Do Supplements Help Increase Muscle Growth? (Science-Backed Answer)

Do supplements even work to increase muscle growth or help with strength training? There's a lot of nonsense about this topic out there. So let's talk about it.

Do Supplements Increase Muscle Growth?

I do believe there are a few supplements that can aid in muscle growth and strength training over time. But before we get into those, I just want to clear up that supplements will not do the work for you. They supplement (or help).

99% of your results, no matter what your goals are, are going to come from making sure that you're following a plan that is smart and structured. You have to dial in your nutrition and eat enough to support muscle growth. This includes getting enough fuel and protein. It also involves stress management and making sure you're paying attention to your recovery:

• Sleeping enough
• Relaxing
• Resting between workouts

So I always like to say, if you're focusing on the small stuff, and you don't have the big stuff in place first, then things aren't gonna move that far.

You need to focus on the big rocks first. And don't worry about the pebbles until you have those rocks in place.

So, Do Supplements Work?

And when we're talking about supplements, you can think of supplements being those pebbles right there, the little things that make a tiny difference. Make sure you pay attention to that before we even get into thinking about taking supplements in general.

There are some supplements that have been proven to help with muscle growth and strength training over time. The first one and this is one that I personally take and I recommend for all my clients because there's so much research on it is creatine.

Creatine

We have 30 plus years of research that shows that creatine can be beneficial in terms of increasing muscle growth and increasing strength training over time. So how does creatine supplementation work? 'm going to kind of go through a little nerdy sciency stuff real quick—hopefully, you can follow along with me.

When you're working out when you're lifting weights, you're using energy. The energy in our body is generated from what's called ATP, which just stands for adenosine triphosphate. So when you work out and you burn energy, you're using energy—you're actually burning off one of those phosphates from that ATP. And it turns from ATP, adenosine triphosphate to adenosine diphosphate, three phosphates to two phosphates

The issue with that is that ADP adenosine diphosphate cannot be used for energy in that form. And so this is where creatine comes in.

We have another energy source in our body called creatine phosphate. And creatine can actually lend its phosphate to ADP and it helps it to basically restore that ATP a lot faster when creatine lends its phosphate to a DEP and allows us to regenerate and replenish ATP a lot faster.

That's what we can use for energy.

You can think of supplementing with creatine as a sort of topping off the tank. So we get creatine in the foods we eat specifically in animal foods like meat, fish, and dairy foods like that. But if you're someone who might not eat a lot of animal-based foods or dairy or things like that, then you might not be getting enough creatine in your diet. So topping off the tank in that regard is very beneficial for you.

Even if you are someone who eats a lot of animal products supplementing with creatine has been shown to still be beneficial. As I said, we have tons of research on this—30 plus years of research on the benefits of creatine. Another thing to think about is that creatine doesn't just benefit us in terms of strength training and muscle building. There's actually a lot of research coming out on the cognitive benefits of creatine.

Creatine Goes Beyond Exercise Benefits

We do have promising research that shows that supplementing with creatine can actually be super beneficial in preventing cognitive decline. There's some research coming out with Alzheimer's disease and some other research coming out with brain health. Supplementing with creatine really, there's no downside because another reason is, that it's super cheap.

You want to consume about three to five grams per day. And you might have heard that you have to go through a loading process where you have to consume—you know even more than that for a period of time for your body to become saturated in creatine. For about like a week or so we call that creatine loading.

That's not necessary. I mean, you can do that. But in my experience, people tend to get a little bit of digestive issues when they load creatine. As long as you're taking it daily and consistently, that's what matters, because the saturation over time is what's going to make the difference that you can load in the first week or so.

I usually just put in my pre-workout drink and take it before I work out. Because that's the time that I remember, there is a little bit of research that shows that potentially taking it away from stimulants and maybe post-workout can be slightly better, because post-workout your cells, your muscle cells are going to be a little bit more likely to absorb it, versus if you're going to take it another time throughout the day.

But that research is still kind of controversial. So the biggest thing that matters is that you're taking it on a daily basis so that you keep your body saturated with it.

So creatine is one of those supplements that again, we have tons of research on and there are potential benefits even beyond strength training. You know, if you are going to be working out if you're going to be you know lifting weights, if you're looking to just enhance everything you're doing, topping off your creatine stores can be beneficial.

Electrolyte Supplementation

Another supplement that is super underrated for muscle growth is sodium and also just electrolytes in general. So if your electrolytes are out of whack, it's going to cause a lot of things to be out of whack in your body. And specifically, with sodium. When it comes to supplementing with sodium pre-workout, there are a lot of benefits to that the first benefit to supplementing sodium before your workout. So just add a little bit of salt to your water is that it's going to give you a great muscle pump. So sodium actually helps to draw water into your cells and more specifically, your muscle cells, which is gonna help them feel fuller and give you that muscle pump when you're lifting.

