The Best Supplements for Beginners

Arginine

Arginine is an amino acid that’s readily converted to nitric oxide (NO) in the body. NO is involved in many physical processes, but the most vital to you is vasodilation, which is the process that increases blood flow to muscles, allowing better delivery of nutrients and oxygen. Arginine can boost growth hormone levels as well.

Dose: Take 3-5 grams on an empty stomach in the morning, before workouts and before bed.

Creatine

Creatine is an amino acid-like supplement that provides the quick energy you need for powerful muscle contractions, such as when lifting weights. It also allows your muscles to hold more water, making them fuller and stronger, which ultimately stimulates additional growth.

Dose: Take 3-5 grams before and after workouts.

HMB

One of the best supplements for true beginners is beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB). It’s a metabolite of leucine, the most essential of the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs); however, it’s considered to be a more effective form of leucine.

Supplementing with HMB prevents muscle breakdown, encourages muscle growth and aids fat-burning processes in the body. Research shows it’s very effective at increasing muscle mass and strength in beginner-level trainees, but it may be less effective in more experienced lifters.

Dose: Take 1-3 grams with food in the morning, before and after workouts, and before bed.

Whey Protein

If there’s one supplement every bodybuilder needs—regardless of experience—it’s whey protein powder. Taken before and after workouts, this fast-digesting protein provides the amino acids required to build muscle protein at the most critical time for growth. Whey is a good source of the BCAAs leucine, isoleucine and valine. Leucine, a key stimulator of protein synthesis, starts the processes for building muscle protein and uses the other aminos as the building blocks for making more.

Dose: Take 20 grams before workouts and another 20-40 grams after workouts.

Glutamine

Glutamine happens to be one of the most plentiful amino acids found in the human body. Not only is it crucial for recovery and muscle growth, but it also buffers the fatigue-inducing chemicals that form during intense exercise. By delaying fatigue, you can bang out more reps. In addition, glutamine is essential for normal digestion and immune function. Supplementing with it protects your muscles from being broken down for fuel by your body to access the stored glutamine.

Dose: Start with 2-3 grams and work up slowly to 5 grams, taken in the morning, before and after workouts and before bed.

Multivitamin

Whatever your level of training experience, you must take a multivitamin/mineral supplement. It may not sound sexy, but building muscle requires adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals to do the work. Even if you eat a healthful diet, you still need to take a multi because vitamin and mineral contents of many foods have declined significantly due to modern farming practices. In addition, hard training depletes stores of certain vitamins and minerals.

Choose one that contains the full spectrum of vitamins and minerals and provides 100% of the daily value (DV) of most of these. You may also want to consider taking some extra B vitamins, such as a B complex, as well as the antioxidant vitamins C and E. The B vitamins are important for proper protein and fat metabolism, while vitamins C and E scavenge free radicals, protecting your muscles and the rest of your body from cellular damage.

Dose: Take one dose with food twice a day. Try a B complex that provides 50 mg of B1 and B6, and 50 mcg of B12. Take 500-1,000 mg of Vitamin C twice a day, and 400-800 IU of Vitamin E once daily, both with food.

Fish Oil

Fish oil supplements containing the essential omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, prevent muscle breakdown, help regenerate and grow muscle, enhance joint tissue rebuilding and encourage fat loss.

Eating fatty fish like salmon several times a week may provide all the omega-3s you need, but concerns about the levels of mercury and PCBs (a mixture of individual chemicals found in the environment that are related to several health problems) in fish have caused many people to cut back on their fish intake. The good news is that a recent study found no traces of either in more than 40 brands of fish oil supplements.

Dose: Each day, take 2-6 grams in two divided doses with food.

Old-Timer Stack

Why did you wait so long to give supplements a try? This stack is for the gym veteran who also happens to be a supplement noobie. Whatever your reason for not giving supps a try earlier, here you are with significant lifting experience but a lack of supplement savvy. This stack includes whey protein, a multivitamin/mineral, fish oil, creatine, glutamine, and arginine.

The only thing missing is HMB. Most research supports the effectiveness of HMB in beginning lifters, but the gains seem to be less impressive with experienced trainees. However, some anecdotal evidence suggests that when HMB is taken in higher doses (3-5 grams in the morning, before and after workouts and before bed), it’s very effective even in highly trained lifters. We suggest sticking with this stack for a couple of months before adding HMB so you can better gauge how effective it is for you.

_{* Work up to 5 g over several weeks.}

The True Beginner Stack

For those of you just beginning a lifting program who want to start stacking supplements right away, this one is for you. It includes HMB, a supplement found to be very effective in beginner lifters, as well as a multivitamin/ mineral, whey protein and arginine. The most surprising part of this stack may be what’s not included: Creatine isn’t present because you’ll make significant gains in your first six months of training anyway; use it when your gains have slowed and you want a boost in size and strength.

You won’t find glutamine, either, because your training intensity likely isn’t high enough to deplete your muscles of this critical amino acid. Nor will you take fish oil at this time: While it protects joints and enhances their healing, as well as prevents muscle breakdown, you’re probably not lifting heavy enough yet to warrant its use.