The WORST Supplements For Building Muscle (Stop Wasting Money!)

What's going on, everybody? This is the Built With Science podcast. You're here with your hosts, Danny Boy Plotkin and yours truly, Max Coleman. And in the last couple of episodes, we've talked a lot about what you should be doing in exercise science, as well as what supplements you should be taking, like creatine monohydrate, for instance. But we thought that it would be a good idea for this episode to go into more so the things that you shouldn't be doing. So today we're gonna be discussing various supplements that we see individuals using pretty regularly, both within our clients as well as those on social media that we. That we think are not necessarily doing more harm than good, but probably aren't helping much in general. So today we're gonna be discussing those supplements that you probably shouldn't be wasting your money on. Now, a lot of you are probably asking, what's the point of us even spending time talking about what you shouldn't be doing? And why aren't we just talking about, you know, the supplements that you actually should be taking? Danny Boy, you want to take. Take that on? Why are we wasting our time talking about these supplements that people shouldn't be taking?

Yeah, so I think the answer to that is probably has many layers. So I think people often think that supplements work super, super well for them because they start taking them and they see great results, and they're like, well, this worked for me. They start telling their grandma, they start telling all their friends, and then, lo and behold, you have supplements that have five star reviews that have been shown in research to do essentially nothing. So we're covering them because, one, people waste a whole lot of money on them, and two, people believe that they work, and passionate, passionately believe that they work. So I think one thing to touch on before we hop into those so supplements is like, why? Why is that occurring? And a lot of that has to do with what's called the placebo effect, where people have a perceived benefit from something because their psychology sort of feeds forward, and because they believe that they're going to have a benefit, they end up doing things that allow them to have that benefit, whether it's working hard in the gym or being more consistent in the gym or just some physiological effects that come from the belief that that supplement will actually benefit them. So people need to be careful in taking something and then just assuming that the reason that they got those gains was due to that thing and not something external to that supplement or whatever the intervention may be.

Cool. So. So it's Kind of twofold. One, we're always interested in giving you guys the big T. Truth. We want you to be fully aware of all of the things with regard and with respect to hypertrophy training and exercise science. And two, we just want you guys to be millionaires. We want everyone in the built with science community to be rich and wealthy. We want you to stop wasting your money on supplements that don't work. So now, with that out of the way, let's go ahead and jump into these and we'll start with fat burners. I know I've been asked a bunch about fat burners from clients and subjects and studies. What are your thoughts, Danny? Are there pills that we can take to just shred fat off of our body?

Yeah, so I wish there were supplements that were side effect less, if that's a word, without side effects that just shred fat off our body. But unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. So it's hard to consider a class of supplement and just say they're all completely useless because within that class there's a bunch of individual ingredients that have things that work slightly better and slightly worse. But generally speaking, when it comes to supplements, most of them have little to no effect. So even the ones that have been shown to work, there's mixed evidence. Some for some. Again, so two examples of that are caffeine and green tea extract, where they do have seemingly an effect, but it's usually, yeah, it's usually marginal. And that marginal effect is probably not worth you getting a whole bunch of other crap inside of a fat burner that probably doesn't work you're spending a whole lot more money on. And not to mention a lot of these supplements are questionable in terms of what they actually have in there. There's many studies now looking at the fact that what they say on the label is not actually what's in there. So anytime you're getting a supplement, there's a risk that you're, one, getting something that you don't expect to be in there, and two, you're just getting a severely underdosed active ingredient. So I would say, and just to.

Clarify, Danny boy, that that applies to almost any supplement we're talking about, not just specific to fat burners. Right. Like there are. Regardless of what is being advertised, whether it be a fat burner or a test booster or whatever it may be, oftentimes we find that either they are underdosed or just simply lack the exact thing that they, they say that they have or, or in some instances, I Know that they, they have some stuff that you probably shouldn't be taking, especially if you're in non tested federations and stuff like that, right?

Yeah, for sure. Although I would probably say if I had to guess, that some classes of supplements probably suffer from this more. So I think single ingredient supplements, supplements like creatine for example, are probably less likely to be laced with things because people aren't necessarily expecting anything crazy. Well, I think some supplements that like claim to be X, Y or Z supplement companies, especially very nefarious ones, might purposely put things in there that would give them that effect and then hook them onto that substance. So they're doing it potentially purposely to get people, you know, like a, like a early hit for an addict kind of thing.

