Supplements for Beginners and Intermediates in Hypertrophy and Strength Training

You guys remember Liver King? Whatever happened to him? Oh, that's right, he was lying about steroids and I don't know what he gives a shit about it. Hey, Liver King, if you hear this, f*** you. I'm kidding. No, I'm not kidding. Hey folks, Dr. Mike here for Renaissance Periodization and today we're going to talk about what supplements are worth it, especially for beginners and intermediates in hypertrophy and strength training. For folks new to the channel, I'm Dr. Mike Izzertel. As I just said earlier, I guess I'm really bad at this. I am a competitive bodybuilder. I am a Brazilian jiu-jitsu grappler, I'm a professor of sports science, and I help make all the wonderful things that we have here at RP. And if you want to learn about how to eat and train and have your best physique and possibly attract a mate, maybe not guaranteed, then give us a subscription and we'll give you loads of fun. And for those folks that are already subscribed, I have a question for you. Actually, a request. Let's come together and stop treating adults that wear overalls with human decency. We need to let people know it's not okay. Personal pet peeve. Call me crazy. Let me know in the comments what you think about that. Speaking of crazy, what supplements are worth it? Because let's be honest, there's a lot of BS out there. And even if some of it might not be BS, kind of every supplement company is like, buy stuff, buy our triple max blend 3,500. proprietary ingredients so you can look like this professional bodybuilder who's on 15 units of growth hormone a day, but we didn't mention that part. So it's tough because everyone says bye-bye-bye, but you know a lot of the stuff is BS. So what are you supposed to do about it? Mike personally, I just try to look like Darth Sidious. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Dark side. To be honest, our heater just kicked on and I'm cold. So which supplements are worth it? We could use a very high number, a different number of lenses with which to examine. And so we're going to constrain our view a little bit to keep this simple. Here's how we're constraining our view. I'm not including any illegal stuff. Steroids work super well, though they kill you. Growth hormone works ultra well, though it also kills you. And all kinds of illegal stuff, you know, Klan, blah, blah, blah. That stuff is definitely solid, but kills you. We're not going to talk about borderline stuff on legality. SARMs, I'm not sure if they're so legal or not. Peptides, they definitely work too, but it's just a giant question mark as to what the fuck is going on there. And most of the folks I think that are going to be viewing this video kind of don't want to see some guy at the back of a GNC with a trench coat that's like, man, yeah, see, what do you want? I got vials. I got needles. I got it all, see? They want to kind of go to the actual GNC and maybe buy something that's effective. And so the target demographic for this video, for folks that I want to get the most benefit out of this, is people that lift, that eat pretty well, and just want to pay for kind of sure thing supplements. You may or may not want to buy the supplements that I'm going to list for you in just a few minutes or right now, but rest assured that if you do spend your money on them, they're going to be a good use of your money and they're going to be safe and they're going to be effective. The last thing I'll say is there are some supplements that aren't going to make our list, which some. Often, many people have deficiencies in, for example, in some northern climates. People who don't go out in the sun especially a lot can have D vitamin deficiencies and might need vitamin D supplementation, et cetera. And there's a bunch of little caveats, little tiny details and specifics. If you consult with a medical provider, hopefully your doctor, then you can sort most of that stuff out. So there are some specifics. This is going to be broad strokes kind of for everyone that lifts and eats and thinks, you know what? I think I might start taking supplements. So Dr. Mike. which ones should I take that are not a ripoff? Got a couple categories. The first category is protein shakes. They definitely work. There's a couple different types of protein shakes. You can take the very fast digesting whey protein for post-workout, the quality of the whey, whether it's concentrate, isolate, or hydrolysis, it doesn't matter. For all practical purposes that you're concerned with, dear viewer, it just doesn't fucking matter. If you're physically made actual money. I got an electron microscope scan, by the way, and the doctors were baffled because it seems I'm actually made of teeny microscopic $100 bills. That's the kind of stacks your boy is working with. Then only way hydro touches this body, because if it's not the best, I don't even look at it. You show me concentrated, oh, I drank that shit. But for almost everyone else, you people, no offense, of regular means, any kind of way is totally fine. One thing I'll say is people with kind of upset stomachs from whey protein, if it's concentrate, it's got a little bit of lactose in there, it's got a little bit of extra stuff, a little carbohydrates, try isolate and then try hydro. Now, isolate is more expensive. Hydro is really expensive. But if that's what gets you to not have the stomach problems anymore, maybe it's worth it for you. So whey is great, especially for post-workout or intra-workout around the workout window. There's another thing or another use case for protein shakes, and that's for long intervals between meals. You might have a presentation at work and that's going to take four hours and then you got to drive a client back to the airport. That's going to take another two and you come back home and it's going to take another hour and you might just not have any opportunity to eat during that time. And so a casein shake, there's... two fractions of milk protein, one is whey, one is casein, the casein shake made of casein protein is going to digest very, very slowly, release very slowly into your bloodstream. So it works as a long interval meal replacement, five, six, seven, eight hours without eating. Next, there are protein shakes that are somewhere in the intermediate range of digestibility speed. So whey protein gets in you and within 30 minutes to an hour and goes through all that stuff. Casein, you know, five to eight hours and then three to four hours. can be a couple of different options. You can have a mixed, often 50-50 split of casein and whey. That's very common. Another thing you can have is egg protein, which is excellent and sort of medium digesting speed. And also soy protein is totally great. No, soy protein will not make you a biological female if you eat a lot of it. It's just not a thing that happens, but everyone's afraid of that happening because there are compounds in soy that act like estrogens in your body. Also, fun fact, if you're really curious about this, estrogen is very anabolic to muscle tissue, especially when there's testosterone also present. And it's really awesome for your health and excellent for strength gains. So if you're a dude, just a fucking guy, man, just an XY chromosome and every fucking cell of my body broke except for my germline. It's one or the other. Anyway, I never fucking touched soy broke because estrogen is bad. Bullshit. Estrogen is what makes men manlier. if testosterone is present. So unless your testicles fall off, soy is fucking dope. I sound like a soy boy saying it, but they rarely say it like that. All right. So we got whey for post workout, intra workout, casein for long meal intervals, and some kind of mixed protein or egg or soy for just a meal replacement. What about the serving size? How much should you be taking? As much as possible. As a matter of fact, use code Dr. Mike Dildo to save on. Scott, let's quickly make up a protein supplement company. We can start before we release this video so we can monetize. What do we got? