5 Reasons to Take Supplements (AND WHEN YOU NEVER SHOULD!)

 5 Reasons to Take Supplements

          Today I'm going to help you to determine whether or not supplements are a right fit for you.

Supplements are not the right fit for everybody, but you can ask yourself a series of questions and determine whether or not you are a candidate. It starts right here in our "yes" or "no" with where you are at in terms of your program.

"Are you just starting out? Are you a beginner? Are you a really skinny guy who's never really lifted a weight before in your life?" 

    Here's a scenario that I know a lot of you can probably relate to, but I'm actually living it and breathing it every single day right now. That is high levels of stress. It doesn't have to be bad stress. It could be good stress. In my case it is good stress. We've had twin boys. They came a little bit early. That's stressful, but we're trying to get them to grow and develop and catch up to where they need to be. That's provided a lot of stress for my life, but guess what? I'm still going to train, I'm still going to try to
eat as good as I can.

Supplementation can help you to overcome stress because it can do two things.

We know how nutrition can be a large component of providing your body with the fuel it needs to stay healthy even in the face of stress, and we also know that we don’t necessarily have the time to prepare it in stressful times.

So supplementation would be extremely easy to prepare and allow you to be consistent with your nutrition. So for me, I've never been more reliant on my supplements than I am right now because I'm not always in a place where I can get good nutrition.

You become much more aware knowing how much money you spend on your supplements, knowing the hard work that you've spent in the gym, and the time and effort you've put in the gym to do what you knew you were supposed to do. You become less likely to fall off the beaten path where you know you shouldn't. That's where supplementation can become incredibly important and can make you accountable for all your actions beyond the time you're taking your supplements.

Anybody can take a supplement. That's the easiest damn thing you could ever do. That's why so many people love to take them. We all know how simple it is to mix something up and drink it, but it's what goes on in all the other hours and minutes surrounding the time that you take your supplements that counts. If it makes you more accountable then I absolutely think they should be part of your plan. Especially if you're that type of person. 

The next question you want to ask yourself is whether or not you're an athlete?

When I say "athlete" I don’t necessarily mean professional athlete. As a matter of fact, we have a lot of guys that train here with this channel to look more athletic. But if you're an athlete you'd better start taking your supplementation seriously. If you don’t, I can tell you right now, you're going to be left behind. Having just come back from the winter meetings last month in Nashville, Tennessee the major focus of the strength and conditioning coaches at the major league level is supplementation.

Let's face it, the game of baseball has undergone some serious changes in the last few years to eliminate drugs from the game. There was a large portion of how players prepared themselves every year, but that's gone. That's out of the game now. They need to be able to replace that with some real, solid research, evidence backed supplements to allow them to take their games to the next level. Those that aren't doing it are going to fall behind. The same thing could be said here. Again, for those that want to take, not just their performance, but their physique to the next level.

You've already dedicated, you're already on that path and you want to take it to the next level; those are the guys that need to start looking into the benefits of supplementation. Last but no least we're going to play a little True or False here. I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to answer which side you think. Do you think that you can get all your benefits of your supplementation through food alone? That you don’t need supplements to achieve the benefits of the things that you're trying to supplement with. I'll give you a second here. Okay, I could end the suspense now because the answer is a resounding "False". I'm going to give you two examples of this. When people try to take a supplement – let's say they're taking glucosamine, the joint formula, and they're taking glucosamine; people would argue that they could get the glucosamine that they'd get in our Athlean Mechanics. Where are you getting that from? Are you out there at a restaurant ordering surf and turf and telling them to hold the lobster meat and just give you the shell because it tastes so damn good? What are you eating to get the glucosamine that you need to gain the benefits of the supplement? Now, does everybody have to take a joint formula? No. But if you're going to tell me that you're going to take a joint formula, or you want the benefits of glucosamine from a joint formula but you don’t need the joint formula you're kidding yourself. 

You're playing the unnatural game and it doesn't really add up. The same thing could be said about creatine, one of the well-researched supplements out there. There's no doubt that creatine has plenty of research behind it backing its efficacy for anyone that trains. 

We have creating in our Rx2 Post Workout supplement and I can ask you again: where are you getting your creatine from? I hear all the time "Jeff, you can get creatine from meat. Jeff, you can get creatine from tuna." Let's take tuna as a perfect example. Tuna actually has 4.5 grams of creatine per – get ready – 16 ounces of tuna. That's a pound of tuna, okay? 4.5 grams of creatine is great. That's a good dosage for you, but guess what? You know – if you know anything about creatine – that in order to gain the benefits here you're going to have to take it daily. That means you're going to have to take 16 ounces of tuna daily. That means your budget is going to have to provide you with the opportunity to buy tuna at 16 ounces – which is 1lb – at around $17-$25 per pound, depending on sushi grade or not, every single day. When we start thinking about what your monthly bill is going to be – maybe around $500 – to get your creatine, does that make sense? Not to mention you'll probably end up with mercury poisoning  along the way. That doesn't sound like a really efficient way for you to get creatine. 

Thanks for reading my content. Meet you with new content.