Articles & Guides
Learn how to build muscle, burn fat and stay motivated.
Make Your Own Homemade Pre-Workout Supplement
Pre-workout supplements are a big business. The supplement industry combines many ingredients to form some rather potent potions to get you geared-up for your upcoming training session. The cost of pre-made drinks, shakes, or mixes can quickly add up when taken on a daily basis. With the right ingre...
Essential Supplementation - HMB: Hype or Help?
I was in the gym the other day and I overhead a conversation that went something like this. . . “I just found this supplement that is going to pack on some serious muscle. It’s got this crazy name, ‘beta methyl something’…. I mean with a name like that it has to work.” What the guy was actually refe...
5 Facts Every Hardgainer Should Know About Protein
Key Topics What are "hardgainers"? Are they really genetic outliers? Why do hardgainers struggle to build muscle? Learn how protein can help hardgainers put on size, improve recovery, and maximize their gym time. The term “Hardgainer” is frequently used in the bodybuilding communit...
Glutamine: The Silent Supplement Staple
Muscle & Strength recently reviewed the supplement habits of natural male bodybuilders and found whey protein and creatine to be the most popular. No shock there. Nearly every hardcore lifter on the planet uses these two supplement staples. But here’s where it gets interesting. Next in popularity we...
Glutamine And Creatine: Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks
Glutamine and creatine are two of the most common amino acid supplements in sports nutrition today. They have been talked about thousands of times for nearly two decades (there is research on glutamine that dates back as early as the 1970’s). Claim after claim has been made for these two ingredients...
Football Nutrition: How To Use Supplements To Increase Performance
Looking around at a lot of trends around the gym, one would conclude that slim and trim is in. Six packs have replaced power, strength and size. If your goal is more performance-based – namely to be a better football player – then you must shift gears and cater your training, diet and supplementatio...
Fatigue Fighters - 6 Nutrients That Amplify Your Efforts
Tired? Run down? Feeling droopy, drained and devastatingly devoid of energy, despite devouring your morning coffee or energy drink? Well it's time to wake up, and I'm going to help you do so! But before I dive into the details, it's time for a pop quiz. Ready? Here goes...Give me a list of 6 nutrien...
Fat Burners And Diet Pills: Rating The Ingredients
Today I'll be taking on the most poplar supplement ever: the fat burner. Drum roll please. The diet pill or fat burner market in the US has reached the size of the GDP of a small country, 4 billion and climbing. So there must be something to these fat burning supplements, right? I am afraid the answ...
ZMA Supplements: Do They Improve Sleep & Test Levels?
Everyone knows that macros are key to high-level training and getting jacked. However, micronutrients shouldn’t be overlooked because without micronutrients your training wouldn’t even get off the ground. We often think about micronutrients in disease states, and while that is true, they are also im...
Essential Fatty Acids Are Vital for Muscle Growth and Fat Loss
You are selling your results short by not giving your body all the nutrients it needs. I am talking specifically about the nutrients that are “essential” to the body. Essential nutrients are nutrients that the body cannot make and therefore must be obtained through the diet. Concerning the macronutr...
Essential Supplementation - Phosphatidic Acid: Hype or Help?
Let’s face it, the times are changing in the fitness and nutrition industry. Broscience, pseudoscience, and anecdotal lore are giving way to the white lab coats and data driven decisions. So to search for new, effective supplements, we should turn to the scientists. Related: Are BCAAs Effective? See...
Should I Take High Molecular Weight Carbs During My Workout?
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who want to be jacked and those I don’t associate myself with. OK, maybe that is taking it to the extreme, but if you are reading Muscle & Strength I would bet my life savings (which I admit is meager) that you are the kind of person who wants to be...
Estrogen Dominance: The Effects Of Estrogen On Body Composition
When it comes to achieving the body of your dreams, estrogen typically is not high on the list of things to look at. However, what is not known by many folks is the way estrogen can make or break your physique. Intrigued? You should be. By optimizing your estrogen levels as a man, and keeping your t...
The 5 Most Effective Immunity-Boosting Nutrients
Your immune system is the most important thing that stands between you and the harmful pathogens in your environment. Without immunity, you could be vulnerable to a whole host of potentially lethal bacteria, germs, and viruses. The real question is, “can supplements boost your immune system?” Here w...
Do Testosterone Boosters Actually Work?
It’s a simple yet fair assumption, that most men are mildly obsessed with testosterone boosters. Testosterone is a vital hormone that plays an imperative role in the proper function and regulation of hormones, muscular development, and sex drive. It also impacts everything from mood, memory, buildin...
Creatine: The Chemistry Behind The Supplement
Introduction Creatine has a very long and controversial history. Creatine ( methyl guandino-acetice acid) was discovered by French chemist Michel Eugene Chevreul in 1832. Chevreul was studying different metabolites found in meats when he first isolated creatine; he named it after the Greek word for...
Creatine Revisited: New Findings on the World's Most Popular Supplement
The effects of creatine are nothing new. As one of the most researched supplements on the market, it should be a part of any serious lifters supplement stack. Not only has it been unofficially proven to work by bros at your local gym, it is also a clinical superstar producing real, substantial resul...
Creatine Supplements - Common Questions Answered
Aside from whey protein, creatine is probably the most-used muscle building supplement in gyms all over the world. Yet, creatine is surrounded by myths and rumors spread by people in gyms, magazines and on the internet who really do not understand what creatine is and how it works. It’s these rumors...
Does Creatine Impact Recovery & Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness?
If you’ve been reading Muscle & Strength articles for a while now you probably saw the title to this article and thought, “Oh yay, yet another creatine article…Yawn.” Well take it from someone who’s written several articles about creatine that it deserves the attention it gets. With all the other es...
Creatine Pre Or Post Workout? When to Take Creatine Supplements
Creatine supplements are like the Kardashians. They aren’t going away any time soon. But unlike the Kardashians, creatine works. As one of the most clinically studied supplements on the market, its effectiveness is unmatched. With more discoveries about this wonder supplement surfacing, it’s no surp...
Creatine & Alcohol - Do They Mix?
The question up for discussion today is "do creatine and alcohol mix?". I'm going to talk about the effects alcohol has on building muscle and what happens if you drink alcohol while using creatine. There have been no official studies into the effects of creatine and alcohol in the past. We have no...
Is Creatine For You? 17 Common Questions Answered
As the author of the Creatine Report: the Most Comprehensive, Unbiased, Research-based, FREE resource ever written on Creatine – I’ve taken the time to review the scientific literature on creatine and to speak with many of the worlds leading sports supplement experts, so you don’t have to. I did the...
One Minute Tips With Cliff Wilson: The Inside Scoop On BCAAs
In this episode of One Minute Tips, Cliff talks about Branched Chain Amino Acids; what they are good for, when you should take them and how much you should take. Cliff Wilson is a competitive bodybuilder who's in-depth knowledge of nutrition, training, and supplementation has made him one of the top...
3 Ways Citrulline Malate Can Power Up Your Pre-Workout
Pre-workout is a crucial piece to your success before you hit the weights at your next training session. It gives you focus, energy, more oxygen, and depending upon the ingredients and amounts, you can improve performance outcomes like strength and muscular endurance. Citrulline malate is one of tho...