Yeah, oftentimes here at Buildable Science we try to give people the benefit of the doubt and we try and assume ignorance rather than mal intent. Uh, but for sure there are definitely instances where, you know, people, people want you taking their supplement and putting something in there that's gonna give you really, really good results. It's gonna make you wanna take that supplement even more. Especially even if they take it out the, the, the, the thing that is giving you the, the results you want you touched on. Unless you have some more you wanna say about fat burners. You did touch on creatine, but I don't wanna move on if you have more to say about fat burning supplements.

Yeah. So I think with fat burning supplements, one thing, they can only work by three main mechanisms. So one, they increase your metabolic rate. Two, they decrease the amount of nutrients that you end up absorbing. So they have nutrients that escape absorption end up in your poop. And three, they reduce appetite. So I think let's start with the first one, increasing metabolic rate. If something increased your metabolic rate substantially, it would be very noticeable and very uncomfortable. So there's substances like clenbuterol, that is essentially an asthma medication that's taken by bodybuilders that they take pretty infrequently because they have massive side effects like increased heart rate, just being hot all the time, and other really, really bad side effects. So if you were getting a dramatic increase in metabolic rate, it would not be lost upon you that that was occurring. So if that were the main mechanism of action, it would definitely be evident. So probably not something that's working super well by that mechanism. Then we go to the second mechanism where it's escaping digestion. So the food that you eat, instead of being digested and used for energy, it's going out into Your poop, essentially, that would also not be lost upon you. Usually your poop is either more oily or other things that are obvious. And there's classes of medications that do this. Supplements vary, rarely claim to do this. I just wanted to mention this. But even those medications that do it have mostly failed because they have either large side effects, such as disaster pants and not getting certain nutrients that are fat soluble and so on. So even those classes of medications have failed. So I highly doubt supplements are doing a good job on that front. There may be medications later on that have that effect, that do so without all the side effects, but currently there aren't any on the market that do that super well. And then in the last category, there's satiety. So being less hungry. And to my knowledge, there's a few that work decently well, but nothing that's super dramatic that works anything like the current classes of medication that we have for that, such as GLP1 agonists and so on. So I know spicy foods, things that have capsaicin in them and whatnot, allow for certain reductions in appetite and they can be used as a tool. So I would encourage people to maybe get those as single supplement forms or just eat spicy food, just eat the actual foods. But getting a cocktail of things inside of a fat burner is probably not the way to go about doing things.

Cool. And, and just. I kind of want to touch on the first thing you said, which is increasing metabolic rate. So please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe heat is a byproduct of, of metabolic activity in general. Right. So I, I don't think it was clenbuterol per se, but I, I know I stumbled across this study for like a long, long time ago, but they basically, they, let's just say clen, even though that's not necessarily what it was in this study. They were, they were overdosing these, these rats on clenbuterol. And these, these rats were dying of heat stroke because they were literally like their bodies were getting so hot from such an increased rate of metabolism that they died. So, yeah, you, like Danny said, would definitely know if you're taking a fat burner. You know it. And if you listen to individuals who have competed and have taken clenbuterol, Danny mentioned side effects. It's, it's miserable. I, I personally, I don't know. I've never taken clenbuterol or any fat burner, but I supposedly it is miserable and, and almost not worth it. It would probably be better just to It'd be better. The, the feeling of starving from a caloric deficit is probably better than the feeling of being on clenbuterol, I would imagine. Sorry, a. A bit of a tangent. So ultimately pretty unlikely that any fat burners out there. I, I know that there are supplements that do increase. So Bill Campbell's talked a lot about how caffeine can increase metabolic rate and, and increase at least increase energy expenditure throughout the day. Do you think that caffeine is, is a pretty good idea to take if you're looking to lose fat, for instance?

Yeah. So I think I mentioned this briefly, but I think it's worth underlining. It does have small benefits, so it can be something that people use as a tool, especially because it's already, you know, useful pre workout and increases your performance. So I think it's kind of a no brainer. Caffeine is one of those supplements that it just makes sense to be taking for a multitude of reasons. I would say that the fat burning effect or the increased metabolic rate effect would be a small reason to take it because as mentioned, it's gonna be a marginal effect. So not something that you would notice in the mirror. It's something that would probably maybe help over time, over longer periods of time. So. But considering the fact that it's useful for a whole bunch of other things. Yeah, I mean, why not?

