My favorite supplement...

[El Greco]

...is Omacor (http://www.omacor.co.uk/pages/homepage.asp). This is the purest EPA+DHA that exists; with just one capsule per day you're ok. I'm almost in love with it. :cool:

[HarryKeogh]

I'm a big fan of flax seed, flax seed oil and walnuts for my Omega fatty acids.

The only supplements I take anymore are a MRP after weight workouts.

Just too expensive and too many rip-off products out there. (gotta love those Muscletech before and after pics)

[Soapy Sam]

Chocolate covered coffee beans.

A perfectly balanced diet really.

[exarch]

How bad is to start working out without a diet change?

OK, so I DO eat a bit healthier now (more fresh fruits and veggies, and more fresh meat instead of canned stuff), but is it necessary to use supplements?
(And I'm not trying to look like Arnold Shwarzenegger(sp?)).

[HarryKeogh]

Originally posted by exarch
How bad is to start working out without a diet change?

OK, so I DO eat a bit healthier now (more fresh fruits and veggies, and more fresh meat instead of canned stuff), but is it necessary to use supplements?
(And I'm not trying to look like Arnold Shwarzenegger(sp?)).

I would say not neccessary at all.

In high school I blew a lot of money on essentially snake oil. Eat healthy (or at least healthier) and exercise. But I don't think you could ever outpace a bad diet with exercise. Fore example, One of those big chocolate chip cookies are like 400 calories and that's like an hour on the treadmill. ugh.

All the best supplements, the ones where you actually see a difference, are illegal anyway (i.e. steroids)

[exarch]

Perhaps I should have clarified that I'm trying to get my weight UP.
(Or at least above 135-140 lbs)

[El Greco]

Originally posted by HarryKeogh
I'm a big fan of flax seed, flax seed oil and walnuts for my Omega fatty acids.

Unfortunately, in vivo conversion of a-linolenic acid to EPA and DHA is limited (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9637947). And while flax seed contains some other useful stuff and LNA has some functions on its own, what you really want to get is EPA and DHA...

Originally posted by exarch
OK, so I DO eat a bit healthier now (more fresh fruits and veggies, and more fresh meat instead of canned stuff), but is it necessary to use supplements?

Depends. Just plug in your diet in Fitday.com for a few days and see whether you get the recommended amount of vitamins, minerals & fiber. If you don't, you probably have to supplement with a multivitamin and fiber or modify your diet so that you don't need to supplement. I also haven't met anyone who eats enough fish to provide the recommened omega-3 fatty acids, so I'd also say that supplementation with these is a must. And depending on how hard you train and what exactly is your training and what are your goals, you may need to supplement with certain minerals, vitamins or get more protein. Depends.

[HarryKeogh]

Originally posted by exarch
Perhaps I should have clarified that I'm trying to get my weight UP.
(Or at least above 135-140 lbs)

I was a toothpick in high school. I had to eat 3 or 4 meals and throw in a couple of protein shakes to get my weight up.

Eat a lot of good food and your weight will go up. (chicken, eggs, milk, beef)

If youre trying to gain weight stay away from excessive aerobics and stick to the basic weight exercises (bench, squat etc).

[El Greco]

Originally posted by exarch
Perhaps I should have clarified that I'm trying to get my weight UP.
(Or at least above 135-140 lbs)

This has to do with calories as HK said, but there's a catch: If you train with weights there's an optimal number of calories above your expenditure that will make your weight gains better, meaning that the ratio of muscle/fat will be higher. If your caloric surplus is too little, you will just gain weight slower, but if it is greater than the "optimal", then you will gain more fat and less muscle. The starting point in finding this optimal number is usually 500 kcal above your maintainance, but you also need to experiment and re-evaluate constantly.

[EdipisReks]

my favorite supplement is cigarettes dipped in heroin. mmmmmmm.

[El Greco]

Originally posted by EdipisReks
my favorite supplement is cigarettes dipped in heroin. mmmmmmm.

This is not supplement; it's food.

[Soapy Sam]

You eat them?

[El Greco]

Yeah, well, not the filter of course.