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's a good name? Mike's Magic Milk. Oh, my. How much work do I have to do? Do I have to secrete something? And like, well, we got 800 vials in five minutes. Hit it. As a matter of fact, I'm overqualified. So in any case. Don't just eat all the protein you can. Whatever meal you're replacing, or if you want to add some protein to your diet and your workout, generally speaking, you do a little math. P over X. P is the total amount of protein you eat in a day. X is the number of meals you eat per day. So if you eat a total of 200 grams of protein, roughly you should eat about as much protein as your pounds in body weight. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you eat 200 grams of protein a day. And if you split that, Over the course of five meals, then P over X equals 40 grams. And so basically, it's the same amount of protein you eat in the other meals. Super simple math. Next, category of supplements that are effective. Optional. All these are optional, but if you use them, they'll work. Workout carbs. Workout window carbs. These are carbs you take during and finish right after your workout that, to some small extent, prevent muscle breakdown. To a pretty meaningful extent, make... 45-minute, hour, hour and 15, and longer workouts make the ends of those workouts higher intensity than they would be and then much more productive. And also, these supplements can maximize the utilization of the protein you're also consuming around the workout window. So, these carbs include things like dextrose powder. If, you know, you go on Amazon and buy 15 pounds of that shit for like a dollar. Or you can go and get some Gatorade or Powerade, whether it's a shake or a powder, doesn't matter. And generally, you consume these during longer workouts, an hour or more would start to make sense, or after training to help with anabolism and help especially with recovery for future hard training bouts. These carbs are best paired with a protein shake. So if you ever see me out in the world, some 24-hour fitness in California or some shit, you're like, is that Dr. Mike? Yeah, nobody else looks like that. What the fuck happened to that guy's head? You're going to notice that very often I have a Powerade or a Gatorade or two, and I have a protein shake with me. And I sip that between sets. That handles me super well. The serving size you're going to use is going to be determined by your workout volume. Like if it's legs, you're going to be consuming more carbs. If it's like just biceps, you probably don't need carbs at all. The intensity of the workout, if it's like peak week, super hard, you might need more carbs. If it's an easy kind of deal at workout, maybe not need any and everything in between. And of course, your overall diet. If you're cutting carbs like crazy and you're starving to death, it's probably a good idea not to have these very rapidly digesting. Very not hunger-squashing carbohydrates. Remove that and keep the carbs in the rest of your diet. So there's a lot of context here about how much you should be having. But usually for practical recommendation, one bottle of Gatorade or Powerade for most people in the workout along with a whatever, a protein shake that's roughly some fraction of your daily intake, a typical meal size. And maybe two bottles if you're real, you know, training legs or you're quite large, over 200 pounds and muscular. And that should be good for most people. So. real crazy rocket science there. Next up are slow digesting carbohydrate supplements. One of the most popular ones, I don't know if it's popular now, but it exists, is called Waxy Maize. Sounds nice. It's not waxy. It is, I believe, made of corn, so the maize is accurate. And it is a carbohydrate people used to recommend to take in the workout window. And those people were wrong. Why were they wrong? Because Waxy Maize is insanely slow digesting. It digests slower than oatmeal. But it comes in a powder. It doesn't mix so well with water. It's like Waxamaze out of the year. But you shake it enough, and after you shake it, before you drink it again, you reshake it. Then you're good to go. The really cool thing is that you can store this as a powder. So you can take Waxamaze, which is pure white powder, dump it into little baggies all the same size. You take each baggie and you layer it carefully on top of other baggies in a large metallic suitcase. And you, it's a good idea to leave an unregistered firearm in there as well. And you just go to the airport and just push it right through the TSA screener. You're going to have an amazing time. Finally, you get all the physical attention that you deserve. Alternatively, you can take a little baggie of it, put whatever carbs you want to replace with the meal, dump some mixture of casein whey or soy or egg protein in that baggie, zip lock that motherfucker, take your shaker cup. take the baggie, dump into shaker, close shaker, throw that into your stuff. And then when you need that meal replacement, unclick the shaker, take out baggie, put in water, dump contents of Waxy Maze and protein in shaker, fill the rest of the shaker up with water, shake for your life. And after the shit hasn't sedimented yet and is still floating around, gulp, gulp, gulp. If you do that, you can also, I guess, just Mix the shake at home, take it to work, and put it in the fridge. No problem. Again, before you start drinking again, reshake the fuck out of it because it's going to settle down for you. This use of Waxymase or any other slow-digesting carbohydrate can provide incredibly easy, exact macros for slow-digesting, filling, hunger-squashing, on-the-go nutrition. It's an amazing meal replacement. And people talk about meal replacements, they usually talk about protein shakes. But motherfucker, your meals ain't all protein. I mean, unless you're like carnivore or some shit. You guys remember Liver King? Whatever happened to him? Oh, that's right. He was lying about steroids and I know he gives a shit about it. Hey, Liver King, if you hear this, fuck you. I'm kidding. No, I'm not kidding. In any case, you pair that with a protein and it's an amazing meal replacement. And if you want, I wouldn't throw the nuts in the shaker because that's how you choke to death. But a handful of nuts, super easy with that. And then you got a complete meal. The serving size is, of course, whatever carbs you had planned for that meal. So if you have an 80-gram carb meal with 40 grams of protein, you put 40 protein, you know, let's say like an egg protein, 40 grams of that in a baggie. You put 80 grams of carbs from Waxy Maze, seal it up, dump in the shaker, close shaker, throw shaker into bag. And then whenever it is you need the meal replacement, you just take the whole baggie out, put the water in, mix. Voila, the quickest, easiest to store meal. Another great thing about this kind of... approach is that wherever you have potable water, and honestly, if you really want to go to the next level, just bring two bottles of water with you and throw them in the bag too. And now you don't even need potable water anywhere you go because you have the shit with you. The great thing is a lot of times powder that you mix in with a shaker is available to you in any weather condition, day or night, because a lot of times you'll want a meal replacement, but you're like, your shit is sitting in your car and it's like, Kansas in fucking July and it's a hundred and ten degrees for no goddamn reason you come back and someone's like you're gonna eat that turkey sandwich and you're like I think the turkey sandwich now has a civilization of bacteria growing on it I'm gonna pass on that shit but if it's just egg protein powder and waxy maze carbs man like I don't think that actually ever goes bad as long as it's dry you can eat it you can discover it years later in your car what the fuck is this is this cocaine you Or is this waxy maze? Oh, only one way to find out. Nope. Hey, Scott, I've never taken drugs because I'm a good person and not a degenerate like you. But is it if you drink like a quarter kilo of cocaine, are you going to die? You're going to die? Probably just this. From joy? From a lot of things. You're like you go through a real fast high. You're like, I don't feel anything. 