Yeah, and I would imagine that for me, at least, at least I, that I've noticed personally is that the benefits of caffeine as far as fat burning are concerned is just the appetite suppressant suppression that you get from stimulants in general. That's probably aiding in, in weight loss journeys more than, than the slight increase, the slight potential increase in like energy expenditure that you would see from it. Cool. So good on, on fat burners probably aren't worth taking and if you are taking them, you'll probably know it because it'll probably be absolutely miserable to be on it. Uh, okay, so now moving on to creatine. I thought creatine was the best, but is that maybe not the case? Is, is, is creatine on that list of supplements not worth taking? Danny boy.

So creatine, as we talked about in a previous podcast, is definitely a subject or a supplement. I keep saying subject a supplement that is worth taking. It has tons of benefits that if you want to learn about, you can check out that podcast. But something that we need to underline is that there's tons of forms of creatine. The main form that we recommend is creatine monohydrate. But there's tons of other forms, creatine, hcl, and other other things that are marketed very strongly that they make claims about being more bioavailable. They make claims about, you know, potentially working better and so on. But none of those claims have been substantiated. So we recommend creatine monohydrate and we don't recommend any other creatine form. One thing to consider is that even if Creatine Monohydrate was 99% bioavailable, it's so much cheaper than the other creatine forms out there that taking a slightly higher dose in order to account for that lack of bioavailability would still be more cost effective and still make more sense than using those other forms. But to my knowledge, it's 100% bioavailable, so they can't even make that claim. But even if they were making that claim, it's so much more expensive that it really doesn't make sense on any front.

Yeah, I w. I had the numbers memorized for the creatine podcast and now I've forgotten them entirely. But it's like something on the magnitude of like a couple cents per serving of creatine monohydrate up to like, so just well over, like double that for the creatine, like monochloroidal ethyl ester or whatever it may be. Right. So creatine monohydrate, it's dope. Definitely worth taking. Just don't waste your money on other forms of creatine. Even if the, The. The. The company selling it tells you that it's going to be much more beneficial because the data seemingly does not support that. One thing I'll say about creatine is oftentimes people will say, should. Should mine be micronized? Like, I see some stuff about micronized creatine. Is that better? It's better, but the only reason it's better is because it dissolves in your drink a little bit better. And it's. It's all micronized means, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is just really small. It's just. It's grounded to an incredibly fine powder, so it dissolves in water much, much more easily. So micronized versus not micronized is not gonna make a big deal at all, other than you won't be drinking little tiny chunks and granules of. Of creatine at night, which is nice, obviously. Yeah. Cool. So not a whole lot to say about creatine. Take creatine monohydrate. Ditch the other stuff. Okay. This one, perhaps the one I get asked about most branch chain amino acids, are they are a waste of money? Are they sugary water? Or are they really beneficial for individuals, maybe even like vegan individuals, who. Who aren't getting all the amino. All the. All the essential amino acids from meat and whatnot? Thoughts?

Yeah. So I do think that they are a waste of money. I feel like the fact that the name of the podcast, slash theme of the podcast is that these are supplements that are a waste, it kind of takes away from the surprise. So we should have done a better job. Maybe we'll name it supplements you should take and then change the intro.

Supplements worth taking, question mark. That.

Yes, that's much better. Much better. All right, cool. So, yeah, I do definitely think that it is a waste of money. So let's get into the physiology a little bit. There's nine essential amino acids of the 20amino acids that we take in. Those amino acids are essential because our body does not produce them. We need to eat them in our diet. Of those nine essential amino acids, three of them have a branched chain on them. So that's why they're called branched chain amino acids. And one of them, specifically leucine, has been shown to trigger the muscle protein synthetic response. So increasing muscle protein synthesis allows for us to get more protein into our muscle and get larger. So it sounds like it'd be awesome. You know, you take that leucine, which, with potentially two other amino acids that are involved in muscle protein synthesis, and you grow. The problem is, is that in order to have a sustained increase in muscle protein synthesis, you need all nine essential amino acids. So taking just those three doesn't allow for the most robust response. And actually, in two studies, it was shown that the muscle protein synthetic response was reduced with branched chain amino acids. And the speculation there is that amino acids are broken down from tissue and then reabsorbed by other tissues. So if you flood the system with just three of the essential amino acids, the branched chain amino acids, you could potentially be stopping the other essential amino acids from getting into muscle. So definitely not a supplement that we would recommend. Particularly in the context of getting adequate protein, no amino acid supplement is necessary when you get that one six grams per kilogram of body weight. But if you are not getting that one 6 grams per kilogram of body weight, or you're a vegan that wants to make sure that you're getting that leucine in per meal, then you could maybe reach for an EAA supplement or something that has all the essential amino acids.