[jay gw]

I take fish oil capsules. I live in a desert, so there's no fish here. After I started taking them, I felt different - more energy. Have no idea if it's the omega 3 causing the change or not.

[Soapy Sam]

EG- Serious answer. I tried Chondroitin and Glucosamine for a year after discovering I had osteoarthritis in both knees. I quit after a year as I could detect no difference. I determined to try again if there was a deterioration after stopping, but I felt no different, so did not restart.

I take a multivitamin at work , at least in winter, as I am often indoors all day or working nights and have little choice in what I eat. Canteen food offshore is often low in fresh veg or greens.

I think heavy doses of vitamin C twice staved off colds, but they might have come to nothing anyway, how do I tell?

Currently I take none, if you mean off-the-shelf pills. I get my vitamins from cider.

[exarch]

Originally posted by El Greco
Depends. Just plug in your diet in Fitday.com for a few days and see whether you get the recommended amount of vitamins, minerals & fiber. If you don't, you probably have to supplement with a multivitamin and fiber or modify your diet so that you don't need to supplement. I also haven't met anyone who eats enough fish to provide the recommened omega-3 fatty acids, so I'd also say that supplementation with these is a must. And depending on how hard you train and what exactly is your training and what are your goals, you may need to supplement with certain minerals, vitamins or get more protein. Depends.Well, like I said, I want to get my weight out of the underweight range (less than 135 pounds is probably below the minimum weight for my height), but I also don't want to end up looking like a bodybuilder. An aditional downside of that is that your muscles end up becoming stronger but slow and shortened, and that can result in injuries during martial arts training.

I have also been doing a bit of aerobic exercise (running and cycling mostly) to improve my stamina a bit.

I think I'm just in a situation where I want something that's impossible (i.e. mutually exclusive, like getting my weight up a bit but stil gain a little more fitness, build up some muscle yet not the big slow kind).

Basicaly what I've been doing lately is eating healthier, and doing exercises with not too heavy weights, doing plenty of repetitions, and keeping the tempo up. Then finish with a 15 minute run, or a 20 minute cycling session.
I haven't weighed myself for a while, but I definitely "feel" healthier (which could be strictly wishfull thinking of course).

The reason I ask about diet is because I tend to neglect it toward the end of the month, as my money (usually) runs out and I'm forced to eat the canned goods at the back of the cupboard instead of the healthier fresh stuff :D

[El Greco]

Well, I can say with absolute certainty that the muscles of bodybuilders are neither "slower" nor "stiffer". This is another urban legend whose genesis can be attributed to various reasons. Bodybuilders have been found to be more flexible and to have more speed-strength, speed-flexibility and speed-endurance not only when compared to untrained people, but also when compared to several other categories of athletes.

That having been said, you are correct in assuming that training with heavy weights will negatively affect your martial arts training. Muscles and neurons become better at a sport when the training drills resemble that sport as much as possible. Movements performed during swimming for example, have been proved extremely difficult to replicate out of water. So, swimming remains the best training for swimmers. This is the SAID principle (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands), which simply states that the body adapts specifically to whatever challenges it.

There is this very crude rule which says that low repetitions will promote strength, somewhat higher repetitions will promote a combination of strength and hypertrophy, while higher reps will promote muscular endurance. So, by doing high reps you are becoming very good at exactly that: Doing high reps = Muscular endurance. Since low resistance is closer to the weightless training of martial arts, this is probably the best in order not to compromise your martial arts skills. But it's not the best as far as hypertrophy goes. 6-12 reps will provide a stronger signal for protein synthesis in muscles, meaning that if you eat to gain, you will achieve a better nutrient partitioning (= muscle/fat ratio) with lower reps. (We assume here that the last rep is always one of "maximal effort").

Now, whenever I hear that one is afraid of ending up like a bodybuilder, I can't help but break a smile :) Even achieving a body like Brad Pitt's (which I'm sure that many men consider "ideal"), is going to take many periods of training with heavy weights and eating lots of food, followed by other periods with equally heavy training, aerobics, and hard diet. People don't become like bodybuilders overnight. There are millions of people who do everything to "look like bodybuilders" (including steroids), yet they will never achieve that look.