30 seconds later, you're like I want to meet everyone and say hi to the whole world. And then 30 seconds later, you're like, I'm just dead. Fast ride. Next, creatine. Great-grandma, you ever leaf through the pictures? Old fucking photo book your parents have. Damn, great-grandma looked jacked. You see there's an optimum nutrition creatine container next to that bitch. That's like her, Abraham Lincoln. And in optimum nutrition creatine, you're like, America, God intended. So everyone used creatine all through history. Everyone knows this. Creatine is dope. It's one of those supplements that really doesn't disappoint. There's a bunch of supplements. You read a study on it. Andrew Huberman talks about it. And you're like, dude, this shit is going to change my life. You take it, nothing happens. Six months later, three other studies come out, say it doesn't do anything. And you're like, God damn it. I lost my money. Creatine is not one of those. It's been vetted over and over and over again. It causes muscle growth. It causes increases in performance. It speeds set-to-set recovery. And it even seems to be healthy for the brain and nervous system for healthy aging, which is really cool. Something many people did not see coming, including myself. Oh, somebody had a bit too much creatine. Am I right? Scott, I wish I had someone here to every time I said a stupid joke, I could nudge them with the elbow. We need like a drum kit. And then a pregnant pause after. Okay. So anyway, the best studied version of creatine, because there's a couple of different molecules you can clip onto creatine to make sure it gets where it needs to go. The best studied version of that is creatine monohydrate. And. It's the best studied in terms of number of studies. Diversity of populations is the best vetted, so it definitely works. And for almost everyone, unless you're Brian Shaw's size and you're like three people, five grams of creatine monohydrate every day, and timing doesn't matter, is going to sort you out. And it's going to be about a week, week and a half long period where the creatine is loading in your cells. and it's filling your muscles up, your pumps are going to get better. You're going to look a little bit more jacked all the time, especially if you're a creatine hyper-responder. There's a normal distribution about how people respond to creatine. And the people who respond to creatine the most are usually ones that eat the least meat, especially red meat in their diet. So if you're vegan, taking creatine might change your fucking life. If you're a carnivore, taking creatine might have absolutely no impact on you whatsoever. If you take five grams of creatine daily, it's going to sort you out. It's not going to like revolutionize your physique, but it's going to be something that you know is a ritual for you to take. And under the hood, it's absolutely causing some positive changes. They're small, but they're there. Just like I tell the ladies, I'm small, but I've been following you around for years, years. I know everything about you. I've been collecting your hair too. Would you like to see my doll I made of you? Sorry, that was for another video I'm sending to Patricia. You can take a break every few months from creatine. Not because we suspect that there's some kind of feedback loop. There probably isn't. You can just take creatine all the fucking time. And no, it is not bad for your kidneys. So tell that nurse at your doctor's office that she's a fucking idiot. Don't tell her that. That might not go over well, but you can think it in your head. She's like, don't take creatine. It's bad for your kidneys. You're like, fucking idiot. Thank you. So nothing's going to happen to you bad, but sometimes it's just annoying to fucking take a powder every day, especially on trips. Back to the cocaine thing. Creatine monohydrate is almost everywhere also a white odorless powder. And if you decide to say, oh, I'm going to go on vacation to the Dominican Republic and you show up with a baggie of indeterminate white powder, there's a 98% chance nothing's going to happen to you. There's a 2% chance you're going to be spending an extended stay at the... one of the airports in the Dominican Republic where folks in which English is not their preferred or first spoken language are going to be trying to ascertain what the fuck it is you're doing with a white baggie of what the hell is that. It's a fun time. You'll make plenty of friends. So if you want friends, definitely do that. But if you want to take a break from creatine for a few months here and there, once or twice during the year, totally cool. You can stop taking it. No big deal. When you get back on creatine, because as creatine loads in your muscle cells, It pulls in multiples of its weight in water just to exist in your cell. It's first of all, it's going to give you a cool pump all the time, like kind of like a quarter pump all the time, which is pretty sweet. But you are going. to get some water weight gains from it. And again, the more you are a responder to it, the more the water weight gain is. There are folks that gain three, five, and even eight pounds within the first week of getting on creatine. So I'll keep this very simple. If you're starting a fat loss phase and you start taking creatine and you begin to freak out because you're not losing weight or a whole week of eating what we thought was a deficit, but you gained four pounds, what's going on? Is math wrong? Are we living in a simulation? No. I mean, maybe we're living in a simulation. You can find that out anyway. You're going to gain some weight and it's totally cool because it's weight that's going into your muscles. So it's the right kind of weight. It's the good looking kind of weight. You can flex for grandma and she, oh boy, Billy, you sure got muscular. You're not taking that creatine, are you son? Oh, no way, grandma. That's poison. As a matter of fact, I was on a flight once with my boy, a man of Dominican descent. Marcos Rodriguez, as they say his name. And he's an elite personal trainer in New York City. Look him up. It's Mr. Marcos on Instagram. No periods. MR Marcos. Anyway, we were sitting next to this very nice, very professional Indian lady who was of course a computational chemist or some shit like that. Why not? And we're sitting in an airplane and she's like, hey, my son is younger and he's... He's... What do you think about creatine? He wants to take creatine. Should I let him? And before I could say any sports science shit, Marcos, real quick, because he's got that New Yorker Dominican wit, so he's just way faster than me. So he goes, I don't put that poison in my body. And she's like, oh, okay. And I was like, he's joking. And she was like, he is. And I was like, he's a bad person. Marcos, if you watch this, he doesn't watch our channel. He doesn't give a shit about me. What's up? What's up, big homie? Anyway, it's not poison. You're going to be totally cool. If you're over the age of, jeez, for sure 18, but probably 15, you're totally fine to take it. Expect some water weight gains. It's totally cool. After a week, they'll stabilize. And then you'll just have slightly better body composition, strength, recovery, and all that good stuff. Another really quick thing if you're new to this whole game. You're going to feel creatine. It's not a pre-workout. You're not going to feel shit. So if you're like, I'm taking creatine, but I don't like, you know what I mean? It's not alcohol. It's not caffeine. It's not weed. You're not going to be able to tell you're on it. So it's just working under the hood, which is really cool. Next and last supplement, I definitely feel comfortable recommending to pretty much everyone who lifts and eats already. is a multivitamin, multimineral. Same thing, by the way, because every multivitamin also has minerals in it. So same, same. Here's the thing. If you eat mostly healthy and varied food, mostly, not all healthy, you're already pretty well off. But some minimal supplementation of a