting molecule that, um, because you're eating generally, you're eating a lot of food and you're eating a lot of carbs after you train anything you can do to enhance insulin's, uh, effects in the body in that, in that meal, uh, is, is meal is valuable. It's a minor point, of course, it's not a huge selling point, but it's an added little thing that supports the overall dietary strategy, basically. And that's it. That's all that's in my post-workout supplement because I haven't come across anything else that really makes sense to include. And I'm always on the lookout for things. But you know, really the majority of your muscle building and strength

building benefits are going to come from creatine out of everything you could possibly take. It's creatine plus beta alanine, like I said, has some slight effects like that, but it's mainly going to come from creatine. And then anything you can do to further reduce muscle soreness, whether it be through supplementation or massage or foam rolling or stretching or whatever, although stretching probably wouldn't help, but massage definitely can help and foam rolling definitely can help for the same reason. It means that, you know, depending on how your program is laid out, less muscle soreness means that you can train muscles more frequently, or, you know, some people they'll find that they get very sore from a workout and, you know, they're not, uh,

the soreness hasn't, hasn't really dissipated, uh, for five to seven days. And it's not that you can't train muscles if they're sore, but it can definitely get in the way of things. Um, and, and also obviously it can be pretty, pretty annoying if it's, if it's bad. So anyways, that's my reasoning behind my post-workout supplement. And I'm always looking for ways to improve really all of our products. We're always on the lookout for new research and new – can we add something that would make a product better? I mean, obviously, we have to work with production costs. But we spend a lot more on producing our products.

I really actually don't know of any company that spends, when you look at our formulations and you, if you can, you just see that my products have a lot more ingredients generally, like take triumph, go look at my multivitamin. You will not find another multivitamin that's like that. It's just stacked. And I know, and I know how much that costs to make and you will not find just, it's just, you're not going to find it in another company. They can't do it for, for, you know, any company in the, anything that you'd see in GNC in a retail setting, you have to spend so little on your products to make it viable for retail. You'll just, you'll never see a multivitamin

like triumph. The only company that can make a multivitamin like that as a company like mine, an internet business that, uh, doesn't have to spend a ton of money on marketing advertising because of kind of the ecosystem that we have between book sales and Muscle for Life and Legion and his blog is growing quickly. And so it's much more of a grassroots kind of guerrilla approach, which then allows me to spend a lot more money on producing products. So anyways, I'm always looking at, you know, hey, we could spend a little bit more on this product if we had something that was worth putting in it. Or in some cases, we go, well, in this product, if we could, here's one ingredient that if something better came along, we could swap

that ingredient. You know what I mean? So we're looking to optimize things. And also what's cool is we have several people just out in the world that are very educated in this space, that really like what we're doing at Legion, that are in touch with us and share their ideas. Have you thought about this? Have you looked at this? And that's even helped improve some of our products, like, um, changing one or two little things on triumph, changing the different forms of vitamins that are better, um, removing copper, the little things that were ideas that came from other people that, um, you know, in, in one case, uh, one guy has a PhD in this, in this field and he has, you know, interesting ideas and then another person's in college studying this and blah, blah, blah. So that's basically the long story short with post-workout supplements.

As usual, it's more bullshit than anything else. But if you want to get the most for your money, I'd say creatine is at the top of the list. And from there, I mean, I do really like L-carnitine, L-tartrate because it really does work. You do notice less muscle soreness. And then you have something like beta-alanine is more the point of getting enough. If you take a post-workout, that's fine. If you take a pre-workout, that's fine as well. A lot of people like the tingles feeling before they work out or when they're training, like me personally.

So I actually like it. I prefer it in a pre-workout, uh, than anywhere else. Uh, but the point is just getting enough beating again. The point is getting enough. So it doesn't really matter how you get it.

You just have to make sure you're getting that two to two and a half grams a day. Um, and citrulline doesn't really make sense for, it makes sense for a pre-workout. Um, and, uh,

yeah, I mean that, I think that's pretty much everything. I don't have to run through the summary again. So, um, I hope you found the podcast helpful. Uh, and if you want to check out my pro my post-workout, you can just, just Google Legion L-E-G-I-O-N recharge or just recharge supplement and it'll come up. And, uh, whether you try mine or not, hopefully you found this video helpful and don't waste money on crappy BCAA products and dextrose products and fancy post-workout protein type of stuff that is just more marketing hype than anything else.

All right. So I'm not sure what we'll talk about next week. I'll decide it'll be a surprise. So I'll see you next week. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also, head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day, actually. I release kind of four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.