1. Be very interested in the strength and conditioning game, spend copious amounts of your free time reading the latest research and opinion from leading experts.
2. Structure intelligent training according to 1, help to train others and write articles for those you don't train with.
3. More or less phase out working on 1 and 2 due to time pressures from working towards a PhD and a general dissatisfaction with the B.S. of 99% of the fitness industry.
4. Keep training hard, keep repping legit companies you believe in, occasionally post about both on Instagram.
5. Completely out the blue, get approached by said legit company, asking if you want a sponsorship.
6. Profit.
I concede, it's not the usual route, however much to my surprise, this is what has just happened to me. As such, after being a long time fan, I'm now a very happy member of (ludicrously potent supplement and awesome apparel manufacturer) Chaos and Pain's #TeamMostHated.
"Well what the bloody F does that mean to me?" you may very well ask. It means you can get 20% off everything at Chaos and Pain (click to visit) by using the discount code 'CnPwithDC' (see what I did there). For those familiar with the general badassery CnP bring to the table, I likely need to say no more. For others a little context may be necessary.
This is Chaos and Pain, in their own words:
Chaos and Pain began as a tiny blog stuffed into a dusty, long forgotten corner of the internet, a minor bit of esoterica awash in a sea of mediocre writing, unoriginal thought, and oft-regurgitated dogma. The progenitor of the blog, Jamie Lewis, and his occasional training partner, Wayne Banks, decided one day that the Chaos and Pain training style (high volume, high frequency, haphazard and teeth-gnashingly aggressive) would play well into supplements. Jamie had been making his own fat burners for years, and the market has been dying for hyper-extreme, yet legal alternatives to the industry standard. Thus, the two forged a business partnership to bring Jamie's vision for the supplement future to market.
Domination of the competition is the name of the game, and Chaos and Pain is about to bring their success on the field of strength sports into the world of supplements. You have been warned.
Look at some of the goodies that you can get 20% off.
As it says above, CnP started as a blog of the insanely strong and generally just insane Jamie Lewis. Well researched, aggressively delivered and never afraid to unapologetically go against the grain; I immediately counted myself a fan and proceeded to read every article on the site.
Fast forward a bit; a lot of articles (containing a lot of NSFW material - you have been warned!) and a few world records down, CnP start selling their own supplements. True to form, these do not look like your average globo-supplement-company products. Ranging from pre-workouts that push the borders of legally acceptable stimulant doses, to impressively complex blends of research backed brain boosting compounds, to sleep aids, joint support and more; these are well thought out supplements, wrapped in a bit of CnP's signature aggression and put to market at very reasonable price points.
Who else sticks Vlad the Impaler on their T-shirts? ...no one, that's who
I'm sure some may think that I'm merely saying all this now the company have decided to give me some free stuff, but Chaos and Pain are genuinely a company I have been a long time fan of and have repeatedly spent my money on the awesome shit they sell. Anyone that knows me well knows that parting me and my money is no easy feat, so if they can count me among happy returning customers, they must be doing something right.
That is me, doing squat lockouts with as much weight as the bar at the gym could hold (330kg, for any wondering), I'm also wearing a Chaos and Pain T-shirt. Coincidence...I think not.
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.
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.
Supplements. Everyone wants to know about supplements. Whether it's asking me what protein they should buy, asking if I'm 'on' creatine or if there is something they can take to transform them into a shredded beast with a 10 inch cock; I seem to get hundreds of questions ranging from the inane to the insane.
Before your mind goes wandering, we're keeping things strictly legal and over the counter here. I have no practical experience with androgenic anabolics and I'm certainly not going to recommend them to beginners, however I do plan to write a post on my views on AAS in the future.
A large part of what drives people to ask a million and one questions about supplements is the allure of the magic potion, some elixir of life type shit that will bring all the benefits of a diet and exercise plan, without the efforts. Get this one out of your head; supplements should be exactly as the name suggest. They are an optional add on to a good diet and exercise programme, not an alternative path. Secondly, advertising hammers you with the message that you need supplements and makes outlandish claims of what is possible if you take their products. Supplements do work (although not all of them); there wouldn't be a market otherwise, but putting your faith in a powder or pill to double your muscle gains is setting yourself up for disappointment. People built muscle, got strong, lean and all that good stuff before the supplement boom; they didn't need them and nor do you. However, if your training routine and diet are in place, supplements do provide something extra, so read on to find what they can offer you.
