Finn Ryan- Dietary Supplementation for increased Muscle Growth Part 2

The main idea of this information is that dietary supplements can be taken in conjunction with regular strength training exercises to enhance muscle growth and limit muscle atrophy. Protein is essential for muscle growth, and whey protein is a popular supplement. Creatine is a heavily researched supplement that can increase muscle development and improve exercise performance. Drinking enough water is important when taking creatine. Vitamin D supplements can benefit muscle development and overall well-being, especially for men. Beta alanine is an amino acid that reduces fatigue and improves exercise performance. These supplements should be taken periodically, not every day. It takes time and consistency to see results, and factors like rest, recovery, and overall lifestyle also play a role in muscle growth. Alright, welcome. Throughout this installment, this episode, I'm sort of asking the question what, if any, dietary supplements can we take in conjunction with regular strength training exercises to really bolster muscle growth and potentially even limit muscle atrophy. Both these issues are really, really prevalent in especially young people who are just going to the gym and people throughout all stages of their lives who want to get stronger and essentially limit that atrophy that a lot of people see throughout their lives. It's just very natural, but can we slow it down with a few easy methods? The main focus of this, though, is in the gym. So, in the gym, people can become very, very discouraged because you spend months on end working hard, trying to eat right, and there's just not enough growth. And this is a roadblock that a lot of people encounter, especially early on into the gym. They happen periodically, honestly. I mean, a lot of people experience this, even professional bodybuilders. If you listen to them, they talk about their roadblocks that they find. And one thing that we're really looking into is how big of an impact does your diet have? Obviously, you look at protein. Protein is an essential dietary nutrient for your muscles to grow. There's no question about it. It's sort of an idea of get as much as you can into your muscles. Most people, it's recommended about 0.7 to 0.9 grams of protein per pound of body weight. And that can fluctuate in different diets, who needs what and more. But if you're doing regular strength training exercise, you're shredding those muscle fibers down. I mean, essentially, that's what that process is, is you're destroying muscle fibers. It's called muscle hypertrophy. And it's such a strenuous process for the body. It's really not enjoyable. So, you need to give it everything that it can, that you can. And the vast majority of that is proteins. There's so many different kinds, it's hard to really classify. Whey protein itself is the sort of tried and true protein that you'll see available for dietary supplementation. It's great. You see it in a lot of protein powders. Personally used it, can attest that it does work. I definitely started seeing more results after I used it on a regular basis. But it's not the only thing that you can do. There are a couple of things. One of those is creatine. Creatine is a newly, it's sort of new in the gym world, but it's really, it's the best and most heavily researched supplement that there is, period. There's a lot of sort of negative connotations attached to creatine because of, you know, people see that bodybuilders use something like creatine and they think of it kind of more as a steroid. It's certainly not. It's a naturally occurring nutrient. It's in your body all the time. Supplementing it with, supplementing your diet with creatine just means adding more. In some cases, almost, you know, regular creatine supplementation can increase that natural content by about 40%. And that is huge in muscle development. It can really impact growth. An important thing to do if you take creatine though is drink enough water. Creatine works essentially by pulling a lot of water molecules into your muscle cells. It sort of inflates them and it lets them go for longer, which is great in your exercising. But if you don't drink enough water, it can sort of dehydrate you. And it's very important to, like I said, give your body everything that it needs. And a big part of that is just plain water. It will certainly benefit you. And I'm going to quote an article that I found on Healthline. It's all about supplements and largely about creatine. It's the focal point. And actually they quote a study that was published on the National Library of Medicine. And that talks about this study that was done on creatine. And there's a lot of different control groups and all this kind of stuff. But essentially, it shows that the performance measured in exercises shorter than three minutes, creatine, it helps with that. It's an effective supplement in upper limb strength specifically. And that performance, that endurance of exercises shown in less than a three-minute period, I'm not really sure why. That's just what it is. And that's a reference. And I'll have the description of all these sources in a bibliography so everybody can view these and check my work. But this supplement really also increases a growth hormone called IGF-1, which is also very important. So it doesn't just directly just pull water into the cells. There's actually a lot of different sort of layers to this. And that's why it's so important. That's why it is the king of supplementation and absolutely needs to be focused on. Another supplement that I've done a lot of research into, I've personally taken, is vitamin B. Now, while this is kind of a building block for muscle, for aiding in muscle growth, it really isn't directly related to. I would just highly recommend it as a focal point of your supplement routine. It's shown to improve things like moods and emotions. Obviously, you get vitamin D supplements naturally. It's a nutrient that you actually get by processes from sunlight. And so if you live in areas that are colder, have shorter days, I personally live in Minnesota, so I'm very, very familiar with that concept. I would really recommend taking this supplement. It's a vitamin. It's great for you. You really can't get enough of it. It will make you feel better. You'll feel like you have more energy throughout the day and it's great. Now, to tie it into muscle development, for men in particular, it can be beneficial for women as well, but just not necessarily in this context as much. But for men in muscle development, a higher level of vitamin D in your body increases testosterone levels. And testosterone levels at a certain point can greatly influence muscle development and really just really be good for men's mental health. There's a lot of studies that are coming out that show that a lot of men nowadays struggle with testosterone levels. So this is a really great thing. It just makes people feel better. And like I said, although in this context of muscle growth, it's really only meant for men, it can be beneficial in many, many other ways for both men and women alike. I would highly, highly recommend it. And another one that we can look at is there are all these different kinds. There are hormonal supplements. I'm not really focused on that because those can be attached to a lot of negative side effects and that's not the point of this. So how can you gain as much muscle and feel good as possible and not add on crazy routines, crazy regimens that will impact other areas of your life? This is overall wellness that I'm focusing on. Another supplement, so the last one that I will mention to wrap up is beta alanine. This one's sort of harder necessarily to get. It's not as common. It is naturally occurring. It's an amino acid and it reduces fatigue and it is shown to improve exercise performance. It's not as well researched, but there are a series of studies done. In 20.2 there's a review of about 20 studies shown. This is again in reference to this Healthline article that I will link to later. But it really won't hurt you and it's really great. It can greatly improve the lean sort of muscle mass that your body has. It's been shown to. But another thing to remember with all these things is that it takes so much time. These things are not going to change your entire muscle content of your body in a week or two weeks or three weeks. This takes months and oftentimes years to truly develop these precise routines. For supplements in general, you really shouldn't take everything every single day. You should take it periodically. A lot of sort of a common formula is three weeks on, one week off. I think that's great. Even if you line that up with your gym time, it will allow your body to rest and recover, which is incredibly important. To sort of answer this question that I started out researching, started out asking about, there's a whole host of things that can aid in muscle growth and limit atrophy over time. But there's so many other factors that work in. It's really just this huge network. Honestly, ironically, if you visualize the muscle fiber, it kind of seems like that. It's all these sort of fibers linking together that create the goal. It's strength training. It's rest and recovery. It's protein. It's creatine. All of these different elements that work in. How much water you're taking in. All of these factors influence it. So the best thing to do is try to be aware of as many of these as possible throughout your daily lives so that you can really impact and make the time that you spend at the gym count.