Anyway, if your primer concern is martial arts, I would suggest practicing martial arts more than anything else. If martial arts was my number 1 goal, I wouldn't even run or train with weights. I would just do martial arts training whenever I had the time. Not only that, but I'd focus on either kumite or kata - depending on what interested me most. No matter what instructors tell you, kata training is not going to make you better at kumite, and vice versa.

[El Greco]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
EG- Serious answer. I tried Chondroitin and Glucosamine for a year after discovering I had osteoarthritis in both knees. I quit after a year as I could detect no difference. I determined to try again if there was a deterioration after stopping, but I felt no different, so did not restart.

I think heavy doses of vitamin C twice staved off colds, but they might have come to nothing anyway, how do I tell?

Sam, glucosamine has certainly lots of positive studies for arthritis, but it also depends on the type of arthritis. For example, I don't think that there is any indication (yet) that it can help with psoriasic arthritis. I don't know if anyone is able to answer the question definitively for you. If money is not an issue, I'd continue taking it.

AFAIK, studies with vitamin C as a treatment for common cold are a complete mess. By reading some of them myself I just managed to get more confused. Others say it works, others don't. I suspect there is another link that we haven't discovered yet. I guess that the best way to decide is to conduct some blind trials yourself: Have your woman give you orange juices with either vit. C in them or not, and then evaluate and write down the severity of your symptoms. If you catch a few colds per year, in a few years you will be able to figure it out yourself :D

[geni]

Humanity manged to survive an awfully long time without supplements. I think I'll go on surviving a bit longer.

[HarryKeogh]

Originally posted by geni
Humanity manged to survive an awfully long time without supplements. I think I'll go on surviving a bit longer.

you could say the same thing about airplanes, computers and sliced bread.

some supplements work, but yes, most are crap.

[Soapy Sam]

"Have your woman give you orange juices with either vit. C in them or not..." -El Greco.

I detest citrus fruit I'm afraid. I scarcely ever touch OJ. I just swallowed huge doses of Vit C pills when I had clear symptoms of cold. It worked, but I had seriously fluid stools for a day or two.

Interested in your Glucosamine comments. The stuff is pricy here and I really saw no difference at all, with or without. Perhaps I'll try again.

[El Greco]

Originally posted by geni
Humanity manged to survive an awfully long time without supplements. I think I'll go on surviving a bit longer.

Well, incidentally, things we've been discussing in this thread (Glucosamine Sulfate, EPA/DHA, Vit. C) are available both as OTC supplements as well as prescription drugs. In fact, Omacor was a "big hit" in last weekend's conference of the Greek Institute of Cardiology. So, you see that is is not easy to distinguish between what is a "supplement" and what is a "drug".

[Chris Haynes]

Originally posted by exarch
Well, like I said, I want to get my weight out of the underweight range (less than 135 pounds is probably below the minimum weight for my height),...

The reason I ask about diet is because I tend to neglect it toward the end of the month, as my money (usually) runs out and I'm forced to eat the canned goods at the back of the cupboard instead of the healthier fresh stuff :D

You should cook like my hubby's Dutch grandparents. I believe their family cookbook started every recipe with "first melt half a kilo of butter".

Once a year I make something from them for my hubby... Mashed potatoes with kale, covered with the "sauce" created by cooking sausage in a pool of butter. (the thought of it makes me a bit ill).

By the way, if done right, the fresh stuff can be more economical than the canned. One thing is to stay with things that are in season (like no tomatoes grown in a hothouse or things shipped from the Southern Hemisphere). Also, dried legumes are economical and packed with nutrients and calories. I prefer the lentil soup I make to the stuff they sell in cans, the same can be said for split pea soup and cassoulet (translation: baked beans).

[aargh57]

I know this is an old thread but it's interesting to me because I've wasted quite a bit of money over the years on this stuff (probably to the tune of $3000 - $4000 US). Mind you this has been over the course of the last 15 years. The only significant "gain" I ever had was gaining the knowledge that this stuff is all crap. Now I guess I can't say that they're all crap because I haven't tried them all but let me make a few points.

