General Health

For optimal performance, it is important to get adequate vitamins and minerals in the diet. And often your needs may be above and beyond the RDI. Calcium is of particular importance, and if you are not getting adequate calcium intake (1000 mg/day), you should increase your dairy consumption and/or take calcium supplements. An excellent calcium supplement with good absorption is NOW bone strength. It is important that you do not take your calcium supplements with oxalate containing foods (see whf: oxalates) as these decrease absorption. Also, take them several hours apart from any iron supplements, as calcium inhibits iron absorption from non meat sources.

Additionally, iron is very important, and you should get at least 15mg of iron per day (23mg for menstruating women). If you do not get enough dietary iron, consider supplementing. Ferrochel iron is a special type of iron that has high absorption and reduces the risk of gastro-intestinal upset. I recommend Country Life Easy Iron if you need to supplement. If you do not need the 25mg per day, you can take it every other day and it is fine.

To cover all your bases I recommend a comprehensive multivitamin that contains well absorbed vitamins and minerals. An excellent vitamin is NOW Special Two.

Fish oils (or Omega 3 caps) contain the essential fatty acids EPA and DHA and are recommended to people who do not eat lots of salmon or other fatty fish. The North American diet is typically low in the anti-inflammatory Omega 3's, and high in the pro-inflammatory Omega 6's (due largely to consumption of polyunsaturated oils). An ideal ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 is 5:1. NOW Ultra Omega 3 is an excellent fish oil which is enteric coated so you don't get any fishy aftertaste. You'd want to take 2-3 caps per day of the concentrated fish oils (or 4-6 of the non-concentrated).

Bodybuilding Supplement Basics

These are the supplements I recommend to every bodybuilder at every experience level. This is the minimum recommended supplementation, without the extra "goodies".

I highly recommend creatine for its ability to improve your strength. If you are stronger, you can lift more weight, and the increased stress on the muscle will result in faster gains! But not only that, it can help you lift more while trying to lose fat, and maintain your gains. I recommend taking Prolab Creatine Monohydrate. You should take 1g per 40 lbs of bodyweight (so about 0.5 tsp if around 120 lbs, and about 1 tsp if around 200 lbs) daily. As long as you do not load it (take huge amounts at the beginning), and take a weight appropriate amount, it should not bloat you. Note that creatine builds up stores in your system, and it will take about a month to reach maximum effectiveness. It does not matter what time of day you take it, you may wish to take it post workout on workout days, in a protein shake.

The second basic supplement I recommend is protein powder. This is a great way to reach your protein requirements, but remember to get most of your protein from food. It is also helpful to shuttle protein to your muscle quickly after a workout, and is often taken immediately post-workout. I recommend taking Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey. I really enjoyed the Extreme Milk Chocolate, Caramel Toffee Fudge and Chocolate Mint flavors mixed in milk.

Heavy weightlifting is hard on the joints. You may consider taking a glucosamine & condroitin formula such as NOW Glucosamine and Condriotin .

Improve Workout Performance

If you incorporate endurance into your lifting (ie. do more than 8 reps per set), or do other endurance activity (eg. running) I highly recommend taking a beta alanine supplement such as Athletic Edge Nutrition IntraXCell. Please note that for the full effects to be seen, you need to take it daily. After several months, you will see a large improvement in endurance.

I found taking a pre-workout supplement to be very helpful. I used the all-in-one formula Millennium Sports Ragnarok, which contains creatine, recovery ingredients, and energy/endurance ingredients all together. A creatine-only product is still needed for off days.