Cool, cool. And, and oftentimes people talk about the economic cost of, of protein. A very valid conversation and concern. Protein is by far the most expensive macronutrient between the three, but also the one that we care about the most. And so people will often say, times say, like, oh, no, you know, I don't want to spend all this money on, on steak. So I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to buy this supplement that, that's going to take care of that issue for me, which there's obviously flaws in that. One being that that supplement might not work in general, and the second being that it's incredibly expensive for the yield that you're actually getting both from energy and from benefit in general. So unless you want to say more, basically to tie up BCAAs and EAAs is both probably not worth it if you're eating enough protein. But if, if you're worried that maybe you're not checking all those boxes every day, reach for an eaa, if not, not a bcaa. Right, bcaa.

Yeah, I would say that's, that's a, that's a perfect synopsis. And one thing that I'd add is that there's tons of direct evidence looking at this. So studies that compare BCAA plus lifting versus lifting alone and whenever they're consuming even close to adequate protein, there's, there's no benefit for muscle size in, in those individuals and shameless. Plug. I have a review on this called something along the lines of Lucine BCAA. So if you type in my name and PubMed and then type in Lucine, I'm sure it'll come up. If it doesn't and really efficient plug there.

Yeah, you can just. You'll find, you'll find it. You'll find it.

You'll find it. All right. Just look hard enough and you'll find.

I'll give you $300. If anyone who listens to this podcast actually looks that up, that would be incredible.

Now that you said that, you're literally going to owe me $300 so quickly. All right, guys, if you look it up, email Max Coleman.

Can I give you ColemanMax 888@gmail com and if he doesn't respond within the first 30 minutes, just spam him with a hundred more emails that it's usually hard for me to get to my emails really quickly. Yeah, good. Good point, Danny. Thank you. Okay, so not necessarily essential amino acids, not necessarily branched chain amino Acids. But since we're talking about amino acids in general, what about glutamine? Like the specific amino acid and glutamine, like do you, do you think that's worth taking? I know I've heard a lot of people talking about that.

Yeah. So I'm not sure I, I know some fitness historian might be able to say more on this. I'm not sure why it got so popular. I know like I wanna say five or six years back it was like the bee's knees, like everyone and their mother was talking about it. Now I think it's fizzled out. Maybe that's due to the evidence based community and some studies that came out that. Spoiler alert. It did not work for increasing muscle size. I forgot the lead author on the paper, but I think the first paper was around 2012 or something like that where it showed that it did not increase hypertrophy with supplementation. So one group, same thing we were talking about with BCAAs. One group just resistance train with a placebo, the other group resistance train with glutamine. Oh, and that's important. I should have mentioned that during the BCAA portion, the fact that they're taking a placebo supplement matters a whole lot. So that's how we disentangle whether there's an actual benefit. Both groups believe that they are taking the supplement. The researchers don't know which ones they're taking, the participants don't know which ones they're taking. And then we see what the results would be. So yeah, glutamine is a non essential amino acid, so our body does produce it. There's some speculation as to whether our body produces enough in certain contexts, but clearly for muscle growth it doesn't seem to have a benefit. There are some rumblings, I'll say. I don't think it's strong evidence that it, it'll, it'll have some benefits for gut health and so on, but that is not my area. So I, I won't speak strongly on that. I'd have to look into that more specifically. But for muscle growth and performance, I'd say avoid the supplement. Likely a waste of money.

