Whether you are an experienced weight trainer or a novice to the muscle building scene, we all want to know one thing; “How can I make the most of my workouts?” It doesn’t matter if you’re involved in strength training, powerlifting, or you simply exercise just to stay in shape, here are some basic weight lifting guidelines you need to follow if you want to maximize your time spent in the gym.
· Correct form while performing exercises
· Ample sleep time
· Drink plenty of water
· Adequate protein intake
· Sufficient caloric intake (includes protein intake)
· Proper nutritional supplements
After weight training for 15 years and competing in bodybuilding for 6 years, I know that if you are lacking in any of these areas, your workouts and your physique will suffer.
There are many different weight training routines circulating about that will help to guide you along the way. However, in this article I will be focusing on which nutritional supplements to take to push you through those workouts.
First and foremost, you need to be supplementing with a multi-vitamin/multi-mineral pack such as
Animal Pak by Universal Nutrition or
Super Pak from Beverly International. I say “pack” because generally those one-a-day pills do not give enough of these essential nutrients to combat today’s hectic lifestyle. Vitamins and minerals are essential to every single function that goes on within the human body. If you’re lacking in one of these nutrients, your body is not functioning at its top level.
The next supplement you’re going to want is an excellent protein powder.
American Whey by American Sports Nutrition and
Isolyze from Species Nutrition are both excellent protein products that taste great, too. If you’re not supplementing with a protein powder, your muscles may not be getting the adequate amino acids needed to recover and optimize muscle mass. Protein is an absolute must when it comes to building muscle. As far as which type of protein you should choose (whey, casein, etc.), we’ll save that for another, more in-depth article.
After these two essential nutrients, there are an abundance of nutritional supplements out there that you can use to add fuel to your weight training fire, but I’ll keep it simple for now.
The last supplement I will recommend today is
glutamine. Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the human body. Given the proper internal environment, your body can manufacture glutamine on its own. However, under intense periods of stress (i.e. weight training) your body cannot make enough glutamine, so supplemental glutamine, such as Glutamine Powder by Optimum Nutrition or GlutaLean by Labrada, would be a necessity to optimum performance.
Some of the benefits of glutamine include:· Improved recovery time
· Less muscle soreness
· Improved immune system function
· Better strength gains
The addition of these three nutritional supplements, plus following the previous basic rules I stated, will help to make sure your body is operating at its peak level. When your body functions at its best, you will undoubtedly feel better and look better as well. When you feel good that will lead to better workouts and that means time well spent in the gym!
Tim Mielke
Competitive Bodybuilder and AuthorTim Mielke has been involved in the supplement industry for over 15 years. As a former competitive body builder and personal trainer, Tim has extensive first-hand knowledge of the benefits and pitfalls of fitness supplementation. Knowledge so extensive, in fact, that his book, “The Book of Supplement Secrets: A Beginners Guide to Nutritional Supplements,” was recently published and is currently available through Amazon.com. Tim brings this supplement and bodybuilding know-how to www.i-supplements.com as a contributing author and researcher.
