What Are The Best Supplements For Faster Muscle Gain?

There is no shortage of supplements that claim to boost muscle gains, but truly elite physiques are built by hard training and serious nutrition first and foremost. Supplements are just the icing on the cake.

But when your training and nutrition are locked in, these four science-backed supplements can definitely help you get your new physique a little faster, boost the quality of your workouts, and help you recover. Those three things can definitely help you gain weight—the good kind!

Here's everything you need to know!

Creatine

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance within our muscle cells, and it is one of the primary sources of cellular energy. Whenever you blink your eyes, scratch your elbow, chew your food, or perform most other movements, it's creatine—or rather, the creatine phosphate energy system— mass gain tablets that are powering you through it.

As a supplement, creatine has been popular since the 1990s and has been the subject of hundreds of studies since then. It comes in numerous forms, but none have been shown conclusively to be as effective as the cheapest and most popular variety, creatine monohydrate.

Benefits Of Creatine Supplementation

• Increased lean muscle mass, particularly with strength training[1,2]
• Improved muscular strength[1,2]
• Decreased muscle soreness and lower levels of exercise-induced inflammation[3]
• Improved blood flow during training[1]
• Improved performance during high-intensity training[1,5]

Many athletes follow a "loading" protocol of around 25 grams a day for five days, but this isn't essential. But as Ciaran Fairman notes in the article "Do I Need to Load With Creatine," you can also get the same benefits with around 5 grams a day, potentially with none of the mild side effects of the loading protocol, which include stomach pain and water weight gain. The catch is that you have to take it consistently. Don't skip it!

Recommended Dose: 5 grams, taken whenever works best for you. If it helps you remember, take half of your daily serving pre-workout, and the second half post-workout.

Beta-Alanine

Beta-alanine is a naturally occurring non-essential amino acid that comes into the body through foods that are rich in protein. The performance-enhancing aspect of beta-alanine (BA) is due to its ability to increase intra-muscular levels of carnosine. Increasing beta-alanine through supplementation may raise carnosine levels by over 60 percent in as quickly as four weeks.[6]

This is significant because, during high-intensity exercise, our bodies accumulate a large number of hydrogen ions, which cause the blood pH to drop. This acidification can cause severe fatigue, decrease muscle performance, and shorten the time to muscular failure. What people chalk up to lactic acid is actually usually happening from hydrogen.

Beta-alanine is thought to "buffer" these ions, delaying the buildup in the blood and allowing you to knock out a few more reps, last longer in your workout, and increase your gains over the long term.

Benefits Of Beta-Alanine Supplementation

• Delayed fatigue during intense training[7]
• Increased total training volume[7]
• Improved power production[8]
• Increased muscle building[9]
• Improved endurance during hard training[10]
• Increases effectiveness of creatine, and vice versa[11,12]

Recommended Dose: 4-6 grams per day. Beta-alanine has to be taken regularly to be effective, so don't trust your pre-workout to give you everything you need. Consider taking it in smaller doses throughout the day to reduce the harmless skin-tingling sensation that can accompany higher doses.