multivitamin, multimineral is kind of like a little bit of an insurance policy. It kind of rounds you out. Make sure you're not lacking in pretty much anything. And because these supplements are profoundly cheap, profoundly easy to find, and it's one pill you take once a day, timing doesn't matter, but just take it in the morning with your creatine to check that box really quick is super good idea. Because it's that easy to do, many people who are involved in, well, you know, trying to eat right, trying to train right, and they're kind of like, you know, dare I say, care about their results and want to make sure that they're doing all the best things. And multivitamin, multimineral, again, just one supplement, is just such an easy thing to take. to make sure to be like, you know what? Like I'm, I'm doing my best. It's kind of like if you, if your office has a machine that like laminates your paper and you make a big presentation to like the board and it's like, you just throw your shit into the laminator and 10 minutes later, it comes out and it costs nothing to you. Really? It's just 10 minutes of your time and you want to make an impact. You put so much work into this presentation. you might as well make it look nice. Laminate the fucking thing. It comes out all plasticky and people are like, man, this is serious stuff. Good job, Johnson. You got the promotion. That's exactly how it's going to happen to the letter. So just the same way you work so hard at stuff and you give a shit and you eat well and you train, you might as well take a multivitamin, multimineral to kind of round out everything and make sure you don't have any holes in your program. Here's the thing. Just once a day, just the recommended dose. If you take any more vitamins than necessary, one of two things happen. There are both water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins and minerals inside of each one of those pills you get. If you consume like, if you're like, man, fuck that, I want double and triple and 10 times the results. Let's say you have 10 times the vitamins normally. You take 10 of them shits because you're going to be fucking Superman. What's going to happen is the water-soluble vitamins, you just pee right out. You'll pee a very different color, usually fluorescent green, which looks kind of sweet. But then you have very expensive urine because you're peeing on all the extra shit you don't need. The fat-soluble vitamins your body will absorb. And it will store inside many tissues, most of the tissues that have fat, including your adipose tissue. And at a certain point, that becomes toxic. And then you get sick. And during right around that time, you're going to also probably turn a shade of yellow. Because various fat soluble vitamins tend to turn you yellow as a side effect. So, this is something you want to do. It has zero upside. So, if you get a multivitamin, use the one little pill, and you just take it every day. And that's it. And if you forget to take it one day, nothing is going to happen to you. You just take the same pill the next day. No big deal. Another thing, super useful advice, I think. Do not overpay for expensive brands. There ain't nothing in the world you're getting out of a multivitamin that you don't get at fucking Walmart. And I'm talking about that Walmart. What is it, Scott? What's the Walmart brand called? Like Quality Choice or some shit like that? I don't shop at Walmart. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you text one of your butlers to ask where he shops for his degenerate poor family? Assuming he has a family at all. Most of my butlers can't afford families with what I pay him. Training for muscle growth is never going to be the same. Great value. Yes. Thank you so much. I knew you shop there, you motherfucker. So get you a great value fucking brand, bro. It's going to have the same shit in it that all the other companies have. To me, it's particularly funny as an exercise and sports scientist. someone who's taken a lot of courses in physiology. I've actually taught collegiate basic nutrition before. It's just really funny to see supplement companies being like the best multivitamin on the market. Like what the fuck does that mean? It's all the same shit, folks. And you can save so much money by just getting the fucking Sam's Club, Costco, Walmart, Mikeijer, Kroger, wherever you live in this world, Alibaba, I don't know. The regular cheap shit works totally fine. Don't take it more than once a day. And you can just do this all the time. You can take a break when you go on vacation, but right after, come back, start taking your vitamins again. All right, that more or less wraps us up. Let me give you guys kind of a quick overall summary. Main point for beginners for this video. If you're a beginner, been training up to about three years, trying to get your diet in order, you just straight up don't need supplements. A multivitamin is okay, but... All else is at best bonus points and at worst, it's just totally pointless because you'll never see the results. If you're intermediate, you've been training pretty seriously for three to seven years or something like that, your diet's kind of on point, you can consider taking most of the supplements on this list on an as-needed basis. You might not need a slow-digesting carbohydrate meal replacement. I don't take Waxamase currently. There's nothing for me to do with it at all. But if you're in a situation where you're like, dude, man, I need a meal at 3 p.m., lunch is at 12. Got to be at my desk. I'm on call. I'm not going to be going anywhere and doing some shit. I really do need this. And then dope. It works super great. So you don't have to take any supplements. But if you have a use case for them, try them. And they're certain to be very effective. And for the advanced folks, people training very seriously for seven or more years, very in tune with their diet, you should be considering supplements on a case-by-case basis. There are supplements which yield very good results for people that are using them. well, let's say more anabolics than others, and people that train really hard, people that sweat a lot in training, then a sport nutritionist can help you out to see if you need any kind of supplements. Examples are some extra zinc in the evening, some magnesium, some vitamin D3, sometimes omega-3s are in order, and some other supplements here and there can be a good idea. And of course, if you're an intermediate or above, You can always do some pre-workouts or caffeine, coffee. We have a lot of videos on this channel on stimulants and pre-workouts and stuff. So you can check those out. They're not mandatory. They're not necessary. But if you like to use them, stick to the recommended dosages only. Be safe. Take it 30 minutes before you work out. Rock on. Don't take it too late in the day because you won't sleep as well. And then it screws up your results. But pre-workouts and stuff are definitely cool. They don't make our list. because for most people, they just don't need them. And for many, it's like a lot of upsides, but a lot of downsides too. So these supplements that are on this list, almost everyone can take, and they're going to have a great time doing it. No disruption to health. As a matter of fact, in most cases, an enhancement that if you use some number anywhere between zero and all of the supplements I listed, you're going to have just on the margins, a little bit better of a time with getting results that you want. And because you work so hard anyway to get the results that you want, you might as well be taking some supplements. In some cases. to boost those results and make sure your work is going in the direction that you want. All right, that's all I have for today. Folks, if you have any questions, shoot them down below. Maybe we'll get to a couple answers. Otherwise, yeah, go out there and, well, go to Walmart. And just open up a container of vitamins and yell at the top of your lungs, nobody can stop me. And just start chewing them and see how long it takes the police to show up and shoot you dead. Have fun. I'll see you on the news.

