The thread in GD got me thinking...and I don't know shit about supplements these days...I used to...in the 80's...but not now.

Aside from a multi-vitamin, I don't take any supplements.

I am curious about the benefits for a 47 year old guy, in good shape, work out 5x per week.  Not interested in squatting Buicks or bench pressing pallets of stone.  

I'd like examples of supplement regimens (including brands please) for things like recovery and boosting metabolism.  While you're at it, if you don't mind, I'd also like to hear of downsides/side effects...and if you are supposed to "cycle" certain or all supplements these days.  Also, are there brands to seek out or avoid?

Lastly, I am assuming this is like most things in life...you can spend $25 per month...or $500 peer month.  I am interested in what these costs are.

Supplements are vastly overrated. One of the only supplements that's actually been proven to be somewhat effective is creatine. Everything else that makes a difference is illegal without a prescription from your doctor

Fish oil.  

Recent studies are finally confirming it aids in recovery.  Just find a brand you like that has roughly 700mg of EPA and 500mg of DHA.

Glucosamine is a bit sketchier on the research, meaning there hasn't been a lot of research on it that I could find.  What I have seen indicates it is beneficial in regards to joint health/recovery and increasing your ROM. 

Kind of what I expected, which is why I asked here...the GD thread I am referencing is full of supplement believers.

Anybody else with insight or opinions?

I use peptides and like them.  No more trouble with nagging tendonitis, old sprains that never felt good, cranky shoulders, etc.  They aren't a fast fix and don't do miracles, but they do slowly help you heal up from stuff that's been nagging a while.

I also do fish oil, vit D and an herbal adrenal support.  The adrenal is really nice, I've been really badly injured once and very sick for a few years and it's really hurt the adrenals, the herbal stuff is really nice.  I sleep well on it and feel like I wake up and feel like I'm alive and going.

Testosterone makes you feel great.

For recovery your body needs the building blocks to repair itself and sleep. BCAAs are a great way to get aminos without actually eating or having a shake. You can drink these throughout the day if you want. Most guys drink them while lifting. You can think of BCAAs like protein minus the calories. Whey isolate is a great form of protein, low in carbs/fat and less likely to give you massive protein farts.

There are so many supplements it is really hard to go into detail on everything. There are many things that work and even more that probably don't do much of anything. It is about matching everything up with your goals/needs.

If I were to tell someone to go buy a few things to be well rounded in the supplement arena I'd recommend:

1)Pre-workout: the market is flooded with them. C4, lit from GNC, and Optimum Nutritions pre-workout are easy to find and are all good.
2)Intra-workout: BCAAs, just find one in a flavor you like or get them in bulk from Bulk Supplements and add your own flavor.
3)Post-workout(and/or whenever you want it): Protein, ON Gold Standard is my go to. Costco has the best price I can find ($60/6lbs)
4) Creatine: Timing doesn't matter too much though I notice I get more of a pump when I take it pre/intra workout. I use bulk supplements and have used ON in the past.
5) Fish oil: New info confirms what Charles Poliquin was saying for years about 30+ grams a day for a few months and then if you eat mostly grass-fed/free range everything a maintenance dose of less than 10 grams(if memory serves) is fine.


Nothing really needs to be cycled. Though over time the pre-workout won't give you much of a rush because you'll get used to it.

L-Arginine may have contributed to what my Dr. thinks was mono recently.

Not saying my Dr. thinks this, but online some people believe that L-Arginine can help the mono virus thrive, and L-Lysine helps keep it in check, so you should try to get equal amounts in your diet.

I took L-Arginine almost every day for 4 months and then got sicker than hell and slept for a month until I got better. Anecdotal evidence at best, but it made me gun shy about taking any more of it.

Fish Oil, Nature Made Mens Multi-Vitamin, and MSM after breakfast every day now.

