supplements to help build muscle?

Depends on your age. If you are over 40 HGH is a good way to go but you can only get it by prescription, In your 20s Ornithine & Creatine are good

 

Do you have maximuscle in the US?

I've been using progain & found it really good

http://store.maximuscle.com/epages/maximuscle.storefront/434677b700101cde273fac1001b10648/Product/View/1008

 

hi franklin,

never been a big fan of OTC producst and esp. prescribed hormones. lift hard/lift safe, be discpline and be mindful of your daily food intakes.

i find it is best to consume adequate amount of natural protein (egg whites, tuna, chicken) and the occasional supplement of protein shakes.

 

wow congrats man and keep pressing! OO-RAH!

I used OTC supps for awhile and saw some results but not to the point it was worth the money I was spending. Some of us are classified as "hard gainers", it takes us FOREVER to gain bulk and even then only up to a point.

 

Thats GOOD advise, I agree.

 

i prefer a good steroid from mexico....

 

I would just suggest eating more food. I started working out again a month ago after I gained 25 lbs from having surgery. I eat 5-6 egg whites for breakfast, wheat bread and brown rice (good Omega-3s), and 1 lb of chicken a day. I have protein shakes on the days that I lift, but you should try to maintain 1 gram of protein intake for every pound of body weight.

 

The best muscle building supp is food. Eat lots of it, depending on wieght adjust your colorie intake accordingly.
If you want to gain muscle mass protien is very important because its your building block for all muscle, carbs are just as important though. You want to take in good carbs, slow burning for the most part. The only time you want to take in fast burning carbs is directly after your workout.

This isnt really the gospel just a very basic guidline. Give me your stats and can probably point you in a little better direction.

austin

 

Naw...The Latvian ones that are offered via email are much better.......

 

I've tried the Creatine, but I found it made my stomach a bit upset. I've also tried the Tribulus (sp?) teststosterone booster and it works quite well, but make sure you cycle it. Other than that, just eat lots of protein and occasionally protein shakes. Oh and be an animal at the gym!

 

you can't bottle discipline, and that is what is really needed. focus focus focus, at the the gym when working out, NOT at the hottie in spandex!. one of the reasons i built my own home gym, no distractions.
watch the food you eat, remember it's not a diet it's a way of life from here on out. and up the protien to a gram per lb of body wieght if you really pushing it at the gym. personaly i do a 2-1 split so i'm working out 6days a week for a total of 24hrs a week in the gym. that puts a toll on your imune system and energy reserves so besides the protien a good daily vitamin intake and sleep.
absolutly no proccesed food or fast food. water water water can't drink enough, just don't wash out your electrolites (sp?) gatoraide and sports drinks are too full of suger to be of any help, so avoid.

as always consult your doc, and your milage may vary.

 

Latvian, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, polish...are all generally more reliable than Mexican. Lot's of fakes come from Mexico, there is no regulation there, obviously.

Anyway, back to the topic. This is a topic of considerable interest to me. I have been lifting consistently for 14 years. It is an addiction of mine. Here are my $.02 on the subject. The best all around supplement is creatine monohydrate, period. Biggest bang for the buck. Not to say other supplements don't work, but creatine has been around for years, it has been tested, retest, and then tested some more. You will notice and get results from creatine. This topic can go on for many pages, rather than me typing it, I'll give you some links.

For interesting supplements other than creatine look at this store:
http://www.t-nation.com/category.jsp;jsessionid=D0D414584EF5FC32AD460F043B415397.hydra?categoryID=34&pageNo=1

These people are pretty reputable in an industry of great disrepute.
Also, for really good information on lifting, what works, why it works or doesn't check out the on-line mag. It is the best information available, generally beating all the other muscle-rags out there with outdated or vastly over repeated information.
Here that is:
http://www.t-nation.com/

P.S. No I don't work for them or am affiliated in anyway with them, I just think they are great and are worth checking out.

 

flop-
tried a killer bi workout last week
5 sets of:
bench bar, enough wt for 6 reps
remove 20-50%, 10 reps
remove all wt, 20 reps

man, my bis hurt days after.

 

If you want to gain muscle, I will suggest you eat more of everything while at the same time add lots of weight to your work outs. And I mean LOOOTS of weight. Try to bench over 300 at least 4 times, curls with 60 or 70 for 4 (after some warm up reps of course), etc. Push your body with heavier weights than b4 and less reps. That with the extra calories will make you grow.

 

WHEW! 300 bench is outta my league. I might be able to get there with hardcore lifting, but I like beer and Mexican food too much. I can bench my own weight and then some.

 

Nope, that is not what creatine does. Actually, that is more of a side effect of creatine ingestion. A nice one to boot. The actual mechanism of creatine is to increase the presence ATP which is a peptide the shuttles in amino acids from the blood stream into the muscle cells. This increases protein synthesis and thus increases muscle size and strength. That of course is a very general over view, but that what it does. If yall want studies and scientific boring stuff, I find some for ya.

you are right in that the cessation of creatine intake will result in some size and strength drop, but the true gains remain. So you may lose 15% on your max lifts, but your are still 15% above where you were prior to taking creatine. In other words, you don't lose it all.

 

Where you doing drop sets? Or 5 sets of each? Either way,that sounds pretty brutal, which is the way I like it. I may work something like that in pretty soon. My routine will be due for a change in a couple of weeks.

 

Careful, eat clean, or the extra calories will make you fat (meats and greens, not doughnuts). If you want to gain, try to consume 1 gram of protien per pound of body weight. This can be difficult, a protein replacement shake will be in order. Doing that will add lean muscle and not fat.
If you are into power lifting, eat everything in site, since you are not likely to be worried about your wasteline.

 

they're drops.

Just finished my workout and can hardly lift my arms and I'm almost knocking things over trying to reach for them-YES!!! I feel like a pansy at the end, grunting and groaning trying to lift the bar with no weights.

What have you found most effective, creatine before or after?

 

Forget all the lifting for a few days... hell, a week.

Have yourself some carbs...

Pour self some water to rehydrate between "sessions." No half-assing.

I'm sure you're familiar with the *Horse Stance* - get positioned properly and stay there.

Get in the *up* position for a pushup... and stay there.

Get your back on the floor... lift legs... stay there.

Rise up with your arms... stay there.

No cheating... bouncing... stay there longer than you can stand it... and then some. Don't wuss out.

Have yourself some protein within a 1/2 hour.

The results will speak for themselves immediately and in(tro)duce performance gains in whatever you've been doing.

The next weight session you take after this solid week of action through inaction - lift weights as s-l-o-w and correct as humanly possible.

Don't screw around, even once. You will need a lot of protein to recoup from that one. Heh. After that, skip rope and skip rope some more - the stars will align.

Gonna fly now...

 

It doesn't really matter, what ever is most convenient. Creatine levels have built up over time, usually three days peak concentrations exist. So any time, so long as you take it daily. 5 grams a day, no loading necessary unless you really desire gastric distress.
I love drop sets, people look at you like your nuts as your strip off weights and make animal noises with little weight. You gotta bring the pain. I see the Personal Trainers making these poor fat women do useless little stuff no sweat, no guts, pink weights, I just go nuts. Needless to say they never get anywhere. I could do a mile long discussion on dumb PT's

 

yeah and all the bad form you see....