You guys remember Liver King? Whatever happened to him? Oh, that's right, he was lying about steroids and I don't know what he gives a shit about it.

Hey, Liver King, if you hear this, f*** you. I'm kidding. No, I'm not kidding.

Hey folks, Dr. Mike here for Renaissance Periodization and today we're going to talk about what supplements are worth it, especially for beginners and intermediates in hypertrophy and strength training. For folks new to the channel, I'm Dr. Mike Izzertel. As I just said earlier, I guess I'm really bad at this.

I am a competitive bodybuilder. I am a Brazilian jiu-jitsu grappler, I'm a professor of sports science, and I help make all the wonderful things that we have here at RP. And if you want to learn about how to eat and train and have your best physique and possibly attract a mate, maybe not guaranteed, then give us a subscription and we'll give you loads of fun. And for those folks that are already subscribed, I have a question for you.

Actually, a request. Let's come together and stop treating adults that wear overalls with human decency. We need to let people know it's not okay.

Personal pet peeve. Call me crazy. Let me know in the comments what you think about that. Speaking of crazy, what supplements are worth it?

Because let's be honest, there's a lot of BS out there. And even if some of it might not be BS, kind of every supplement company is like, buy stuff, buy our triple max blend 3,500. proprietary ingredients so you can look like this professional bodybuilder who's on 15 units of growth hormone a day, but we didn't mention that part.

So it's tough because everyone says bye-bye-bye, but you know a lot of the stuff is BS. So what are you supposed to do about it? Mike personally, I just try to look like Darth Sidious. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Dark side.

To be honest, our heater just kicked on and I'm cold. So which supplements are worth it? We could use a very high number, a different number of lenses with which to examine.

And so we're going to constrain our view a little bit to keep this simple. Here's how we're constraining our view. I'm not including any illegal stuff. Steroids work super well, though they kill you. Growth hormone works ultra well, though it also kills you.

And all kinds of illegal stuff, you know, Klan, blah, blah, blah. That stuff is definitely solid, but kills you. We're not going to talk about borderline stuff on legality.

SARMs, I'm not sure if they're so legal or not. Peptides, they definitely work too, but it's just a giant question mark as to what the fuck is going on there. And most of the folks I think that are going to be viewing this video kind of don't want to see some guy at the back of a GNC with a trench coat that's like, man, yeah, see, what do you want? I got vials. I got needles.

I got it all, see? They want to kind of go to the actual GNC and maybe buy something that's effective. And so the target demographic for this video, for folks that I want to get the most benefit out of this, is people that lift, that eat pretty well, and just want to pay for kind of sure thing supplements.

You may or may not want to buy the supplements that I'm going to list for you in just a few minutes or right now, but rest assured that if you do spend your money on them, they're going to be a good use of your money and they're going to be safe and they're going to be effective. The last thing I'll say is there are some supplements that aren't going to make our list, which some. Often, many people have deficiencies in, for example, in some northern climates.

People who don't go out in the sun especially a lot can have D vitamin deficiencies and might need vitamin D supplementation, et cetera. And there's a bunch of little caveats, little tiny details and specifics. If you consult with a medical provider, hopefully your doctor, then you can sort most of that stuff out. So there are some specifics. This is going to be broad strokes kind of for everyone that lifts and eats and thinks, you know what?

I think I might start taking supplements. So Dr. Mike. which ones should I take that are not a ripoff?

Got a couple categories. The first category is protein shakes. They definitely work.

There's a couple different types of protein shakes. You can take the very fast digesting whey protein for post-workout, the quality of the whey, whether it's concentrate, isolate, or hydrolysis, it doesn't matter. For all practical purposes that you're concerned with, dear viewer, it just doesn't fucking matter.

If you're physically made actual money. I got an electron microscope scan, by the way, and the doctors were baffled because it seems I'm actually made of teeny microscopic $100 bills. That's the kind of stacks your boy is working with.

Then only way hydro touches this body, because if it's not the best, I don't even look at it. You show me concentrated, oh, I drank that shit. But for almost everyone else, you people, no offense, of regular means, any kind of way is totally fine. One thing I'll say is people with kind of upset stomachs from whey protein, if it's concentrate, it's got a little bit of lactose in there, it's got a little bit of extra stuff, a little carbohydrates, try isolate and then try hydro.

Now, isolate is more expensive. Hydro is really expensive. But if that's what gets you to not have the stomach problems anymore, maybe it's worth it for you. So whey is great, especially for post-workout or intra-workout around the workout window. There's another thing or another use case for protein shakes, and that's for long intervals between meals.

You might have a presentation at work and that's going to take four hours and then you got to drive a client back to the airport. That's going to take another two and you come back home and it's going to take another hour and you might just not have any opportunity to eat during that time. And so a casein shake, there's...

two fractions of milk protein, one is whey, one is casein, the casein shake made of casein protein is going to digest very, very slowly, release very slowly into your bloodstream. So it works as a long interval meal replacement, five, six, seven, eight hours without eating. Next, there are protein shakes that are somewhere in the intermediate range of digestibility speed.

So whey protein gets in you and within 30 minutes to an hour and goes through all that stuff. Casein, you know, five to eight hours and then three to four hours. can be a couple of different options.

You can have a mixed, often 50-50 split of casein and whey. That's very common. Another thing you can have is egg protein, which is excellent and sort of medium digesting speed.

And also soy protein is totally great. No, soy protein will not make you a biological female if you eat a lot of it. It's just not a thing that happens, but everyone's afraid of that happening because there are compounds in soy that act like estrogens in your body.

Also, fun fact, if you're really curious about this, estrogen is very anabolic to muscle tissue, especially when there's testosterone also present. And it's really awesome for your health and excellent for strength gains. So if you're a dude, just a fucking guy, man, just an XY chromosome and every fucking cell of my body broke except for my germline. It's one or the other.

Anyway, I never fucking touched soy broke because estrogen is bad. Bullshit. Estrogen is what makes men manlier.

if testosterone is present. So unless your testicles fall off, soy is fucking dope. I sound like a soy boy saying it, but they rarely say it like that. All right. So we got whey for post workout, intra workout, casein for long meal intervals, and some kind of mixed protein or egg or soy for just a meal replacement.

What about the serving size? How much should you be taking? As much as possible. As a matter of fact, use code Dr. Mike Dildo to save on. Scott, let's quickly make up a protein supplement company.

We can start before we release this video so we can monetize. What do we got? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's a good name? Mike's Magic Milk. Oh, my.

How much work do I have to do? Do I have to secrete something? And like, well, we got 800 vials in five minutes.

Hit it. As a matter of fact, I'm overqualified. So in any case. Don't just eat all the protein you can. Whatever meal you're replacing, or if you want to add some protein to your diet and your workout, generally speaking, you do a little math.