Also coffee, that one is my favorite.

love me some c4

multi

some whey protein isolate cause i don't eat enough

that's all i take, i do kinda want some fish oil too but i am poor and lazy

"Research-chemicals"

Mostly anything that you don't inject will be garbage, for the most part.

The ones I think are worth spending a little bit of cash on:
-fish oil
-multi vitamin
-Vitamin D3 if you need it, super cheap so no harm trying and the research is looking good
-creatine
-protein (unless you're already getting plenty in your diet)

Things that aren't particularly necessary but are nice luxury items I guess. I've gotten some sort of effect from them and they're cheap enough
-ZMA, helps with sleep, supposedly boosts T levels but they'd have to be pretty damn low in the first place
-D-Aspartic acid - same as above, the lower the t levels the more "effective" it would be

Things I put in my pre workout:
-caffeine, gets you moving, duh
-L-Citrulline, for DA PUMPS
-Beta Alanine - Increases endurance
-Creatine
-Betaine, sometimes, still not sure about this one. Jury is still out on it scientifically but anecdotally seems OK. Wouldn't ever be the first thing I'd buy
-L-Carnitine - Supposedly helps with focus/fat burning, so stupid cheap it's worth a try.


As far as brands go, I only buy bulk when I can. Bulk Supplements on Amazon have never let me down. Myprotein, true nutrition, and optimum nutrition are also others I wouldn't hesitate to buy bulk from.

The #1 supplement is proper nutrition.

I have tried forever to get around that, nothing does!  Not even upping my T levels to 3X normal.

You can take all the supps in the world, but if your diet is crap you'll be wasting most of your money IMO.

I have finally broke down and hired a diet coach to help me get dialed in.  

A diet coach costs money, but ill bet it would be less than buying all the supps and keeping a crappy diet as far as what you'd get out of it.  (not saying you have a crap diet, I have no idea).

Also, get your T levels checked if you never have.  

It is cheap and you don't have to go through your doc.

http://www.privatemdlabs.com/lp/female-hormone-testing.php

It says female panel, but when you check out you check the male box, and it adjusts everything.

I'm a newbie, so adjust as you will.

I'm currently using protein with BCAA from MyProtein.com.  It's cheap and well rated here and on other places.  I think I paid about $50 for 11 pounds, but I'm not positive.  

Creatine is cheap, and well regarded.  Pretty much universally considered a good supplement for cell repair.  Everyone sells some version cheap.  The down side is if you are watching the scale too much (like me) it will add 10 pounds of water weight in a week.

I take fish oil, vitamin D and a multivitamin.  These are based off of my most recent blood test.  I use Nature Made because it is economical, has decent ratings, and it easy to find on a store shelf instead of mail order.

I just started taking a probiotic.  Since I'm skeptical of the results, I bought one from WalMart.  If it works and I can tell a difference in my gut and appetite, I'll research a better one.  The minor reading I did indicated that the one I bought was decent.  I can't remember the brand.

The best supplement is a good diet.

Fish oil
Pre workout
BCAA
Whey + Dextrose
Phosphatidic Acid

There are some great peptides out there, and some really good SARMs - that said, if you don't know where to get quality peptides you will probably end up wasting money.

Good quality peptides can be $$ depending on what you're looking for. Same with SARMS. That said, Cardarine is just fucking amazing.

My current supplement list is:

MyProtien whey
8:1:1 BCAAs (I blend these from bulk raw powder)
Glutamine
Multivitamin
Vitamin C (big dose)
Vitamin E
Vitamin D3 (5k iu daily)
Krill Oil
Glucosamine
Blackstone Labs liver support
Saw Palmetto

Since I'm doing keto, my daily electrolyte/support mix (mixed from raw powders in bulk and mixed into a gallon of water):
3G Salt
1G Potassium Citrate
3G magnesium
3.5G DAA
20G Creatine
2G Carnatine

There's a few others but COC.

I like to cyp juice a couple times a week. Its really great.

Or so I've heard.