Cool. Cool. So basically, as far as I can tell from what we've just discussed, like almost all amino acids are probably not worth taking, especially if you're getting in enough protein. And also that's one thing I, we, we've touched on vegans a little bit. You're also probably fine if you're vegan. I want to make that kind of clear. Like if you're eating like a, a well balanced vegan diet, which takes a little bit of consideration for sure. But if you're doing it, and you probably are, if you're a vegan and care about muscle growth already, then you probably don't need to worry about these either. Oh, and it's worth saying that these amino acids, these essential amino acids are generally like vegan friendly, so can take them if you wanted to. Uh, okay, so moving away from amino acids, let's talk about a broader picture. Okay. I try to think of a fun joke to tie in protein from amino acids, but let's talk about protein. So we know protein's good. We know that it's, it's so good that it negates the need for amino acid supplementation in general. But what about special protein blends, things that are, you know, companies claim that this blend of specific proteins that they have is gonna yield a higher muscle protein synthetic response. It'll give you more musc. It'll, it'll be, it's the best thing ever. It'll make you rich. Do you have thoughts on proprietary protein blends for muscle growth as opposed to just your, your gold standard way?

Yeah. So other than the rich part, which I can't speak to, that may be true, the rest is complete bs. There's just no way that they're producing a specific protein blend that's more anabolic. As long as they're. As long as they have adequate leucine, which would be the case if it was a whey protein and is very likely to be the case in actually many of the other ones because they add leucine to them. No proprietary blend is gonna be superior because of some, you know, magic fairy dust that they put in there. So I definitely wouldn't reach for a special protein blend, but I also wouldn't reach for. And I guess we can get into this a little bit. I think proprietary blends in general are something that people shouldn't be reaching towards because we want to know that the supplement is dosed appropriately for that specific ingredient. And there's no way to know that the company did that if they don't tell you how much of each they put in. It shouldn't be a secret that a specific ingredient works. So if that ingredient works, just tell us that it works and how much of that thing you put in there and we'll buy your supplement. It does make things more difficult. I get it for the company if, like another company can just go create the same thing. But unfortunately that just comes with the territory in terms of we want transparency from what we're putting into our body. So in the same way that we don't want any surprises in our chicken when we go to the grocery store, we don't want surprises in our supplements. So that's my thoughts on that.

I, I, I think that was well said. I think that when it comes to protein, you're, you're getting protein, you're, you don't worry about not getting the highest quality protein because you, you almost assuredly it's, it's basically all the same. I think personally there are three things to consider when buying a protein supplement. Let's just say powder for right now. Price. Price obviously is super important for, for the individual. Taste and dissolvability. I think those are the three most important things. Obviously Sustainability, that's a different thing depending on, and there's also like heavy metals and some depending on brands and stuff like that. But ultimately pick the protein that tastes the best to you. Fairlife. Shout out, not a sponsor, but please one day send me money or even just give me free fairlife and I'll talk about your stuff. Okay. Protein's great. Proprietary blend's not worth it. And if anything, kind of silly because you want to know what you're putting into your body rather than, you know, hoping this company is doing what they say they're doing. Right.

Also I would say like concentrate, isolate and just macronutrient amounts in the protein. So if you want a more lower calorie pure protein source, then you'd go for something like an isolate, while others will have potentially taste better actually, but have other macronutrients in there that are, you know, increase the calorie amount, but pros and cons. So that's just what we want to throw in.

Generally pretty negligible for the taste, I would say like the amount of calories like so, sorry, a little bit of a tangent. But yes, if you're drinking a, a, like a whey for instance, or something of the, like, excuse me, there might come, so there might be some additional calories added in there. But, but the difference in taste between that and like a whey or like an isolate would is it's, it's worth the extra calories like at the end of the day and in my personal opinion, obviously, but that's going to come down to the individual. Okay. Moving away from protein. Who cares about protein when you can just increase the testosterone flowing through your bloodstream at any point in time? Right. Test boosters. Who cares about Protein and essential amino acids. Danny boy, why aren't test boosters something that we should consider taking?