P over X. P is the total amount of protein you eat in a day. X is the number of meals you eat per day. So if you eat a total of 200 grams of protein, roughly you should eat about as much protein as your pounds in body weight. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you eat 200 grams of protein a day.

And if you split that, Over the course of five meals, then P over X equals 40 grams. And so basically, it's the same amount of protein you eat in the other meals. Super simple math. Next, category of supplements that are effective. Optional.

All these are optional, but if you use them, they'll work. Workout carbs. Workout window carbs.

These are carbs you take during and finish right after your workout that, to some small extent, prevent muscle breakdown. To a pretty meaningful extent, make... 45-minute, hour, hour and 15, and longer workouts make the ends of those workouts higher intensity than they would be and then much more productive. And also, these supplements can maximize the utilization of the protein you're also consuming around the workout window. So, these carbs include things like dextrose powder.

If, you know, you go on Amazon and buy 15 pounds of that shit for like a dollar. Or you can go and get some Gatorade or Powerade, whether it's a shake or a powder, doesn't matter. And generally, you consume these during longer workouts, an hour or more would start to make sense, or after training to help with anabolism and help especially with recovery for future hard training bouts.

These carbs are best paired with a protein shake. So if you ever see me out in the world, some 24-hour fitness in California or some shit, you're like, is that Dr. Mike? Yeah, nobody else looks like that.

What the fuck happened to that guy's head? You're going to notice that very often I have a Powerade or a Gatorade or two, and I have a protein shake with me. And I sip that between sets. That handles me super well. The serving size you're going to use is going to be determined by your workout volume.

Like if it's legs, you're going to be consuming more carbs. If it's like just biceps, you probably don't need carbs at all. The intensity of the workout, if it's like peak week, super hard, you might need more carbs. If it's an easy kind of deal at workout, maybe not need any and everything in between. And of course, your overall diet.

If you're cutting carbs like crazy and you're starving to death, it's probably a good idea not to have these very rapidly digesting. Very not hunger-squashing carbohydrates. Remove that and keep the carbs in the rest of your diet.

So there's a lot of context here about how much you should be having. But usually for practical recommendation, one bottle of Gatorade or Powerade for most people in the workout along with a whatever, a protein shake that's roughly some fraction of your daily intake, a typical meal size. And maybe two bottles if you're real, you know, training legs or you're quite large, over 200 pounds and muscular. And that should be good for most people.

So. real crazy rocket science there. Next up are slow digesting carbohydrate supplements.

One of the most popular ones, I don't know if it's popular now, but it exists, is called Waxy Maize. Sounds nice. It's not waxy.

It is, I believe, made of corn, so the maize is accurate. And it is a carbohydrate people used to recommend to take in the workout window. And those people were wrong. Why were they wrong?

Because Waxy Maize is insanely slow digesting. It digests slower than oatmeal. But it comes in a powder.

It doesn't mix so well with water. It's like Waxamaze out of the year. But you shake it enough, and after you shake it, before you drink it again, you reshake it. Then you're good to go. The really cool thing is that you can store this as a powder.

So you can take Waxamaze, which is pure white powder, dump it into little baggies all the same size. You take each baggie and you layer it carefully on top of other baggies in a large metallic suitcase. And you, it's a good idea to leave an unregistered firearm in there as well.

And you just go to the airport and just push it right through the TSA screener. You're going to have an amazing time. Finally, you get all the physical attention that you deserve. Alternatively, you can take a little baggie of it, put whatever carbs you want to replace with the meal, dump some mixture of casein whey or soy or egg protein in that baggie, zip lock that motherfucker, take your shaker cup. take the baggie, dump into shaker, close shaker, throw that into your stuff.

And then when you need that meal replacement, unclick the shaker, take out baggie, put in water, dump contents of Waxy Maze and protein in shaker, fill the rest of the shaker up with water, shake for your life. And after the shit hasn't sedimented yet and is still floating around, gulp, gulp, gulp. If you do that, you can also, I guess, just Mix the shake at home, take it to work, and put it in the fridge. No problem.

Again, before you start drinking again, reshake the fuck out of it because it's going to settle down for you. This use of Waxymase or any other slow-digesting carbohydrate can provide incredibly easy, exact macros for slow-digesting, filling, hunger-squashing, on-the-go nutrition. It's an amazing meal replacement. And people talk about meal replacements, they usually talk about protein shakes.

But motherfucker, your meals ain't all protein. I mean, unless you're like carnivore or some shit. You guys remember Liver King? Whatever happened to him?

Oh, that's right. He was lying about steroids and I know he gives a shit about it. Hey, Liver King, if you hear this, fuck you.

I'm kidding. No, I'm not kidding. In any case, you pair that with a protein and it's an amazing meal replacement.

And if you want, I wouldn't throw the nuts in the shaker because that's how you choke to death. But a handful of nuts, super easy with that. And then you got a complete meal. The serving size is, of course, whatever carbs you had planned for that meal.

So if you have an 80-gram carb meal with 40 grams of protein, you put 40 protein, you know, let's say like an egg protein, 40 grams of that in a baggie. You put 80 grams of carbs from Waxy Maze, seal it up, dump in the shaker, close shaker, throw shaker into bag. And then whenever it is you need the meal replacement, you just take the whole baggie out, put the water in, mix. Voila, the quickest, easiest to store meal.

Another great thing about this kind of... approach is that wherever you have potable water, and honestly, if you really want to go to the next level, just bring two bottles of water with you and throw them in the bag too. And now you don't even need potable water anywhere you go because you have the shit with you.

The great thing is a lot of times powder that you mix in with a shaker is available to you in any weather condition, day or night, because a lot of times you'll want a meal replacement, but you're like, your shit is sitting in your car and it's like, Kansas in fucking July and it's a hundred and ten degrees for no goddamn reason you come back and someone's like you're gonna eat that turkey sandwich and you're like I think the turkey sandwich now has a civilization of bacteria growing on it I'm gonna pass on that shit but if it's just egg protein powder and waxy maze carbs man like I don't think that actually ever goes bad as long as it's dry you can eat it you can discover it years later in your car what the fuck is this is this cocaine you Or is this waxy maze? Oh, only one way to find out. Nope. Hey, Scott, I've never taken drugs because I'm a good person and not a degenerate like you. But is it if you drink like a quarter kilo of cocaine, are you going to die?

You're going to die? Probably just this. From joy?

From a lot of things. You're like you go through a real fast high. You're like, I don't feel anything. 30 seconds later, you're like I want to meet everyone and say hi to the whole world. And then 30 seconds later, you're like, I'm just dead.