Maintaining your sodium levels is also going to be important for maintaining membrane potential within your cells. And all that means is that that helps with muscle contractions and cell contractions and cardiac function. So sodium is super important for making sure that all the kinds of electrical signals in your body are working properly. Another benefit to sodium is that it helps to balance electrolytes within your body, right. So if you've ever had muscle cramps during a training session, or after taking a little bit of sodium can actually help with that, because that's probably a left an electrical signal that is kind of going wrong within your body. And that can be due to just an imbalance in electrolytes.

Simply supplementing with a little sodium can help with muscle cramps, potentially even a little bit of magnesium can help with that as well. But sodium is super beneficial when it comes to just making sure that you are balancing those electrolytes and keeping things in check.

Last but not least, sodium helps to influence the absorption and transport of nutrients that you're consuming. In your pre-workout meal and in your post-workout meal or in any of your meals throughout the day, having enough sodium there is going to help you actually absorb those nutrients a lot better.

In terms of supplementing sodium pre-workout, typically I just either salt my pre-workout meal, or I'll do like a half to a quarter to a half a teaspoon of salt in my water and sip on that during the workout. It really goes a long way. If you've never paid attention to your salt intake or your sodium intake before your workouts, try doing it and see if you notice any difference in your muscle pump because I promise you probably will.

Caffeine Supplementation

The next element is caffeine. So caffeine is one of the most well-researched ergogenic aids. And that just means that it helps the performance it helps enhance performance. And if you just think about it, practically caffeine is a stimulant, so it helps with focus and energy. If you have more focus and energy going into your workout, you're probably going to have a better workout, right?

However, if you're not sleeping, if you're not recovering well, adding tons and tons of caffeine on top of that just to get through your workout is not going to be a good situation in the long run. And we also know that we adapt to caffeine so you can actually adapt the amount of caffeine you're consuming. And if you're taking more and more and more over time, it's going to have a very minimal effect.

You can't just lean on caffeine to work out every day—you have to make sure that you're paying attention to sleep and recovery, too.

Protein Powder Supplementation

The last supplement that I personally think would be beneficial for muscle gains or you know, promoting muscle growth would be protein powder. But there's a caveat here you know, you don't need protein powder to gain muscle.

Protein Powder is just more of a convenient thing to have if you're struggling to get enough protein in throughout the day. If you're someone who is very, very busy, you're running around, you have a busy job and you're struggling to get enough protein. And throughout the day, you're struggling to kind of sit down and have a protein-rich meal, having a protein shake, or having some protein powder on hand, can be beneficial for that.

It's not anything that's like magic—it's just making things a little bit easier and convenient for you. When you're choosing a protein powder, you just want to make sure that you're choosing it for the right goal. So when I say that, I mean that there are a ton of different types of protein powders out there. And some of them have different amounts of different amino acids. So when you're choosing a protein powder, with the goal of enhancing muscle protein synthesis, you want to make sure that you're choosing the protein powders that have the full spectrum.

Thinking about proteins, like whey protein, casein, egg, white protein, and plant-based proteins that do have, that are made with complete combinations of proteins. We also have something called complete versus incomplete proteins and complete proteins just mean that it has all of those amino acids.

Feel free to like contact the supplement company and ask them and they should be super transparent with you—if they're not, go to another company. Because that is a clear sign and a red flag that you probably don't want to be consuming that protein, if they're not going to be transparent with you talking about collagen and beef protein and bone broth protein. Those proteins are made up more of connective tissue, the connective tissue from the animals—so it's going to have a lot more amino acids that are going to be beneficial for joint health, skin, house skin elasticity, things like that.

Collagen and bone broth protein are typically higher in amino acids called glutamine, which is important for that. With all that being said, you don't need to memorize any of that, just realize that choosing the protein powder that makes sense for the goal at hand is going to be what's beneficial. So if you're consuming protein after your workout, you probably want to have one that has the full spectrum amino acid has enough essential amino acids in it to stimulate that muscle protein synthesis. So if you're putting collagen in your coffee in the morning, there are benefits to collagen, because especially because we don't necessarily get a lot of it nowadays, because we're not eating nose to tail.

Want to learn more about how to increase muscle growth before the supplements? Check out the other nutrition and exercise content here on the blog and on the podcast—our fitness programs can help you avoid costly mistakes.