Lean, muscular and clueless as to what the fuck N.O. X-plode is.
Protein powders
The most commonly consumed and debated of sports supplements, this comes in many forms including whey (of various sub-classes), casein, egg, soy, pea, hemp. Add to that various weight gainers (one or more of the aforementioned proteins plus a shit load of carb powders) and meal replacements (protein plus carb powders, fat sources and usually some vitamins). That's a fair amount of products, so what do you need to worry about? Not a lot.
You see, people like to complicate the issue with protein. Here's my views:
Don't bother with weight gainer shakes unless you are looking to get 3000+ calories in a day (you probably aren't). Instead learn to eat more and stop being a whiny little bitch.
Ditto meal replacements, unless you are a legitimately really, really busy person (students: this isn't you) who has genuinely made the effort to eat more, but is struggling.
If you're eating low calories (< 1500), you'll probably want to get all your protein from solid sources for satiety's sake, unless you have a very poor appetite.
Whey (derived from milk) is the classic choice and for good reason; it's a cheap, highly bio-available, quick absorbing protein. Want a convenient way to hit your target protein intake on training days? Bang down a whey shake after training.
Unless you are a high level athlete, don't worry yourself at all about the sub-categories of whey. Get the basic stuff. The minor differences in speed of absorption for acid or hydrolysed whey versus your basic level stuff is nowhere near significant enough to justify the added expense. Add that to the fact that increased absorption speed of a protein does not necessarily lead to increased muscle protein synthesis in the fed state and you should realise that you're better keeping your money in your pocket.
Don't worry about getting ultra low carb or low fat powders either (all straight up whey powders are pretty low in both carbs and fats), a gram or two here or there isn't going to make a difference.
One thing that may be worth a note: those that are lactose intolerant to any degree may want to shell out a little more for a extra-low lactose variety to save themselves bubble gut and the infamous protein farts.
Casein is the other protein in milk and is the second most popular choice of protein supplement; this is the slow absorbing milk protein, the yin to whey's yang (well, maybe not that different). Point is, casein is absorbed by your body at a slower rate than whey, leading to a longer lived, but lower magnitude of blood amino elevation. What does this mean for you in practice? Casein is a worse choice than whey post-workout, but better if you're using it as a protein source for any other meal. If you're the 'breakfast shake' type and feeling rich, casein is a good choice here due to the sustained amino levels, but using it is far from necessary.
As an added note for vegetarians: firstly I disagree with your lifestyle choice. Secondly, I would recommend you get both whey and casein supplements as due to your silly diet, getting sufficient protein without added carbs and fats is difficult, making powders a smart choice.
For vegans: First for the love of God and your malnourished bodies, eat some damn animal products. Secondly, leave the soy (phytoestrogens are not your friends); get some pea and hemp protein.
Apparently protein shakes existed in ancient Japan.
Creatine
"I heard he can rep 4 plates on squats" "yeah, but... he's on the creatine"
I've actually heard shit like the above being said, re-affirming my long held and regularly vocalized belief that most people are bloody idiots.
Creatine is an effective supplement for sure, its main function is to store phosphate groups as phosphocreatine. Once your cell's 'energy currency', ATP, have blown their load and lost a phosphate to become ADP, phosphocreatine can donate a phosphate group to ADP. This reforms ATP and allows it to go back to being a little fucking powerhouse. It's been proven in multiple double-blind randomised studies that creatine increases power output, which is good news for lifters, casual and hardcore alike. It has also recently been shown to have subtle nootropic (smart drug) like effects, enhancing cognition slightly, which is a nice little bonus.
Let's dispel any myths surrounding creatine and educate you as to its use by a series of questions to which each answer is my favourite word: no. Is creatine a steroid? Is creatine bad for your kidneys/liver? Does creatine cause cramping? Do I have to 'load' creatine? Are fancy variants any better than monohydrate in testing? Does creatine need to be taken with a fast acting carb? Does creatine need to be cycled? Does creatine have to be taken at a certain time e.g. pre-workout? Can I get an amount of creatine comparable to what I would take as a supplement just by eating lots of steak and eggs? Are the benefits proportional to dose?
I think creatine is great. Science also thinks it's great. When science and I agree, anyone that disagrees should be sterilised as they are no use to the human race. Creatine monohydrate has a bunch of positive effects on the body and is cheap as chips; get some, take 5 grams a day, profit. Or don't, it's your body.
