IOL Strength and Conditioning

Which supplements should I buy? That’s one of the most common questions simmering in the IOL discussion forum. The confusion caused by over-the-top advertising combined with a petrol-powered shrinking wallet size will mess with a new trainee’s head, so let’s boil it down to something simple.

Start with this: Rarely is taking a supplement short term valuable. Occasionally we’ll have an issue such as a bladder problem that can be addressed with a short course of D-Mannose for example, but generally speaking, if you can’t afford to continue a supplement over the long-term, a single bottle of a $50 product “just to test it” is not worth your money, and even less worth the concern.

We want to select supplements that will help us over the lifetime, not the newest fancy-label ingredient popular this month with the gym floor gossip crowd.

But first, before anyone starts with the specifics, set a budget. That’s right… a budget. That credit card you’re using for your internet buys is not a magic money maker; you need to decide in advance exactly how much you can afford to spend on supplements each and every month. How much is it? $75? Less? More?

We’ll use the seventy-five number and see where that takes us. Not too far, I think you can guess, so get serious from the outset: Those testosterone boosters are flat out on this budget. If you get all eager-beaver and press the Buy button without thinking it through, you’re either going to forego your multi-vitamin and protein powder, or you’re going to eat into your evaporating retirement fund.

Before you can begin to choose the supplements that are right for you, you’ll next have to take stock of your circumstances. Look here:

Regular food consumption: Do you eat a variety of whole foods daily, or do you flake off on the vegetables or run yourself through the local drive-through at lunch?

Protein intake: Do you get protein several times a day, or just at dinner?

Fish as food: Do you eat fish regularly, particularly oily fish such as salmon?

Fiber intake: Is there plenty of fibrous vegetables, fruits or bran in your menu?

Training goals: Are you striving hard but not making the gains you hope for?

Access to the sun: Do you get outside daily, and does the sun hit your skin?

Vitamin C intake: Do you eat red bell peppers or citrus fruits?

Dairy intake: Do you get enough calcium?

Age: Are your joints beginning to ache; are you beginning to have trouble with digestion; do you sleep well?

Genetics: Does osteoporosis run in your family? Heart disease?

Given your personal answers to the above considerations, you can begin to hone down your list of priority supplements. Starting with our budget of $75, you’ll discover we don’t get very far down the list. Heck, we barely get a protein powder with our multi-vitamins!

Hint: Dave’s big idea… move the protein powder out of the supplement category and over to the food budget. That works pretty good, but it might be cheating some. On the other hand, a protein shake is probably replacing a meal, so I guess it’s fair; let’s do it.

1.    Quality vitamin/mineral
2.    Fish oil
3.    Protein powder
4.    Metamucil
5.    Creatine
6.    Vitamin D
7.    Vitamin C
8.    Vitamin E
9.    Vitamin B-complex
10.   Calcium, magnesium and zinc
11.   Glucosamine/Chondroitin/MSM

A sharp shopper who moves the protein powder and Metamucil over to her food budget, and if she tosses the creatine off the list (which I can do because I’ve switched our shopper over to the female gender, and women for the most part don’t like the water weight gain of creatine), can probably get that list done on budget. Nice work!

Past the basics most everyone should use, we begin to get to the specifics an individual might need, stuff like L-Glutamine for gut health and muscle repair, ZMA and melatonin for sleep issues, iodine to boost a sluggish metabolism, enzymes for an aging digestive system, or 5-HTP for a serotonin lift.

Those with an eye toward the most current nutrient science are already taking a second look at Vitamin K, a vitamin the rest haven’t yet heard about in the nightly news.

A hard-striving athlete will probably try to widen the wallet for some branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) or a handful of liver tablets, and would find no quarrel here. He also might spring for a bottle of NO2 for a test run; most of the reports around the forum have been less than stellar, as was Dave’s experience (a dud is what he called it), but there are definitely some who keep rolling with it, so it’s worth a try if it fits in the budget.
The same athlete getting a little long in the tooth and stuffing a bigger bank account will be extremely pleased with Ageless Growth, no stretching the truth there. But again, none of those are on the month here-month there plan; if you don’t have the budget for them, don’t try a bottle to check ‘em out. No gains from BCAAs or Ageless Growth will hold after the initial supply runs out.

Digging a little deeper brings us to the serious issues of hormonal imbalance and heart health. Supplementation can absolutely help in some cases, but first we need to dedicate some time and finances to a doctor’s visit and a list of blood tests.

Buying all the latest forum rage of testosterone boosters and heart strengthening supplements is both expensive and stupid. If you need these, you need a baseline test and a real specific supplement plan, not a fancy ad-itorial or a synopsis of the newest research that may or may not suggest hope for some off-beat herbal preparation.

And you need to move those ingredients — worthy stuff like CoQ10, policosanol, an estrogen blocker like DIM or 6-OXO (quick tip: try daily broccoli first) — out of your supplement budget and over to your medical one. There’s no room left in your supplement category, particularly for some of these expensive items.

A long conversation spanning the past four years takes place here in the forum. Feel free to join in the discussion with your current thinking.