1st, I'm not a personal trainer, dietician, pro bodybuilder/powerlifter, or any other type of fitness guru. I'm just a regular guy that's worked out in various gyms since high school. I'm not Arnold Schwarzeneger or Lance Armstrong, but I do stay fit. Can lift significantly more than when I started and weigh about 45 lbs more than in High School (I atribute none of this to any supplement however).
Second, I know that there are many studies pointing to creatine, pro-hormones,NOX, and all kinds of other supplements that claim to increase muscle mass, strength, endurance, and other benefits. Muscular Development is full of them, but look at who runs them. Supplement companies and magazines that rely on the supplement companies advertising dollars.
If you look at supplements you can begin to see that they are much more about packaging and marketing than substance.
Here's a few fad supplements I've tried over the years just off the top of my head. (Timeframes are approximate)
1988 Amino Acids and those Mass Gainer supplements. Verdict : Crap (Really bad tasting crap as a matter of fact)
1990 - 2003 The big one: Creatine Wow! This stuff's really supposed to work. Hmmm, not for me. Of course I only tried it off and on for about 12+ years.
2004 Prohormones (had to get em quick before they got banned): verdict Crap, although I never did but the real good ones, just the stuff that McGuire was takin
Last but not least (at least financially) NOX2: Really expensive, highly marketed crap.

Sorry for ranting, and I know that I must look awfully foolish (and I was) to most of you for wasting so much money on this stuff. I don't want to flame the original poster either, I think the supplements he's suggesting are more for overall health than weight lifting. I'd also like to say that I consider the MRP (that's meal replacements packs) to be of a little different breed than the other supplements as they're basically vitamin fortified protein shakes. However, even these are overpriced and you can get quite a lot of protein through eggs, tuna, chicken breasts, etc... at a much lower price (I know, convenience). I also have a friend that swears by creatine so maybe I'm just abnormal as far as this stuff goes but I refuse to spend another dime on this stuff. I must confess that any time that I was using this stuff I did get stronger but never noticed a difference when I quit using them. I can see some of you wondering out loud about this moron that kept buying the snake oil but it went something like this. Gee, I only spent $50 on product A but maybe if I took A and B like the magazine says I'd get better results.

El Greco, I would really like your opinions on some of these products. Also a little background on yourself. Thanks

[El Greco]

aargh57 I know what you mean. I resent popular bodybuilding magazines as much as you do and then some more. There are few supplements that have proven results as far as bodybuilding is concerned, and some of them you can also get with food. People do a lot of idiotic things both when training and when dieting, eg I can't imagine how someone expects to gain by ingesting a certain supplement when his total calories are not even above maintenance.

Amino acids are just overpriced protein. Any protein source will be as good as amionoacids and whey protein will usually cause hyperaminoacidaemia more quickly. It's not that they "don't work", it's just that they are like cutting chicken to small pieces, putting them in a capsule and selling it as "super-chicken" at an extreme price.

The same for Mass Gainers: Some protein together with dextrose or maltodextrine or other sugar. You could gain on it as well as on meat with rice or potatoes. What dictates whether you will gain or not is the number of calories you ingest, so naturally there is nothing magic in mass gainers. The idea behind them is simple to the point of being idiotic: If you need 20gr of protein 6 times a day, taking them from a mass gainer that is 20% in protein and 80% in carbs means that you will have to get more calories in order to ingest the desired amount of protein, ie 400 kcal (320 from carbs and 80 from protein). So you will be "forced" to eat more. Which of course you could do better with simple food.

Pro-hormones are tricky, some of them do work - most don't. For example 4-Androstenediol converts to testosterone way better than 5-Androstenediol or 4-Androstenedione. The last two forms are practically useless. They wouldn't ban them if they were not working at all. And of course, whatever does work should also have the expected side effects. How can one expect to have the results of increased testosterone without its side-effects ? The lack of side effects should be a pretty good indication that your prohormone mix doesn't work.

NOX2 is crap, simple as that.