Certainly helps when you're trenning hard.

For training, I use:

- MyProtein whey (just bought some MyProtein casein which I will use before bed)
- MyProtein pre-workout drink
- MyProtein L-Leucine


For general health:

- multi from Costco
- fish oil from Vitamin Shoppe
- vitamin D
- probiotic
- turmeric

@desertw0lf, what are your thoughts on ostarine?

@thormx538

MK-2866 (Ostarine) is great stuff. It doesn't have the metabolite that S4 does that causes some temporary vision side effects. Quick acting, and it does what it's supposed to do. Great for bulking, your joints will feel better, your endurance will go up. Is it as good as Test? Nope, but it's pretty damned good.

Good quality SARMS have gone up in price in the last couple years due to the raw materials going up in price and their popularity. Something to consider - I think they're worth it for the guy looking to get that extra boost but not looking to go through the hassle and risk of using AAS.

That said, I want to say this about SARMS and the mantra that many repeat that they are not suppressive in particular - Most of them absolutely are to some degree or another. Ostarine is pretty far down on that list and is not noticeably suppressive in any way that I've actually seen, but I have never run it more than 12wks at a time. However, everybody's body responds differently. Be aware of your shit when you're taking any research chem. If you're going to try anything other than Ostarine or S4, you must have a mini-PCT plan in place or you'll end up worse off due to suppression afterwards.

There are a few labs making capped SARMS (Osta, Cardarine, LGD-4033, etc) and there has been some testing showing that SOME sarms capped actually work better than in liquid form (Cardarine in particular). However, without knowing who is making good quality capped SARMS, you're better off sticking with a liquid from a good well known source.

Chemistry and science behind this stuff is both fascinating and terrifying.

That's the absolute truth, brother.

The REALLY fascinating thing is how long some of these research chems have been around before filtering out to be available like they are.

Some of them are crazy effective, too. Cardarine being my favorite example - dudes use it to negate some of the side effects of stuff like Trenbolone and it works fantastically.

I've got a buddy who is in the medical biochem field. We have had some interesting discussions about this stuff, and other stuff out there that they're working with in the lab right now.

The biggest concern for me is that those looking into things like Sarms and Peptides come into it with an understanding that there is no such thing as "safe" when it comes to research chem use. Simply because they're just that - research material. I would never actually steer somebody towards using them - couldn't do that in good faith regardless of having no problems of my own. That would be irresponsible as fuck.

And I'm over here scared about the thought of just doing TRT at some point.

I was scared of it and put it off for way too long. A good chunk of my life was pretty much wasted due to me being stubborn about that. Don't make that mistake.

I already have my mind made up to basically force my Dr. to get me started with it around 40. Unless my levels come back really low.

I'm going in next month to have it checked again, it was on the low side last time, but I was really sick and extremely tired when we did it, I could feel it was low before I even gave them the blood.

I'm hoping now that I've been healthy and lifting regularly again that it's up where it should be, I've been feeling way better.

That's good. I actually got back into lifting with hopes of it getting my T levels up. Didn't work for me, but I was dealing with severe apnea (undiagnosed). Glad it's helping you though. If your feeling better I wouldn't even worry about it.

We still don't know what happened to me, best guess so far is Mono mixed in with a sinus infection. A bunch of tests came back negative and my blood markers were all in the ideal range.

After about 6 weeks of feeling like total hell a switch flipped and I felt a lot better, so I started lifting after over a month off. After a few more weeks I was feeling way better and just have some lingering sinus pressure.

My T-level test was about 2 days before the first wave of feeling terrible hit and it came back at 410. Hopefully it's back up where it should be this time around.

It felt like it too, I just wanted to sleep through the whole ordeal

Thanks for the info. It mimics my experience so far (week 4 of 8). My knees and bum shoulder feel noticeably better.

@thormx538

If you want to talk about it more, send me a PM and we can discuss the subject further and more in depth.