Weight Lifting Supplements - Yes Or No?

Many sports nutritionists believe that an athlete in training, can get all the nutrients necessary by eating "three square meals a day". They believe that weight lifting supplements aren't important. Not so, say others-most notably , Dr. Michael Colgan of the Colgan Institute of Nutritional Science in La Jolla Ca. Dr Colgan states that there are factors and variables in modern day life that may be preventing all of us from getting the vitamins and minerals we need for optimum health.

• Crops are often grown in soils that are depleted of minerals
• In processing, storage and cooking, food may lose much of it's value
• Insecticides are often used in the soil and sprayed on foods
• Our air and water often contain pollutants

Since it's likely that sedentary people can't even get the recommended amounts of vitamin and minerals from foods eaten on a daily basis, how will athletes who are strength training get the essential building blocks to achieve their performance goals. Here are several reasons for using weight lifting supplements along with a healthy diet.

• There is a huge amount of research that shows that shortages do exist in athletes' diets for many well documented reasons.

• There are many studies showing that many supplements improve performance and help support muscle gain by supplying specific nutrients in amounts not available from the diet alone.

• In recent years weight lifting supplements have been designed that can take the body beyond normal bio-chemical functioning.

So if weight lifting supplements can help athletes gain muscle and improve performance, which ones should be taken and what brands are best? It is beyond the scope of this article and would take an entire book to discuss all of the different supplements, and what your body needs. I can strongly recommend Dr. Michael Colgan's book "Optimum Sports Nutrition" to research the subject thoroughly. At the time of writing his book he had worked with many professional athletes and had been testing sports nutrition for nearly 20 years.

That being said here are a couple of things you can take to get started.

1. You can start by taking a good multi vitamin and mineral supplement. As stated earier even if you're eating fresh fruit and vegetables, crops are often grown in soils that are depleted of minerals.

2. A protein supplement should almost certainly be part of your diet. A general guideline for the amount of protein an athlete who is weight training should consume in a day, would be 1 gram for every two pounds of body weight. That's a lot of protein to get from food without eating a diet loaded with fat.

3. Chromium Picolinate is an inexpensive supplement that is very beneficial for weight training. Chromium will not build you up overnight but slowly and surely it will help you build more muscle by assisting your insulin metabolism to get more amino acids inside the cells.

These three weight lifting supplements would be a good start. Pushing the weight is what builds muscle, but getting the nutrition right is an important part of the process. If you're serious about weight lifting I urge you to pick up a copy of Dr. Colgan's book "Optimum Sports Nutrition". The last time I looked it was available at amazon.com. A good source for supplements online is Global-Nutrition-Inc.com. They carry all the major brands at very good prices.

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