Creatine does work though. It may have failed to work on you and as a matter of fact there is a significant percentage of people who don't see any benefits from it. But most do. There are a lot of studies about its efficiency and it has been used in many more things that bodybuilding, like lots of other sports, rehabilitation etc. Of course there is a lot of hype about "special" mixes or exotic forms of creatine. There is also exaggeration of the importance of the loading phase. Simple creatine monohydrate is all one needs. Creatine will cause a water retention that will go away after you stop it, but the strength gains remain for the most part - and they are important. And increased strength is the first step to increased size.

There are a lot of other things that don't work. There are also things that work but you don't need them because you can take them with food. There are also a few things that *may* or *may not* work but it is too dificult to reach a verdict because keeping all other parameters constant for several months or years is impossible. Let's forget supplements here for a while: most recreational bodybuilders are unable to decide on how much protein they actually need. They don't even have the diligence to find out whether they need 75gr or 100gr or 150gr and they can't notice changes from taking more or less. Let's extend it to the general population: How many people can notice whether cutting most animal fat from their diets will have any effect on their well-being, and how much time do they need before they can tell ? Many supplements resemble food but people expect them to work as fast and as dramatically as prescription drugs. Isn't this strange ?

(As for me, I am a pharmacist keenly interested in sports nutrition, exercise physiology and endocrinology, biomechanics and special areas of training... that kind of stuff. I've been involved in several sports in the past, now I'm just a recreational bodybuilder)

[joyrex]

Any experiences with Xenadrine (hopefully ephedrine-free)?

[TeaBag420]

Creatine works. It allows you to do more work in the first of the three energy systems, before you hit the lactic acid or aerobic stages. But you have to actually DO more work. Trying it off and on for 12 years? That protocol makes no sense at all. Write back when you're serious.

[Eos of the Eons]

Augh. Never mind me. I'm just having flashbacks to elementary school where we had a body builder for our science teacher. Really buff dude. We all learned more about body building and steroids (what that can do to a guy's nads) and supplements than what was in the science curriculum. The guys just kept asking him questions, and before you knew the class time was up and that's all that was talked about many many times. This was in elementary school by gads. All the girls had crushes on him except me. I was too busy rolling my eyes at the discussions and trying to read my science book so I could pass tests (except when he drew the the nads on the board and what steroids did to them. Very graphic, lol). Yep, goody goody nerd was me. This was grades 4-6.


So all I learned in elementary science was that you can't take steriods for too long a period or you nads will look like peanuts.

Hmm, maybe that's why I don't go ga ga over muscle men. They remind me too much of this annoying and rather stuck on himself science teacher.

Guys, you can only help to clear this negative impression from my brain.

[TillEulenspiegel]

favorite supplement...
Well mine is beer , but I don't seem to get the dosage quite right >shrughs<

[Zep]

Originally posted by exarch
Perhaps I should have clarified that I'm trying to get my weight UP.
(Or at least above 135-140 lbs) I'd gladly give you some of mine, but it's mostly fat, not muscle. ;)

[shecky]

Originally posted by El Greco
Yeah, well, not the filter of course.

Steep those in hot water for some excellent tea.

[TeaBag420]

Content removed, possible breach of Membership Agreement.

[Eos of the Eons]

Well, we heard all about supplements, protein drinks, egg shakes, etc. too. But since steroids haven't been addressed much, and that was the most memorable part of my elementary science education...

[Dr. Imago]

Originally posted by TeaBag420
Content removed.

Yeah, well I'm pretty sure that this is a violation of JREF TOS... if not, it's darn close.

-TT

[El Greco]

Originally posted by joyrex
Any experiences with Xenadrine (hopefully ephedrine-free)?

Xenadrine's most important ingredient is synephrine which is kind of "downgraded" ephedrine anyway. It does bind to beta-3 receptors and this does facilitate lipolysis, but the overall effect is negligible because one would need to take lots of synephrine for a measurable result. And AFAIK there are no positive studies for either synephrine or citrus aurantium as effective weight loss supplements. Even the more powerful ephedrine would just slightly increase the resting metabolic rate which is not that important for the vast majority of people because very few of them calculate their daily intake so meticulously that a few tenths of kcalories would make a difference.

