Overrated Bodybuilding Supplements
We should qualify the word "overrated" because the dietary supplement industry has become seriously big business, with an annual turnover in the USA of well over $40 billion a year. Overrated includes supplementation that does not fall into the well-proven value of taking supplements like vitamin C, D and B, omega-3s, probiotics, and others. Unfortunately, not all supplements produce results; many are only very popular because they're marketed so well. Below are a few of the most overrated bodybuilding supplements.
1. Protein Powder
This product was aggressively marketed for its ability to improve your recovery time and increase the rate of muscle growth. Protein powder has been through numerous well-controlled studies, but to date none of these studies have found any significant ergogenic effect on muscle or exercise performance.
Many feel that is you are getting adequate protein in your diet, from meat, eggs, fish, milk, etc. then protein powder is a waste of money.
2. Nitric Oxide (NO)
The big marketing tool for this new Nitric Oxide or NO explained in rather graphic detail how it will improve muscle growth and recovery because of the vasodilation it causes. It turns out this was all hype because the Nitric Oxide capsules were found to have no nitric oxide in them but arginine. There have been no accepted studies showing arginine to have any benefit in athletic performance.
3. Glutamine
The rationale for using glutamine comes from a study done on very sick patients with severe burns, sepsis, and cachexia, all showing extremely low levels in muscle glutamine, which is an amino acid. When patients were then given this amino acid it improved their muscle protein balance. Unfortunately, when active individuals took this information as glutamine can build more muscle to enhance performance, they were wrong.
They were wrong because despite glutamine leaving muscles in large quantities when exercising, it never drops that much. No study that has been done to date which has been clearly able to show that ingested glutamine (even in very large doses) will increase muscle levels in glutamine.
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