There is no denying the fact that nothing beats a good workout schedule and a balanced diet when it comes to developing a perfectly ripped physique. But, supplements make this journey easy and even more effective. There are various bodybuilding supplements that bodybuilders often consume on a regular basis to amp up their muscle building.
The right supplements can take your training to the next level. If you are an endurance athlete or want to boost your endurance performance. We have listed down some of the best supplements for you. Building endurance is a great way to improve your performance, especially if you are an endurance athlete, you have to perform multiple rounds of training of your sports plus the resistance training sessions in a single week. The volume of training that endurance athletes undergo, they need to be very careful regarding their diet and supplementation. Hardcore bodybuilders have extreme body demands and supplements make it easy for them to consume everything that their body needs.
We have the right supplement stack for you that can save you from preparing multiple meals to fulfill your nutrient requirements for the intense training and boost your performance.
Let’s have a look at these.
1. Creatine Monohydrate
Creatine is often thought to boost strength, speed, and power, and this is absolutely true. Many scientific research studies suggest that creatine is an effective ergogenic relief for enhancing muscle size and strength. However, when it comes to building endurance, creatine isn’t looked in the positive light. Creatine helps in improving phosphocreatine stores, boosts ATP production, and enhances anaerobic performance, and thus offers indirect benefits to individuals involved in certain sports like running, cycling, and triathletes. Creatine supplement has been proven to reduce the recovery time during repeated intervals, and enhance power output at lactate threshold levels.
There are many creatine supplements available in the market and we have listed down a couple of the best creatine supplements:
- Asitis Nutrition Creatine Monohydrate
This bodybuilding supplement is perfect for all bodybuilders as it enriches you with 2500mg creatine monohydrate per serving. It helps in improving athletic performance and is lab-tested to ensure the best quality for the best results.
- Muscle XP Micronized Creatine Monohydrate Powder
This product contains creatine monohydrate in micro-ionized form and is a clinically tested and analyzed creatine supplement. It helps in enhancing muscle strength, volume, and mass, it can be easily consumed by vegetarians as well.
2. Whey protein
Protein is needed by everyone. If you are a bodybuilder, athlete, or active gym-goer, whey protein is a gift to you. It helps in boosting muscle growth and helps in attaining lean muscle mass. It is rich in all essential amino acids and also contains BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acids) that are crucial for muscle recovery, reducing fatigue, and boosting protein synthesis in muscles. You can choose gluten-free, soy-free, low-carb, low-fat, or whatever type of protein as per your choice. You can also choose a vegan protein and you also have a choice of flavors.
Endurance athletes often focus on carbs but protein is crucial for repair. Similarly, if you’re looking for gains, you need protein to build lean muscles and prevent muscle breakdown. If you want to get the maximum benefit from your protein powder, combine it with some carbs or a blend of macronutrients to get superior protein and glycogen synthesis.
Here are a couple of best whey protein powders available in the market:
- MuscleBlaze Biozyme Whey Protein
This whey protein powder, by MuscleBlaze, is one of the best bodybuilding supplements as it enables 50% more absorption and 60% higher BCAA absorption than other whey protein powders. It contains an Enhanced Absorption Formula that lets you experience lower stomach discomfort. It is internationally accredited by Labdoor for purity and accuracy and also ranks at the top of Labrador’s supplement quality ranking list. Each serving enriches you 25g pure whey protein to fuel muscle building.
- Ultimate Nutrition Prostar
This is one of the best products by Ultimate Nutrition that offers 100% whey protein to build lean muscles. It helps in enhancing your body’s metabolism and amps up your strength and workout performance. Every serving of this product delivers 25g protein.
3. Caffeine
Caffeine is a great performance booster. Not only it enhances focus and mental alertness, but it also helps in burning fat and improving tolerance. Many studies have shown a link between caffeine and enhanced endurance performance. Caffeine boosts fat oxidation which helps in weight loss and management. Caffeine can help in extending your workout duration and keeps you energized enough to perform intense workouts. Though caffeine is diuretic in nature and causes frequent urine production, studies suggest that it doesn’t lead to water-electrolyte imbalance or minimize exercise-heat tolerance.
