More powders than Johnson & Johnson - Part 2: The beginner's guide to supplements

Part 1 covers proteins, creatine, vitamins, minerals and fish oils; so read that first if you want to know about any of them.

A warning before we start, the title still says beginner's, but some of this is pretty advanced. I'm going to be dropping science on you guys like Cung Le drops heels to the midsection; if you are not prepared for this onslaught, feel free to skip directly to my recommendations at the bottom of the article.

Science is a spinning back kick, you are Scott Smith's broken ribs.

Pre-workouts

This is such a wide ranging class I was hesitant to throw it all under one heading, but as mixed, just-add-water pre-workout supplements are commonplace and popular, I had to talk about them. The general formula for mixed pre-workouts looks something like this: stims, stims, stims, 'pump' inducing compounds, usually creatine, possibly some low level nootropics. For those unfamiliar with the purpose of ingesting a pre-workout, it is to achieve a feeling not dissimilar to this...

Which is great, because they totally do that... for a week or two. You see, your body is pretty smart at adapting to the effects of stimulants and you become resistant pretty quickly; you then have a choice of taking the same dosage for a decreased effect, upping the dosage or laying off stims for a while. The flip side to this is that if you are someone who is very sensitive to stimulants, you might be massively amped for far too long and might have your sleep patterns affected. I have also heard many anecdotal reports of huge energy crashes a couple of hours after using some pre-workouts, I've never experienced this myself but it sounds shit, so is something you may want to consider. Luckily, most companies offer single serving samples of their pre-workouts so you can try before you buy. If you're up and down like a trampoline, don't get it. If it doesn't do shit, don't get it. If it give you a smooth burst of energy and focus with no come down, you might want to consider it.

You might be wondering what the magic compounds are that make you feel like the Hulk on bath salts. Look at the back of a few tubs and you will realise every company has their own mix, usually with a fucking stupid name ("Super explosive pump and holy-shit-balls power matrix"). There are however a few key players which keep popping up:

Caffeine (and/or Guarana) - everyone knows caffeine, most love the stuff whether it comes from tea, coffee, Red Bull, ProPlus or MegaFocusAndMadVeins5000 (patent pending). The effects of caffeine are mainly due to it mimicking adenosine and binding to receptors in its stead. When adenosine binds to receptors, it sedates you, making you feel relaxed and sleepy; caffeine on the other hand, does not. This indirectly leads to increased alertness and the feeling of being awake. This also has knock-on effects to other bodily systems, which would take a while to list.

The point is caffeine has been proven have effects of potent stimulation (big surprise), fat burning, increased power output, decreased perceived exertion (you feel like you are working less hard than you are), increased reaction time and increased serum catecholamine (adrenaline and noradrenaline) levels. So caffeine is a clever little bugger and something you want to be taking in.

The problem with caffeine is the tolerance issue. Right now you exist somewhere on the caffeine tolerance spectrum; a double espresso might make you bounce off the walls, it might do pretty much nothing or it might be necessary to make you feel human. The more naive you are to caffeine, in general, the more awesome using a pre-workout is going to feel, however there is then the potential of over-stimulation or a big come down. Everything in moderation, young grasshopper. Conversely, the yellow-toothed, 8 cups-of-coffee-a-day chugging, caffeine powered drones amongst you will likely not feel shit (and cycling off caffeine for 2 weeks or so is probably a decent idea).

As an addendum: these days caffeine and novel sources thereof are pretty much the only stims you tend to find in pre-workouts. In the past you could find (fairly recently) DMAA and (a while back) ephedra. Sadly these days are gone.

Maybe a bit less of the stims for you two

Arginine - this is an amino-acid that has the effect of blood flow regulation and nitric acid production. For those that don't know, elevated nitric acid levels are what are responsible for 'the pump', the feeling of fullness and vascularity in the muscle being worked. Arginine is found in a bunch of different forms in pre-workouts, this is because different groups are clamped on to it in order to improve absorption, the end goal is always the same though - crazy veins. Unfortunately, while arginine does its job, absorption is pretty poor, a better choice is...

Citrulline - also an amino acid (which along with arginine and othinine makes up the urea cycle), there isn't a lot to say about citrulline apart from it does what arginine does, but better (in terms of workout enhancing). This is because it's absorbed well then turned into arginine in your body, so it's effectively the same thing, just being delivered more efficiently.

Take MegaFocusAndMadVeins5000 and look like this immediately!! (disclaimer: not actually true)

Beta-Alanine - if you have ever taken a pre-workout and felt like your entire body has a not-unpleasant pins-and-needles feeling (known as paresthesia), you are familiar with beta-alanine. It is in most pre-workouts, however tends to be under-dosed (around 5 g is good, around 1 g is usually supplied) and is not necessarily a pre-workout compound per-se as beneficial effects are from chronic, not acute supplementation. Furthermore, whilst the effects are beneficial, they are pretty unsubstantial. Beta-alanine is converted to carnosine in the body, stores of which act as an acid buffer; this has a small increase on muscle endurance (think of 'the burn', now think slightly less burn). That's it.

