When it comes to finding the best muscle-building supplements, there’s a big difference between efficacious supplements that can move the needle and those that merely deliver marketing hype.
Depending on a number of factors, which include age, genetics, and training state, experts contend that the average amount of muscle you can legally pack onto your body (read: no steroids) is one to two pounds per month. Can you build more than that? Perhaps. But it takes the right combination of consistent workouts, proper diet, and targeted supplementation to push beyond average.
What are the best muscle-building supplements? The list of ingredients that really work is shorter than you might think. But, if your goal is high performance, here’s where supplementation can make a real difference.
What Is the Best Supplement for Gaining Muscle?
Protein powder is the foundation of your muscle-building supplement plan.
What does protein do?
Strenuous exertion of muscle can cause damage, and protein is needed to help your body recover and repair that damage, a process known as muscle protein synthesis. When you repair muscle fibers broken down by strength training, that’s when they grow.
That’s why high-quality protein powder is so beneficial. Taken in sufficient amounts, it provides your body with the nutrients you need to support the growth of muscle.*
All proteins are comprised of amino acids, and some of them — like leucine (one of the three BCAAs) — are more important to help support muscle growth. The International Society of Sports Nutrition recommends protein sources that are high in leucine and include a balanced array of essential amino acids, so called because they’re not naturally produced by the body and thus must be consumed through food.
How much protein should you consume?
In general, you want to eat about 1.4 to 2.2 g of protein per kilogram of your current body weight per day. So, if you weigh 180 pounds (roughly 82 kg), you should eat about 115 to 180 g of protein daily.
This is why protein powders are the foundation of your muscle-building plan: They offer a concentrated amount of protein that’s convenient to consume.
What’s the best form of protein?
Your best options, depending on dietary preference, are whey protein and pea protein.
Whey is derived from milk and is the fastest-digesting form of protein. It comes primarily in two formulations: concentrate and isolate, with whey protein isolate being the purer of the two and also the form used in Beachbody Performance Recover.
If you follow a vegan or vegetarian diet, or if you are sensitive to dairy, pea protein (like the type used in the plant-based formulation of Beachbody Performance Recover) is your best bet because of its high leucine content. Most other plants — like rice or hemp — offer less complete protein profiles.
How best to consume protein
Aim for about 20 to 40 g of protein per meal from any source. Protein powders are most convenient about two hours before or after your workout.
You can also take a slow-digesting protein — like casein or milk protein isolate — before bedtime to help promote muscle growth while you sleep.
What Other Muscle-Building Supplements Actually Work?
Different supplements take different approaches to the end goal of muscle growth. Here are the top ingredients and their various mechanisms of action.
1. Creatine
A compound usually found in meat, creatine helps boost strength, endurance, and power and supports muscle growth. Maybe most importantly, it’s the most clinically tested performance supplement you can buy.
Creatine is found in many foods, including beef, chicken, milk, and cheese, but in amounts so small you’d have to eat two to three pounds of meat per day to derive the same benefit of about one teaspoon of the powder form.
How does creatine work?
Creatine provides extra energy during brief, intense bursts of anaerobic activity, lending additional phosphate to the cycle that produces ATP, your body’s primary fuel source. And that additional energy can make a meaningful difference for your strength: In a review of 22 studies, participants who used creatine showed an eight percent increase in strength compared to those who didn’t.
And the boost that you enjoy during strength training also appears in short-burst activities like sprints, yielding improvements in speed and recovery between efforts. It may even help speed the process by which you regain lost muscle.*
How best to consume creatine
Your best option is creatine monohydrate; no other form even comes close in terms of clinical research. In general, aim for 5 g per day, and up to 10 g if you have more muscle mass. It also doesn’t matter when you take the supplement as long as you take it consistently every day.
Some favor a “loading” period during which larger amounts of creatine are initially taken daily for a brief period before switching to an ongoing schedule of regular servings.*
You can mix creatine in hot or cold liquids, but the hotter the temperature, the quicker the creatine will degrade before consumption. Creatine remains stable in liquid for just a short period of time, making its powdered form most reliable.
2. Beta-alanine
If you want to build more muscle, there are three primary ways to do it: muscle tension, metabolic stress, and muscle damage. All three are triggered by working out harder and longer. That’s where beta-alanine is your friend.
How does beta-alanine work?
Beta-alanine aids in the production of carnosine, which helps reduce muscle fatigue and improves endurance during intense, burst exercises like weight training.*
How best to consume beta-alanine
To see the effects of beta-alanine, you need to consume at least 1.6 g per day, with an upper limit of 6 g daily. It will take some time to build up in your system so it’s important to take beta-alanine consistently. Noticeable benefits may require four to eight weeks of regular consumption.
For some people, beta-alanine can trigger a mild “tingle” effect that some people find unusual. The more beta-alanine you take, the more likely you are to experience this tingle.
To help overcome that effect, you can consume a time-released beta-alanine formula, split your dose, or take it with food and additional water. For instance, when taking Beachbody Performance Energize, if you don’t like the tingling sensation, simply mix it with more water and take it with food.
3. HMB
Hydroxymethylbutyrate (HMB) is a compound that results from the metabolization of leucine in the body. Often taken to help curb muscle lost to aging, HMB supplementation taken for exercise has also been found to positively impact muscle mass, performance, and recovery.
How does HMB work?
The effects of HMB are twofold: On one hand, it helps promote muscle protein synthesis, the process by which protein becomes muscle following exercise, and on the other, it helps decrease muscle protein breakdown.
The result is increased muscle growth, strength, and power with enhanced recovery. However, HMB requires a level of activity sufficient to cause muscle damage — either high intensity and/or high volume — in order to be most effective.*
How best to consume HMB
The International Society of Sports Nutrition says HMB can be consumed for both chronic (ongoing) and acute (momentary) benefits. For either, you would need to consume more than 600 g of protein per day to synthesize the amount of dietary leucine (60 g) necessary to yield the daily recommended dose of HMB used in human studies, so HMB is typically increased via supplementation.
For chronic benefits, ISSN recommends consuming 3 g of HMB, divided into three servings daily, for two weeks prior to intense training sufficient to cause muscle damage. For acute benefits, the organization suggests taking 3 g of HMB at least 60 minutes prior to intense exercise, longer if accompanied by glucose.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.