If you’re reading this article, you’re a man that is serious about making significant muscle gains. We all know maintaining a well-rounded physique isn’t easy. This means hitting the gym at least 4-6 days per week, working all the major muscle groups, having a well balanced diet, and staying focused on your fitness goals. Many gym rats believe that its what you do before your workout thats important. But the secret to building muscles and keep your gains going well after your workout is that you need to supply your body with nutrients for growth and recovery with post workout supplements.
With that said, it’s important to know that if you wish to maximize your development, you do it in the first 30-45 minutes of your workout routine. Toward the end of your workout, grinding out that final rep will be the main factor that makes or breaks your long-term result.
Training in and of itself acts only as the stimulus for hypertrophy, but this will do little to nothing to actually foster it. Unless the body is rapidly fed the nutrients/compounds that facilitate muscular and systemic recovery, your progress will be limited. That’s why its necessary for you to not only focus on your pre-workout but your post workout supplements.
Studies show that post workout supplementation and protein intake play an important role in optimizing physical performance and helps the body recovery process after physical strain or activity.
With that vital information in mind, let’s take a look at seven powerful post workout supplements that should be a part of your routine for building strength, power, and of course bigger muscles.
L-carnitine/L-tartrate acts to protect muscles from excessive damage while training intensely. Some research has shown it can lead to as much as 40 percent reduction in post-workout muscle tissue damage. Additionally, LCLT supplementation can increase androgen receptors on muscle cells, allowing for greater uptake of testosterone. Together, these effects allow for quicker recovery and a greater anabolic response to the training session.
Dosage: 2 grams
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Creatine
This time-tested, highly validated compound may be the most powerful supplement one can utilize as part of a post-workout protocol. Since resistance training can deplete muscle creatine stores, it is best taken once you complete your workout. Creatine’s significant physical enhancing effects include more rapid ATP synthesis, increased cell volume, decreased myostatin levels, more rapid recovery, and higher levels of IGF-1 output. Creatine can therefore assist in rapidly building more strength, power and muscle mass.
Dosage: 5 grams
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L-Leucine
More and more clinical research is pointing to the fact that leucine is the most anabolic and anticatabolic of the branched chain amino acids, acting primarily through the mTOR pathway. Leucine greatly increases protein synthesis (independent of insulin), decreases protein degradation, stabilizes blood sugar in a calorie restricted state, and has even shown powerful fat loss properties through increased expression of uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3).
Dosage: 5 grams
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Phosphatidylserine
This fatty substance is known as a phospholipid, which covers and protects the cells in the brain, while also carrying messages between them. It plays an important role in cognition and keeping the memory from deteriorating over time. Research shows it can combat exercise-induced stress by promoting a more favorable hormonal status, mainly via lowering levels of the muscle-wasting hormone, cortisol.
Dosage: 600-800 mg
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L-Glutamine
This conditionally essential amino acid is one of the most abundant in the body. It helps to ignite the release of natural growth hormone, enhances nitrogen retention, staves off muscle wasting, increases the number of “Heat Shock Proteins,” and provides a powerful boost to the immune system (perhaps its most important benefit to the hard-training athlete).
Dosage: 10 grams
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Whey Protein Isolate
There is no doubt that whey protein isolate is the superior protein source to consume immediately after a weight training session. Once a workout is completed, the goal is to flood the system with amino acids as rapidly as possible, and no protein on Earth is assimilated and utilized as quickly as WPI. Additionally, WPI is particularly rich in the branched chain amino acids–particularly l-leucine, which acts as the key chemical signaling molecule for turning on the mTOR pathway in muscle, which is responsible for protein synthesis and growth. The most important time to ignite mTOR is immediately after training.
Dosage: 25-50 grams depending on bodyweight and goals.
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Carbohydrate Powder
After weight training and/or high intensity activity, it is vital that you restore muscle glycogen, and there is no time more effective than immediately after a workout to do so. That’s because, at this point, insulin sensitivity is extremely high and the muscles are primed to store ingested carbs. Additionally, by taking in carbs, especially those that are absorbed rapidly, you will raise insulin levels, which will assist in pulling amino acids, creatine, and other nutrients directly into muscle cells.
Carbohydrate powders that are based around dextrose, branched cyclic dextrin, and other high glycemic carbs are extremely convenient and incredibly efficient when it comes to replenishing glycogen and immediately fostering the post-workout recovery/repair process.
Dosage: 50-150 grams depending on bodyweight and goals.