Taurine - this one might sound familiar - it's commonplace in energy drinks. It's effective for stopping cramps, it can also draw water into muscle cells, adding a very small degree of volume. Fun fact: whilst taurine is not a component of bull piss as some urban legends claim, it was in fact first isolated from a bull's testicle, hence the name.

Just getting my taurine fix...

Tyrosine - an amino acid which is used in the bio-synthesis of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline (remember them?), supplementation at much higher doses than is present in pre-workouts has anti-stress effects on cognition for acute stressors (such as exercise). At the doses this is supplied in most/all pre-workouts, it doesn't do a whole lot.

D-Aspartic acid - this one is less common but crops up here and there, it's believed to act a testosterone booster (and thus should really be cycled like one), but any controlled studies on it to date are pretty sketchy.

Vinopcetine - I've seen this in one or two mixes. Vinopcetine is a nootropic, increasing cerebral blood flow which leads to improvements in cognition and memory. I personally don't think this has a place in pre-workouts, although most tend to hugely under dosed it for any real benefits to be experienced, there has been new research questioning the long term safety of vinopcetine due to adverse effects on dopaminergic pathways.

Choline - or  direct and indirect cholinergic compounds such as DMAE, Alpha-GPC and Huperzine-A. This is a class of compounds I am a fan of. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter associated with learning, the levels of which are increased by supplementation with the aforementioned compounds. Increased acetylcholine levels have the benefit of increasing focus and muscle contractions, which is pretty perfect as a pre-workout. These effects are nothing dramatic, but they are nice nonetheless; around 1-2 g (if using choline bitartrate) pre-workout gives the desired effect. Unfortunately again, most pre-workouts under dose this (if present at all), there are benefits from chronic low level dosing of different cholinergics however. These include choline's liver protective abilities and DMAE's reduction of neuron oxidation, in addition to sustenance of methyl donation (necessary for a variety of metabolic processes) by all cholinergics.

Nootropics are a seriously interesting area recently and one I'm keeping a pretty close eye on. I won't go into any more detail here, partly because it is beyond the scope of this article and partly because my knowledge isn't up to the point where I can avoid embarrassing myself.

This is your mind on nootropics

Creatine - this was covered in detail in the first part. As discussed, it is a quality compound; supplement manufacturers tend to put it into pre-workouts as it has known benefits and because most trainees will recognise it in the ingredients list. Also as previously discussed, supplementation of creatine pre-workout has no extra benefit over taking it at any other time, but if you want to take it pre-workout, go ahead.

These aren't the only compounds you'll find in pre-workouts, but they are the usual suspects. Some tubs will have an ingredient list as long as your arm, often a lot of this is variations on the same active molecule with differing absorption modulating groups added ("N.O. X-plode has 5 novel types of creatine!" - no one cares, they all the do the same thing).


Fat burners and the like

A large amount of what is in commercial fat burners is in pre-workouts and vice versa, so if you made it through the above, you will know about most of the compounds in fat burners. There are various other compounds that have been touted as fat burners, either alone or as part of 'stacks', some of which I'll go through below:

CLA - conjugated linoleic acid is a mix of similar fatty acids which supposedly increase fat metabolism. Fitness media and supplement companies alike have made this their little darling; unfortunate then, that it sucks. The theory is pretty, they bind to and activate/inhibit different parts of the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) system, up regulating fat burning in the liver and inhibiting storage in fat cells. Sounds lovely, but the effects are far too weak in humans to do anything much in practice. Forget the hype, believe the science.

I don't need bikini-clad women, I have science...

Synephrine - you'll regularly see this one listed as 'bitter orange extract' or 'Citrus aurantium'.  Remember how I said ephedrine used to be in sports supplements, but is now illegal? This is the best legal alternative. Compared to ephedrine's effects it is weak, but it does have legitimate beta-andrenergic agonist properties. This means it acts like adrenaline and nor-adrenaline (those guys again) albeit weaker; the effects are an increase in basal metabolic rate and lipolysis (fat breakdown). Beta-andrenergic agonists are all synergic with caffeine (i.e. they work better together than the sum of their parts) and synephrine strangely shows good synergism with two compounds found in grapefruit. Some might experience jitters, trouble sleeping or in extreme cases anxiety when taking synephrine, but it is a pretty safe compound for the most part.

Yohimbine - very similar to the above, it works via the same pathways and is essentially a less potent version of ephedrine in its effects. Anecdotally, it appears to be useful for targeting stubborn fat deposits once users are already at low body fat levels. It is also used as an erectile aid and I've heard multiple reports of people pitching tents for no apparent reason when on it, so it might be worthwhile, if only for the comedy element. The downsides to use is that jitters are commonplace and it can bring about anxiety in those that are predisposed.

Blame the pleat all you want.

