As a chick, it is sometimes difficult to get the most accurate advice on supplements and bodybuilding for women. Most of us don’t want to go full on Arnold physique, (even though if that’s your thing, You go, Girl!). For those of us who spend hours a week just keeping the flab under control and the arms and shoulders tone and tight, good logical suggestions are often few and far between. Either the male gym rat with invisible lat disease is offering to spot you for your squats, (oh he cares about your glute health alright!) or the yoga instructor from the group class is telling you as long as you align your chi, you don’t need any supplementation, (although last time I checked, good karma wasn’t melting the cottage cheese off my tush).
It can be a bit of a guessing game to balance the right workouts and supplements to achieve your individual “ultimate body.” Fortunately, there are a few staples you should add to your muscle building repetoire no matter what your goal.
1. Multi-vitamin – No one I know eats all the right foods all the time and gets every vitamin and nutrient they need through dietary intake. Get yourself on a good multivitamin. Especially if you are working out strenuously, you need larger amounts of certain nutrients for recovery and to keep your immunities in check. And don’t go for one of those one pill a day vitamins either. If you can’t get all the stuff you need in a whole days worth of clean eating, then how do they pack everything you need into one tiny little pill? Answer, they don’t! I like Schwartz Vitaplex. I take two in the morning and two at night. I’ve tried those pill packs with 5 or 6 huge horse pills in them and that is just way to much for me personally, however if you can, the Women’s Fit Pak by Universal is also a good one.
2. Protein powder – Perhaps I am busier than the average gal, but I don’t really think so. I have trouble getting in 3 good whole food meals a day and we all know that the rules are several small meals a day, not just the three biggies anymore. So goes the need for a good protein powder. Personally, I take American Whey by ASN. It’s cheap and it tastes good and it mixes easily in a shaker cup. I take a serving in the morning with a few raw eggs mixed in. I also usually get two or three more in throughout the day, pre and post workout and as a late night snack if I find I’m having some hunger issues and the hoho’s are calling out to me. These shakes are in addition to whole food meals…not a replacement for them! Whole foods are always the best source of what you need, but the protein shakes are a convenient way to get your nutrition on the run.
3. BCAA’s – Branched chain amino acids are vitally important to any person that works out because they make up one third of all the muscle protein in our bodies. When we work out, our bodies use these amino acids as fuel to make muscles contract. When we use them up, we need more. If we don’t supplement more, our bodies become catabolic and start using the muscle we have as fuel, which is bad. Why build muscle only to have your body eat it away again? Just take the bcaa’s…trust me. Once again, I like the Schwartz Labs BCAA’s.
4. Fat Burners – I know what you are thinking. Oh no, fat burners are bad, ephedra is bad, caffeine kills. Give me a break. One, if you are afraid of stimulant based fat burners with ephedra and caffeine, there are alternatives. And two, fat burners don’t kill people, stupidity does. Ephedra was originally banned by the FDA because it was being abused by people who either didn’t know how to read instruction labels, or were just too stupid to follow the directions. Yes, there are side effects to be aware of with stimulant based thermogenics. They are listed right there on the labels. I’ve tried a ton of them but my favorites are Ultimate Burn by Schwartz Labs or Atrophex by BSN.
4. Cardio – Do it. 40 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Enough said.
5. Weight training – lean muscle burns fat. The more lean muscle you have, the more fat you will burn. The less fat you have, the more your lean muscle will stand out making you look tone. And don’t wimp out just because you are a chick and you don’t want to “bulk up.” Every time I hear a woman say that I want to punch her in the mouth. We are not physiologically able to bulk up like a man. The main component in building large muscle like that is testosterone and women simply don’t have enough of it to make them bulky by nature. Now there are ways to “supplement” test as well, but that is for an entirely different forum. Push weight, heavy weight. Cause your muscle fibers to tear and hurt and learn to deal with some soreness.
Bodybuilding for women is a mystery to most . I know these things work because I’ve done them all (and then some, but that too is for another forum). Get serious about the body you want and make it a priority. Train hard or GO HOME.
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