Yeah it's impressive, but he's on creatine, so....
Vitamins, minerals and fish oils
I've bundled these all into one section as there isn't too much to say about each and most people are already familiar with what vitamin tablets are and how you take them (as suppositories, right?).
Vitamins and minerals - We'll tackle these first, to save myself typing it a hundred times, from now on, when I say vitamins, I mean minerals as well. Theoretically, vitamin supplements shouldn't be necessary as we all should be eating a wide range of vegetables and meats, checking every necessary box. In practice, this doesn't happen. Even those with fantastic diets have their favoured and unfavoured foods leading to most people not getting enough of certain vitamins. Another factor you may be aware of is that due to soil depletion, the veg you are eating today likely have lower levels of certain vitamins than those your grandparents were eating.
Sort your act out, modern soil.
The best way to supplement with vitamins would be to analyse your diet, identify what you are deficient in and supplement with only those. Hassle. It's much easier to get a good multi. This can be your dietary 'safety net' plugging up any minor deficiencies in your day to day intake.
There is one vitamin and one mineral I recommend as additional supplements, either on top of a multi, or if you decide against a multi (which many do) as your only extras:
Vitamin D - most people in non-equatorial regions are deficient in vitamin D to some respect. I imagine many of you are, like me, from the UK. The land where God turned down the contrast levels. As your body synthesises vitamin D when your skin is exposed to sunlight, all the grey does us no good in this regard, nor do weekdays trapped in an office/lecture theatre/lab/brothel. Vitamin D has a huge list of benefits, so I won't go into detail, but just look what this beast can do - increase cognition, bone and immune health; reduce risk of diabetes, MS, heart disease and cancer and increase testosterone levels in those that are deficient. Vitamin D is a magic little molecule, it's also cheap to supplement with. A point worth noting is that vitamin D is fat soluble, so for best absorption, take it along with a meal that contains some fat.
The sun and Britain are not good friends
Magnesium - the second most common deficiency in the developed world (after vitamin D). Deficiency can lead to undesired neural excitations which may be factors in conditions such as depression and ADHD; it can also leads to elevating blood pressure and poor insulin sensitivity/blood glucose control. Supplementing is again cheap and easy as popping a tablet; magnesium citrate is a good choice as a balance between cost and absorption.
Fish Oils - The best way to get these into your diet is to eat oily fish - I know, revolutionary thinking - but, sardines, mackerel and wild salmon aren't everyone's thing. If you hate fish, supplementing with fish oils is an easy, cheap way to get docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in your diet. Why do you want these unpronounceable words in your diet? I'm sure you've heard all about 'omega-3' fats being great, but you probably don't know why. Without getting too deep into the science (and probably over my head); these compounds are stored in cell membranes along with 'omega-6' fatty acids and released as needed. A 1:1 ratio between these two classes of fatty acids is near optimal for the body, however most people have way more omega-6 than omega-3 present. Supplementing with fish oil helps bring this ratio back to where you want it to be which brings a host of benefits.
Mackerel: a gormless little nutrition powerhouse
The benefits of supplementing with fish oil are due to both the improved omega 3 : omega 6 ratios and effects of the fish oil compounds themselves, they include: reduced blood pressure, better HDL (good cholesterol) : LDL (bad cholesterol) ratio, reducing trigycerides, decreased risk/symptoms of depression and ADHD, lower risk of artery plaque build up, reduced risk of diabetes, improved memory and at higher doses decreased muscle soreness, increased rates of muscle glycogen re-synthesis and increased bio-energetic flexibility in muscle cells (that is, the ability to switch between using glucose and fat as an energy source).
If you managed to wade through that, you will probably realise fish oil is pretty good stuff. As initially pointed out, eating fish (minimum 3 portions a week) is your best way of getting it in. If you don't each much or any fish, supplementing with 1 g active DHA and EPA per day (that is more than 1 g of oil, you will have to look at the EPA/DHA proportions on your supplement) is a good idea. If you wish to explore the benefits that are listed as occurring at higher doses, you need to take in around 6 g DHA/EPA per day, but this isn't necessary otherwise.
Shout out to Sol Orwell and Kurtis Frank for making a great site for all this stuff.
Part 2 coming soon - discussing pre-workouts, stuff I think is cool, stuff I think sucks and giving you a simple list of what I think you should consider taking, depending on your goals.