Fast ride. Next, creatine. Great-grandma, you ever leaf through the pictures? Old fucking photo book your parents have. Damn, great-grandma looked jacked.

You see there's an optimum nutrition creatine container next to that bitch. That's like her, Abraham Lincoln. And in optimum nutrition creatine, you're like, America, God intended.

So everyone used creatine all through history. Everyone knows this. Creatine is dope.

It's one of those supplements that really doesn't disappoint. There's a bunch of supplements. You read a study on it.

Andrew Huberman talks about it. And you're like, dude, this shit is going to change my life. You take it, nothing happens. Six months later, three other studies come out, say it doesn't do anything.

And you're like, God damn it. I lost my money. Creatine is not one of those. It's been vetted over and over and over again. It causes muscle growth.

It causes increases in performance. It speeds set-to-set recovery. And it even seems to be healthy for the brain and nervous system for healthy aging, which is really cool. Something many people did not see coming, including myself.

Oh, somebody had a bit too much creatine. Am I right? Scott, I wish I had someone here to every time I said a stupid joke, I could nudge them with the elbow. We need like a drum kit. And then a pregnant pause after.

Okay. So anyway, the best studied version of creatine, because there's a couple of different molecules you can clip onto creatine to make sure it gets where it needs to go. The best studied version of that is creatine monohydrate.

And. It's the best studied in terms of number of studies. Diversity of populations is the best vetted, so it definitely works. And for almost everyone, unless you're Brian Shaw's size and you're like three people, five grams of creatine monohydrate every day, and timing doesn't matter, is going to sort you out. And it's going to be about a week, week and a half long period where the creatine is loading in your cells.

and it's filling your muscles up, your pumps are going to get better. You're going to look a little bit more jacked all the time, especially if you're a creatine hyper-responder. There's a normal distribution about how people respond to creatine. And the people who respond to creatine the most are usually ones that eat the least meat, especially red meat in their diet. So if you're vegan, taking creatine might change your fucking life.

If you're a carnivore, taking creatine might have absolutely no impact on you whatsoever. If you take five grams of creatine daily, it's going to sort you out. It's not going to like revolutionize your physique, but it's going to be something that you know is a ritual for you to take. And under the hood, it's absolutely causing some positive changes. They're small, but they're there.

Just like I tell the ladies, I'm small, but I've been following you around for years, years. I know everything about you. I've been collecting your hair too. Would you like to see my doll I made of you?

Sorry, that was for another video I'm sending to Patricia. You can take a break every few months from creatine. Not because we suspect that there's some kind of feedback loop. There probably isn't.

You can just take creatine all the fucking time. And no, it is not bad for your kidneys. So tell that nurse at your doctor's office that she's a fucking idiot. Don't tell her that. That might not go over well, but you can think it in your head.

She's like, don't take creatine. It's bad for your kidneys. You're like, fucking idiot. Thank you. So nothing's going to happen to you bad, but sometimes it's just annoying to fucking take a powder every day, especially on trips.

Back to the cocaine thing. Creatine monohydrate is almost everywhere also a white odorless powder. And if you decide to say, oh, I'm going to go on vacation to the Dominican Republic and you show up with a baggie of indeterminate white powder, there's a 98% chance nothing's going to happen to you. There's a 2% chance you're going to be spending an extended stay at the...

one of the airports in the Dominican Republic where folks in which English is not their preferred or first spoken language are going to be trying to ascertain what the fuck it is you're doing with a white baggie of what the hell is that. It's a fun time. You'll make plenty of friends.

So if you want friends, definitely do that. But if you want to take a break from creatine for a few months here and there, once or twice during the year, totally cool. You can stop taking it. No big deal. When you get back on creatine, because as creatine loads in your muscle cells, It pulls in multiples of its weight in water just to exist in your cell.

It's first of all, it's going to give you a cool pump all the time, like kind of like a quarter pump all the time, which is pretty sweet. But you are going. to get some water weight gains from it. And again, the more you are a responder to it, the more the water weight gain is. There are folks that gain three, five, and even eight pounds within the first week of getting on creatine.

So I'll keep this very simple. If you're starting a fat loss phase and you start taking creatine and you begin to freak out because you're not losing weight or a whole week of eating what we thought was a deficit, but you gained four pounds, what's going on? Is math wrong?

Are we living in a simulation? No. I mean, maybe we're living in a simulation.

You can find that out anyway. You're going to gain some weight and it's totally cool because it's weight that's going into your muscles. So it's the right kind of weight.

It's the good looking kind of weight. You can flex for grandma and she, oh boy, Billy, you sure got muscular. You're not taking that creatine, are you son? Oh, no way, grandma. That's poison.

As a matter of fact, I was on a flight once with my boy, a man of Dominican descent. Marcos Rodriguez, as they say his name. And he's an elite personal trainer in New York City. Look him up. It's Mr. Marcos on Instagram.

No periods. MR Marcos. Anyway, we were sitting next to this very nice, very professional Indian lady who was of course a computational chemist or some shit like that. Why not? And we're sitting in an airplane and she's like, hey, my son is younger and he's...

He's... What do you think about creatine? He wants to take creatine. Should I let him? And before I could say any sports science shit, Marcos, real quick, because he's got that New Yorker Dominican wit, so he's just way faster than me.

So he goes, I don't put that poison in my body. And she's like, oh, okay. And I was like, he's joking. And she was like, he is.

And I was like, he's a bad person. Marcos, if you watch this, he doesn't watch our channel. He doesn't give a shit about me.

What's up? What's up, big homie? Anyway, it's not poison.

You're going to be totally cool. If you're over the age of, jeez, for sure 18, but probably 15, you're totally fine to take it. Expect some water weight gains.

It's totally cool. After a week, they'll stabilize. And then you'll just have slightly better body composition, strength, recovery, and all that good stuff.

Another really quick thing if you're new to this whole game. You're going to feel creatine. It's not a pre-workout.

You're not going to feel shit. So if you're like, I'm taking creatine, but I don't like, you know what I mean? It's not alcohol. It's not caffeine. It's not weed.

You're not going to be able to tell you're on it. So it's just working under the hood, which is really cool. Next and last supplement, I definitely feel comfortable recommending to pretty much everyone who lifts and eats already. is a multivitamin, multimineral. Same thing, by the way, because every multivitamin also has minerals in it.

So same, same. Here's the thing. If you eat mostly healthy and varied food, mostly, not all healthy, you're already pretty well off.

