Thread: Need some supplement help

well man, I think that you can be uppin your protien intake. that is unless you getting in the right amount from whole foods in adition to the protien powders. Yuo generally want to get about 1.5 - 2 grms of protien/ body weight, that is very important. The brand of protien doesn't matter. as long as it is whey protien and low carb/ sugar. It is best to half both protien supps and whole food as your sources pf protien, not just one or the other ideally.
Secondly If you are looking to gain any muscle mass at all, or even to lose body fat and preserve as much muscle s you can, I would recommend not running long distance. Instead do more intense, shorter cadio sessions such as sprinting. When long distance running your test levels decreasse and you cortisol levels increase so you end up burning more muscle away then fat, which is obviously bad. Just a suggestion.
Third, you know that gaining muscle and losing fat are tow seperate activities which generally both need to be done seperately. So you need to take it one step at a time. If your body fat is low then I would recommedn starting a bulking cycle, if you are up there in BF then shred some fat and then bulk. this way you are more likely to gain the most muscle between 8-10% BF as opposed to higher than that. You don't really need any supps besides your protien powders, multivitamins, possibly creatine, and definately flax oil or any source of omega atty acids. All the oteh rdupps you could get are generally useless, especially to someone that is young and beginning your training. The most important thing is to be consistent, and to master your diet. Not some fancy new supplement. And There is really no need to be training 5 days a week when yo uare a beginner. More is not better. You need to let your body have substantial recovery time to build muscle. You don't build it in the gym when you are tearing muscle fibers, you build it when your body is recovering during rest periods. The biggest mistake newbies make is to take all that enthusiasm and spend all day in the gym overtraining. Train smart, not more. Hope that helps man. GL

What the Great 1 said

Ditto on the running. When I first started weight training I also ran distance. Trust me, the two do not compliment one another very well. Running distance strips almost as much muscle as it does fat. Just compare the muscularity of a sprinter to a long distance runner.

Also check our Jodi's sticky on diet. When it comes to both gaining weight and lowering bodyfat %, your diet is the most important thing.

Guide to Cutting, Bulking & Maintenance

Thanks for the great advice..

So you think Creatine is a good idea?

Another question: I do pushups every night, should I stop doing this to allow the muscles more time to rest?

pushups realluy offer no benefit to a person that is weight training. if you are also training the chest with weihgts then there will really be a reason to do them, ya feel me. There is nothing wrong with creatine though.personally I never thought it was too great, I never saw anything extreme with it but if you want to it is definately a good supp.

creatine worked pretty good for me. i made the best gains a few months ago right before football season when i took optimum whey, creatine, prolab N-Large 2 (probably not good for you since your trying to get low bodyfat), and glutamine. I'm not sure that glutamine did anything for me though.