Some supplements can help you improve your workout, but not all supplements are created the same. Other supplements will only give you a temporary fix for what is going on with your body. You need to find supplements that work for your specific goals and needs! This blog post will discuss the best supplements to take when working out.
1. BCAA
BCAAs are important. If you take them, your muscles will be stronger. Your recovery will also improve. BCAAs are amino acids found in food.
As the only three amino metabolized directly by muscle tissue, BCAAs are crucial for muscle tissue recovery.
They are used to build new proteins after hard training and should be on top of anyone’s supplement list.
2. Vitamin D3
As for most vitamins, if you get enough vitamin D from your diet or sunlight, then you do not need to take supplements. But in the UK and some parts of the US is difficult to get enough vitamin D during the winter months.
So please check your levels regularly – with your doctor all year round because low levels of vitamin D can cause low testosterone, which will not help training performance and may worsen.
3. Vitamin K2
Vitamin K1 comes from green, leafy vegetables. Vitamin K2 comes from animal sources like livers. When you take vitamin K2, your bones will be stronger, and it might keep calcium away from your blood vessels.
That’s good because the calcium can make the blood vessels hard and make you have a stroke or heart disease. You can take vitamin K2 as a supplement if you are not eating enough of it in animal foods like livers.
4. L-Glutamine
L-glutamine is an amino acid that’s important for your muscles. It makes up about 60% of the amino acids found in muscle tissue. This is important for recovering from soreness or after exercising.
When other tissues need L-glutamine, they can take it from muscle stores. But this might not be enough, so supplementing with L-glutamine also makes sense.
The more L-glutamine you have in your body, the less likely your muscles will get tired when you are stressed out. After a hard workout, your L-glutamine levels will be reduced by 50%.
Taking 5 grams of L-glutamine 3 or 4 times a day is the best way to ensure you have enough. You can add it to protein shakes and other foods to get enough and don’t need to take it in pill form.
5. Protein
Protein shakes can help with athletic performance, muscle building, and weight loss. The best natural sources are the whey and casein proteins in milk.
Milk has more branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) than vegan sources. The critical amino acid you want in your shake is leucine – it’s the most important one for protein synthesis.
Some brands have to mix their powder with other amino acids, which are cheaper. But these brands are not as strong for building muscle compared to ones with leucine.
Buy protein made of isolate, which is a little bit purer than concentrate or hydrolyzed.