Another ingredient, White Willow Bark, provides salicin which converts to salicylic acid which allegedly has a synergistic effect with ephedra, but AFAIK this has only been demonstrated with ephedrine (not synephrine) and only in very obese people.

Guarana contains a caffeine-like substance which theoretically does have lipolytic action, but in practice it is as effective as coffee, or even less. You get the idea.

Carnitine is a joke, there were some studies which showed *slightly* greater fat loss whith carnitine supplementation, and *only* in elite athletes who already had very low fat percentages ("normal" people didn't see any benefit). And even then, the studies were conducted with *grams* of carnitine, while "fat loss" products may contain as little as 10mg!

What many people don't understand is that even when there are studies which show that one ingredient is effective, these studies were conducted with subjects who were eating *below* maintenance and so they were losing weight anyway. So the key "ingredient" is simple food (or better, lack thereof) in every case.

Conclusively I believe that weight loss supplements we have today are just a waste of money. Even in the extreme case were such a supplement would manage to increase your daily expenditure (or reduce your intake) by 100 kcals, this is just the equivalent of eating one apple less per day. Most people don't have any idea about how many calories they get daily, yet they expect to get leaner with a supplement :con2:

[aargh57]

Originally posted by TeaBag420
Creatine works. It allows you to do more work in the first of the three energy systems, before you hit the lactic acid or aerobic stages. But you have to actually DO more work. Trying it off and on for 12 years? That protocol makes no sense at all. Write back when you're serious.

How long is "serious"? I've loaded the stuff, cycled it, cut out caffiene while taking it, and basically tried any other method that guys like you have told me. I've tried taking it for stretches of four months while working out and have found no difference. Look, I don't know you but it seems that you think you know me and my workout regime from reading one post. Could it be that I may be one of the people that El Grecko said doesn't respond to the stuff? Shouldn't taking the stuff for four months straight while working out have shown something? Maybe I should just shell out more money and try again for what, six months? Eight? Twelve?

[aargh57]

Here's a site from Vanderbilt University about the subject of Creatine
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/VD_creatine.htm

Sorry I don't know how to "link" stuff. Pretty new at posting.

A few excerpts

"Is Creatine effective? What is the evidence?

The effectiveness of creatine monohydrate appears to be relative, depending on one’s diet, how much exercise normally performed, and the duration of exercise normally performed. It appears to be most effective when natural creatine levels are very low. In addition, creatine is mostly for use in intense, short-duration activities such as bodybuilding and weightlifting. It does not appear to be helpful in long duration activities (http://www.betterbodz.com/suppl/bbcreatine.html). The evidence to substantiate the claims of creatine generally comes in the form of testimonies of customers, statistics, and endorsements by professional athletes. Most informational sites do not site specific evidence for the effectiveness of creatine monohydrate. . Many informational sites also attempt to comfort the customer with claims of studies without quoting the procedure or results of the alleged studies. This is most likely linked to the fact that nutritional supplement companies, bodybuilding magazines, exercise and fitness publish most of the sources of information on creatine. In addition, every site began or ended with an advertisement for creatine or other nutritional supplements. Despite all this, physicians at the Mayo Clinic do not believe that there is substantial evidence to prove that creatine or any other nutritional supplement produces effects that can be obtained with proper diet, exercise, and training (http://mayohealth.org/mayo/9811/htm.muscle.htm).

Conclusion

Overall the effect of creatine monohydrate seems to be minimal. Evidence seems to favor the fact that it suppresses fatigue; however, this is based on the condition that the activity be short in duration and intense. Creatine appears to benefit anaerobic metabolism, fast twitch muscles, as opposed to aerobic, slow twitch muscles provided that the initial levels of creatine for an individual are low. Claims regarding increase in muscle mass are likely linked to retention of water. All of these facts seem to make creatine a supplement that is extremely conditional and variant. The effects seem to be inconsistent and have the potential to vary widely from person to person. Unsubstantiated claims made by manufacturer claiming that creatine is natural also add to the myths surrounding creatine monohydrate."

Again, you can cut and paste the link if you would like. It seemed to me from reading the article that results vary greatly from person to person depending on a number of factors. I just don't think it's worth my money.