Supplements can go a long way in the battle for improving your ability to recover and feel fresh for the next battle with the iron. While diet is very important in providing for overall health, supplements can provide that exact bolus dose of a certain nutrient, at the right time, and thus increase the ability of the body to work effectively. Take the right supplements on top of a good night’s sleep and you are onto a winner. But what supplements are the best for recovery?
Creatine is probably the most popular sports performance supplement or ergogenic aid. Creatine monohydrate has been around for a long time and has been proven in multiple studies to be effective at increasing your ability to work harder, for every rep and set, leading to overall better gains. This is done simply through saturating your muscles with more ATP, the muscles key source of energy. So the theory is, more energy equals more reps and sets. Creatine is also very cheap due to the sheer amount of products with creatine in it and the overall demand for it. Creatine should definitely be in your supplement armoury. Five grams of creatine monohydrate post workout is a good minimum dose.
A multi-vitamin. Not quite a fancy sports supplement, but an essential if you want the most out of your body, all day, every day. A multi-vitamin is going to cover all the bases and ensure that your body has every nutrient to hand in the quest for increasing your ability to recover at the quickest rate possible.
Branched chain amino acids (BCAA’s) are the body’s key amino’s during exercise. There is a plethora of emerging research to back the use for BCAA’s while you workout to limit the amount of muscle breakdown, and to increase the anabolic response to a training session. With the emergence of fasted training, especially in some diet concepts, BCAA’s serve as the essential supplement to take to ensure that muscle breakdown is limited as much as possible. After all who wants to lose any of their hard earned muscle. Taking 10-20g over the course of a training session is ideal.
Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body, closely followed by the BCAA’s. Many people report that when on an intense training regimen the added inclusion of the amino acid glutamine into their recovery shake and overall regime can do wonders in restoring recuperative capabilities. It makes sense that if there is a high turnover of this amino acid in the body, during exercise and daily living, then supplementing, especially post workout, can aid the body in keeping its glutamine pool at maximum, and thus keep you firing on all cylinders. Ten grams taken after your workout is a good habit to get into, especially as glutamine is also essential to maintaining the integrity of your gut lining, an often overlooked benefit of this supplement.
Leucine is number one on the anabolic list. Leucine has been proven in many recent studies to increase the turnover of protein in the body and maximise the effect of “leucine oxidation”, a marker of the anabolic process. Five grams taken four times a day is now common practice with many hardcore trainers. This is especially apparent around the workout window, with the thinking being; take advantage of its anabolic properties. A minimum dose of leucine if only taken once during the day would be before your workout, six grams would cover the bases, and if can be taken again in your post workout shake would be very beneficial.