Besides Vivarin Gum, here are a couple of good caffeine supplements that you can consume to boost your performance:
- MuscleTech Platinum 100% Caffeine Pill
The product is powered by 220mg caffeine per pill that helps in combating fatigue and boost focus. It fuels you with energy so that you can relentlessly workout at the gym.
- AllMax Nutrition Caffeine
This product is a good choice for every fitness lover or serious bodybuilder who wants to increase their focus, energy, and restore mental alertness. It fuels you 200mg of caffeine.
4. BCAAs
BCAAs or Branched Chain Amino Acids are crucial for muscle recovery. A group of 3 amino acids- leucine, valine, isoleucine forms BCAAs. One aspect of central fatigue in workouts is the crossing the blood-brain barrier by free tryptophan. It leads to the release of certain neurotransmitters such as serotonin that can have an impact on sleepiness, mood, arousal, and fatigue. Enhancing your BCAA intake can help in minimizing the amount of tryptophan crossing the blood-brain barrier and delays fatigue. BCAA’s metabolism is proven to reduce lactate generation and boost endurance exercise capacity. Regular BCAA supplementation also helps in minimizing skeletal muscle protein breakdown and improving recovery and immune response from workouts.
Here are some good BCAAs available in the market:
- Scivation Xtend BCAA
This BCAA powder is available in multiple refreshing flavors. It boosts recovery and helps in improving fat metabolism. Every serving fuels you with 3500mg Leucine, 1750mg isoleucine & valine each, with 2500mg glutamine.
- My Protein Vegan BCAA 4:1:1
This BCAA powder is perfect for all vegans and vegetarians and contains leucine, isoleucine, and valine in the ratio of 4:1:1 respectively. It comes in multiple fruity flavors.
5. Glutamine
This is the most abundant amino acid present in the human body. Wondering why you need to supplement it then? Well, rigorous workouts can drain glutamine stores at a pace faster than your body can restore them. So, your body starts to break down its own muscles and this throws you into a catabolic state. Low levels of glutamine can adversely impact your immunity and make you more prone to infections.
Glutamine supplements can help in boosting recovery and improve your immune system’s health. Here are some of the best glutamine supplements that you can choose from:
- Muscle Pharm Glutamine
This product helps in reducing muscle breakdown rate and helps in growing and maintaining muscles. It also speeds up the recovery process and endurance. Each serving fuels you with 5g glutamine.
- GNC L-glutamine powder
Each serving of this product gives you 5g L-glutamine to reduce muscle soreness, boost muscle growth, and immunity. It is both lactose and gluten-free.
6. Beta-alanine
Beta-alanine supplements help in boosting performance and delay fatigue while you are performing high-intensity exercises. Even if you are an endurance athlete, you won’t consistently train at low-intensity exercises. Beta-alanine supplementation can help you in improving your performance as there are several studies that suggest this. During high-intensity workout sessions, your body gathers hydrogen ions and these reduce the pH that leads to fatigue. Beta-alanine is an amino acid derivative that boosts intramuscular carnosine content which in turn boosts your body’s ability to safeguard hydrogen ions. This helps in delaying fatigue and boost exercise performance.
Here are a few beta-alanine supplements that are the best available options in the market:
- Optimum Nutrition Beta-Alanine
Every serving of this product fuels you with 1.6g beta-alanine and 550mg L-histidine with added phosphates to boost your performance and endurance. It is one of the best beta-alanine supplements available in the market.
- MuscleTech NeuroCore
This is basically a blended pre-workout formula that contains beta-alanine. One serving of this product enriches you with 1.6g of beta-alanine with 5g L-citrulline, 5g creatine, and 160mg caffeine to boost your overall fitness and exercise performance.
