5 Key Ingredients To Look for in the Best Muscle Building Supplements

Updated on March 20, 2022
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Are you looking to gain muscle mass and strength? If yes, lifting weights and eating a healthy diet won’t help you realize your optimal potential. Instead, you need to incorporate muscle-building supplements that can assist you in growing muscle mass quickly, thereby realizing your fitness goals. 

However, finding the best muscle supplements of 2022 can be confusing as there are numerous options on the market. And to help you pick out a reliable pick, here are the five ingredients to look for in a reliable muscle-building supplement. 

  1. Creatine 

This ingredient contains three amino acids: arginine, glycine, and methionine. Creatine works to help quickly gain muscle mass by boosting the energy levels in your muscle fibers, thereby enabling you to perform more reps when exercising. Doing more reps per weight enables you to gain more muscles a lot faster and become stronger. Creatine also increases your muscle cells’ water content, thereby stretching them slightly to give off a signal of muscle growth. 

You should prioritize using muscle-building supplements that contain creatine if you’re an athlete or weightlifter and in need of an instant spike in muscle or speed.  

  1. Protein 

Another crucial ingredient that should be contained in any of the best muscle-building supplements is protein, an integral building block for your body’s cells. Besides building muscle cells, protein helps repair the cells destroyed while working out to ensure muscle growth. Protein supplements that are effective in building and repairing muscles include casein, soy, and whey. Using these supplements is recommended because some individuals’ bodies struggle to extract this ingredient from protein-rich foods such as eggs, meat, and beans. 

Incorporating protein via supplements will help you gain more muscle mass, especially if your diet doesn’t comprise protein-rich meals. The recommended amount of protein you should use for optimal muscle mass gain per pound of bodyweight should range between 0.5 to 0.9 grams. 

For optimal effectiveness, it’s best to use a supplement containing protein two hours after your workout session. 

  1. Beta-Alanine 

The feeling of fatigue often starts creeping in after exercising for quite a while. But to optimally achieve your workout goals, you shouldn’t give in to this feeling of tiredness and should instead push on to realize your workout ambitions. This is where beta-alanine, an ingredient that is contained in some of the best muscle-building supplements can help. 

Beta-alanine, which is also naturally produced in the liver, is an amino acid that works by reducing your fatigue during workouts. It does this by safeguarding the pH levels of your body cells. This is crucial because a drop in pH levels causes you to start feeling tired a lot faster, hence why you are more prone to give up on your training. Beta-alanine counters this effect by reducing the pH drop, which helps reduce how quickly you feel tired. Therefore, your muscles have the needed energy to keep you energized to continue working out for much longer. 

With such effectiveness at lowering tiredness, it’s no surprise that this ingredient is a key in any muscle-building supplement you decide to get. The recommended dosage to boost your muscle endurance should be between 1.5 to 5 grams. 

  1. Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAA) 

Branched-chain amino acids are a combination of three individual amino acids, namely valine, isoleucine, and leucine. This ingredient is integral as a workout enthusiast because it plays a role in building and repairing muscle tissue. From these three, leucine is the most important because it promotes muscle growth. With that said, isoleucine and valine are equally crucial because they combine with leucine to produce the best effects, such as increased energy levels and boosted muscle growth. 

The recommended dosage of BCAA is between 5 to 20 grams either before or after working out. You should ensure that the ratio of leucine to valine to isoleucine is 2:1:1 respectively to boost protein synthesis, suppress protein breakdown and regulate protein metabolism. 

  1. L-Citrulline or Citrulline Malate   

This ingredient comprises two amino acids, malic acid and L-citrulline, and is naturally present in the body. The main purpose of L-citrulline is to generate a chemical referred to as nitric oxide that promotes the expansion of blood vessels, thereby better blood flow when exercising. Thanks to improved blood flow, your muscles get the much-needed oxygen and nutrients to give you that extra boost when exercising. 

The recommended dosage of L-citrulline should be between 3 to 6 grams, but never beyond 15 grams. This is crucial to safeguard your body from any adverse reaction that might affect your overall well being.  

The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.