But some minimal supplementation of a multivitamin, multimineral is kind of like a little bit of an insurance policy. It kind of rounds you out. Make sure you're not lacking in pretty much anything. And because these supplements are profoundly cheap, profoundly easy to find, and it's one pill you take once a day, timing doesn't matter, but just take it in the morning with your creatine to check that box really quick is super good idea.

Because it's that easy to do, many people who are involved in, well, you know, trying to eat right, trying to train right, and they're kind of like, you know, dare I say, care about their results and want to make sure that they're doing all the best things. And multivitamin, multimineral, again, just one supplement, is just such an easy thing to take. to make sure to be like, you know what? Like I'm, I'm doing my best.

It's kind of like if you, if your office has a machine that like laminates your paper and you make a big presentation to like the board and it's like, you just throw your shit into the laminator and 10 minutes later, it comes out and it costs nothing to you. Really? It's just 10 minutes of your time and you want to make an impact.

You put so much work into this presentation. you might as well make it look nice. Laminate the fucking thing.

It comes out all plasticky and people are like, man, this is serious stuff. Good job, Johnson. You got the promotion. That's exactly how it's going to happen to the letter.

So just the same way you work so hard at stuff and you give a shit and you eat well and you train, you might as well take a multivitamin, multimineral to kind of round out everything and make sure you don't have any holes in your program. Here's the thing. Just once a day, just the recommended dose.

If you take any more vitamins than necessary, one of two things happen. There are both water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins and minerals inside of each one of those pills you get. If you consume like, if you're like, man, fuck that, I want double and triple and 10 times the results.

Let's say you have 10 times the vitamins normally. You take 10 of them shits because you're going to be fucking Superman. What's going to happen is the water-soluble vitamins, you just pee right out.

You'll pee a very different color, usually fluorescent green, which looks kind of sweet. But then you have very expensive urine because you're peeing on all the extra shit you don't need. The fat-soluble vitamins your body will absorb.

And it will store inside many tissues, most of the tissues that have fat, including your adipose tissue. And at a certain point, that becomes toxic. And then you get sick.

And during right around that time, you're going to also probably turn a shade of yellow. Because various fat soluble vitamins tend to turn you yellow as a side effect. So, this is something you want to do.

It has zero upside. So, if you get a multivitamin, use the one little pill, and you just take it every day. And that's it. And if you forget to take it one day, nothing is going to happen to you.

You just take the same pill the next day. No big deal. Another thing, super useful advice, I think.

Do not overpay for expensive brands. There ain't nothing in the world you're getting out of a multivitamin that you don't get at fucking Walmart. And I'm talking about that Walmart.

What is it, Scott? What's the Walmart brand called? Like Quality Choice or some shit like that? I don't shop at Walmart. Oh, I'm sorry.

Can you text one of your butlers to ask where he shops for his degenerate poor family? Assuming he has a family at all. Most of my butlers can't afford families with what I pay him.

Training for muscle growth is never going to be the same. Great value. Yes.

Thank you so much. I knew you shop there, you motherfucker. So get you a great value fucking brand, bro.

It's going to have the same shit in it that all the other companies have. To me, it's particularly funny as an exercise and sports scientist. someone who's taken a lot of courses in physiology. I've actually taught collegiate basic nutrition before. It's just really funny to see supplement companies being like the best multivitamin on the market.

Like what the fuck does that mean? It's all the same shit, folks. And you can save so much money by just getting the fucking Sam's Club, Costco, Walmart, Mikeijer, Kroger, wherever you live in this world, Alibaba, I don't know.

The regular cheap shit works totally fine. Don't take it more than once a day. And you can just do this all the time. You can take a break when you go on vacation, but right after, come back, start taking your vitamins again.

All right, that more or less wraps us up. Let me give you guys kind of a quick overall summary. Main point for beginners for this video.

If you're a beginner, been training up to about three years, trying to get your diet in order, you just straight up don't need supplements. A multivitamin is okay, but... All else is at best bonus points and at worst, it's just totally pointless because you'll never see the results. If you're intermediate, you've been training pretty seriously for three to seven years or something like that, your diet's kind of on point, you can consider taking most of the supplements on this list on an as-needed basis.

You might not need a slow-digesting carbohydrate meal replacement. I don't take Waxamase currently. There's nothing for me to do with it at all.

But if you're in a situation where you're like, dude, man, I need a meal at 3 p.m., lunch is at 12. Got to be at my desk. I'm on call. I'm not going to be going anywhere and doing some shit.

I really do need this. And then dope. It works super great.

So you don't have to take any supplements. But if you have a use case for them, try them. And they're certain to be very effective.

And for the advanced folks, people training very seriously for seven or more years, very in tune with their diet, you should be considering supplements on a case-by-case basis. There are supplements which yield very good results for people that are using them. well, let's say more anabolics than others, and people that train really hard, people that sweat a lot in training, then a sport nutritionist can help you out to see if you need any kind of supplements.

Examples are some extra zinc in the evening, some magnesium, some vitamin D3, sometimes omega-3s are in order, and some other supplements here and there can be a good idea. And of course, if you're an intermediate or above, You can always do some pre-workouts or caffeine, coffee. We have a lot of videos on this channel on stimulants and pre-workouts and stuff. So you can check those out. They're not mandatory.

They're not necessary. But if you like to use them, stick to the recommended dosages only. Be safe.

Take it 30 minutes before you work out. Rock on. Don't take it too late in the day because you won't sleep as well. And then it screws up your results. But pre-workouts and stuff are definitely cool.

They don't make our list. because for most people, they just don't need them. And for many, it's like a lot of upsides, but a lot of downsides too.

So these supplements that are on this list, almost everyone can take, and they're going to have a great time doing it. No disruption to health. As a matter of fact, in most cases, an enhancement that if you use some number anywhere between zero and all of the supplements I listed, you're going to have just on the margins, a little bit better of a time with getting results that you want.

And because you work so hard anyway to get the results that you want, you might as well be taking some supplements. In some cases. to boost those results and make sure your work is going in the direction that you want.

All right, that's all I have for today. Folks, if you have any questions, shoot them down below. Maybe we'll get to a couple answers. Otherwise, yeah, go out there and, well, go to Walmart.

And just open up a container of vitamins and yell at the top of your lungs, nobody can stop me. And just start chewing them and see how long it takes the police to show up and shoot you dead. Have fun.

I'll see you on the news.

Transcript for:Supplements for Beginners and Intermediates in Hypertrophy and Strength Training

Transcript for:
Supplements for Beginners and Intermediates in Hypertrophy and Strength Training