Green tea extracts - on top of fat burning properties green tea has a host of positive benefits, it has variously shown to be cardio, liver and neuro-protective as well as anti-carcinogenic, diabetic and artherogenic. Green tea is definitely all around good stuff. The only problem with green tea supplements is that 'green tea extracts' is a broad term, you might be paying for nothing more than some crushed tea leaves. The polyphenols present in green tea are responsible for most of these positive effects; unsurprisingly, these can be consumed by just drinking green tea, which is exactly what I recommend. It is worth noting that the fat burning effects of green tea do largely depend on the user being caffeine naive, so you hardened coffee drinks will not derive much of a thermogenic effect.

 Chinese people like green tea and you don't see many fat Chinese people (I'm allowed to say that because it's positive racism, right?)

Carnitine - this and the related ALCAR are claimed to increase fat burning, which they do if (and only if) you are deficient in them. Are you likely to be deficient? Not if you eat animal products in any appreciable quantity, making this of limited use to anyone who has a sensible diet. Vegetarians on the other hand might consider supplementation. It's also probably noteworthy that ALCAR supplementation has shown nootropic effects, but these are nothing particularly special.

Amino acids

Again, many of the interesting amino-acids are covered in the pre-workout or fat-burner section. A few others that are popular are covered below:

BCAAs - not a single amino acid, but a combination of 3 branched chain amino acids (Leucine, Isoleucine and Valine). These are believed to be the most anabolic aminos, with leucine appearing to be the most important for muscle protein synthesis. If your diet is high in protein, BCAA supplementation is not a necessity. They may be of use for increasing muscle synthesis for those with low protein diets (I'm looking at you, veggie). BCAAs become very useful on intermittent fasting protocols in which fasted resistance training is utilised; supplementation (~10 g) before a fasted workout allows for protection from muscle breakdown during the workout with minimal caloric load, therefore retaining the majority of the benefits of fasted training.

Glutamine - regularly claimed to be a muscle builder, reducer of DOMS (next-day muscle soreness) and immune system booster. It may well be all these things, but unless your diet is protein deficient, benefits from supplementation are minor.

HMB - a metabolite of leucine (see BCAAs, above) that is regularly claimed to be great muscle builder. A great muscle builder it is not, at least not compared to leucine, but it is a pretty good anti-catabolic, that is, it prevents muscle breakdown. It might be helpful in limiting muscle loss after major injuries or in times of extended bed rest, other than that, its uses can't justify it's asking price.

I Googled 'amino acid joke', I deserve exactly what I got

My Recommendations

If you've read the entire article to this point, well done; if you've skipped to this point, I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

Here are my supplement recommendations for various groups (which you will fall under more than one of; all recommendations apply). Bear in mind no supplements are vital, people managed before they existed and so can you.

Everyone - the supplements I'd strongly recommend to everyone are Vitamin D and Magnesium. Just below these in importance I would place a good multi-vitamin and fish oils (to those who aren't eating sufficient amounts of fish). A bit further below these in importance  I would recommend creatine monohydrate and further below this, a cholinergic supplement such as choline bitartrate.

Vegetarians/vegans - you tragic people need many more supplements than most to make up for your lacking diets. For veggies, I'd recommend whey (for post training) and casein (for rest days), an algae based omega-3 supplement in lieu of fish oil (this is a far superior choice to flax) and possibly a carnitine supplement (especially if looking to drop fat). For vegans, I'd recommend the same as for veggies, just substituting the protein for hemp and pea powders.

Females looking to lose fat - no specific extra supplements. Drink green tea ad-libitum and up to 4 cups of black coffee a day (I don't consider these supplements, but they fall under the classes I have discussed).

Females looking to gain muscle - a whey protein powder

Overweight males looking to lose fat - same as 'females looking to lose fat', a whey supplement may also be used if engaging in heavy resistance training (which you should be).

Lean males looking to get 'ripped' - whey, your desired choice of caffeine delivery system and green tea ad-libitum. If you are on a significantly sub-maintenance calorie diet then finding a pre-workout you like might be a good idea in order to get you through hard workouts with low energy. Finally, if you know what you are doing, feel free to experiment with synephrine, but make sure you do your research first.

Males looking to add muscle - whey (for post workout) and casein (for rest days, if desired). If you really like pre-workouts you can use them, but when looking to gain muscle you should be eating above-maintenance calories, so should have no shortage of energy to destroy the iron.

Those engaging in fasted training - BCAAs (to be taken pre-training)

You may be wondering where to buy your supplements. I'm not sponsored, so am impartial; however Bulk Powders and MyProtein both offer great quality, pretty much the best prices in the country and are the sites I personally use for all my needs.

If using Bulk powders, putting in the offer code DC40501 at checkout gives you £5 off your first order (assuming it is over £15) and a one-off £5 credit kickback to me. If using MyProtein, the offer code MP18633  nets you 5% discount on your first order and offers me a 1% credit kickback on your future purchases. I see a lot of potential new customers, so would be very grateful if you were to use these codes if you decide to purchase supplements.

Phew, that was a long one (that's what she..), so if you excuse me...

...or you can buy me a drink for all the free information I'm bestowing and then get drunk with me.