Yeah, so I think test boosters are pretty useless. So I think that there you have it folks. They not only, I think, I want to say there was a study that looked specifically at people's perceptions of test boosters and they found that they have like very high approval ratings, which is kind of mind boggling considering being in this industry for so long. They get crapped on so much that the disconnect from the general public sometimes isn't evident to us. But yeah, they don't work. And if they did work, they would have anabolic steroids in them and sometimes they are laced with anabolic steroids. So I'm kind of skeptical of anything that would increase your testosterone appreciably because it ends up just having very similar effects to the anabolic substance. So why not just take the anabolic substance if you're gonna go that route and take the risks that are associated with going that route. So besides, you know, getting adequate sleep, I don't think anything has been shown to really appreciably affect testosterone above baseline that doesn't come with those side effects that come from taking anabolic steroids. So you're much more likely to be taking exactly what you think you're taking when you're, you know, actually trying to take the substance. So I'm not a huge fan of anything that is going to try to boost something while claiming that it's not going to have the ramifications of increasing that specific substance. So the idea doesn't really make that much sense to me either. But layer on the fact that there's many companies that are putting stuff in there that shouldn't be in there and the fact that many of them just simply don't work at all is, puts it in a category of clearly don't buy and just save your money.

Yeah, I think so. Broderick Chavez, for, for those of you who don't know, which is, I would imagine most is just a really famous supplement coach. Essentially he, he runs a lot of people's steroid cycles. He's a very knowledgeable and intelligent guy. Basically he, he has something on this where he's like, I don't understand why all these naturals want to find ways to increase their test which would yield the same exact risks and benefits as taking steroids without taking steroids. So yeah, it's basically what you were just saying of like, it's just like, it's just a, it's it's just a complete logical fallacy. And, and, and, and kind of makes no sense. So test boosters don't work. But what, what about just straight up different forms of testosterone? Maybe, you know, steroids from plants like Turkesterone, for instance. I know that's, that's caught a lot of attention in the last couple of years. Do you think that plant steroids might be worth taking?

Yeah. So I think it falls under the same category if we think about it broadly in terms of like, what you were just talking about with Broderick Chavez. If they do work, then you like, what is the rationale and what is the mechanism of action? There may be some mechanism of action that, you know, has less side effects. I don't see why that would be the case considering you're increasing that specific androgen. But let's say there were, then you, you would have to make a strong case for why that specific substance was less deleterious for health, for example, and so on, where I haven't seen that case made for really any other substance. So that's one thing to consider. Another thing to consider is that I believe that it was a company that looked into a bunch of ecty steroids and found that the amount of active ingredient, instead of like what's usually found in supplements is that it's like, oh, they say it's like this much, but it's actually 50% or, you know, 30%. They found less than 1% of active ecdysteroid in a ton of supplements that they just took off the shelf. So it seems like that one falls into a category of clearly something weird is going on with. Maybe it's the measurement, but considering there's no studies showing benefit other than one that there's issues with, I would wait until I would reach for something like that when there's so much, so many questions that need answering. How much active ingredient is actually in that substance? Does the substance actually work? And if it works, does it work differently enough to just taking testosterone that it would benefit you? And that's a really, really big question mark. So definitely save your money. Don't reach for the supplement just yet. Down the road, if the evidence changes, we'll obviously change our minds. But right now it's clearly in the red category where not recommended.

Cool. Cool. All right, let's moving away from more serious things like test boosters and Turkesterone. What about things like antioxidants for our, for our red wine lovers out there, our blueberry lovers out there. Is it is, is Is antioxidant supplementation something that holds up to the data? Is it something that is worth doing for both the health benefits as well as the. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why people think that, that antioxidants would help with muscle growth, but tell us why it's not worth taking. The, the, the alert, the alert is over. I can't, I can't tease out like we're not only talking about shitty supplements, antioxidants are not worth taking.

Yeah. So if I were to steel man, the, the people who thought that antioxidants would be worth taking, you could say that similar to, similar to NSAIDs or nonsteroidal, non steroidal anti inflammatory medications in like older individuals. If you had so much inflammation and the antioxidants blended some of that inflammation, maybe you would get people into that sweet spot of better growth. But that's literally like a reach and me trying my best to steel man the position. But overall antioxidant supplements have been shown to be neutral to negative for muscle growth. So if you're eating foods and not taking really high dose supplements, you're completely and totally fine. You're not gonna get a negative effect for muscle growth from eating normal foods like blueberries and all the stuff that you mentioned. But high dose antioxidants in a couple of studies have actually shown reduced muscle size effects. So definitely wouldn't reach for those super often. One, because of the potential negative effect. But two, our body does a really good job of producing our own endogenous antioxidants, one of them being glutathione. But there are others where it's sort of like a hose versus like a, a sprinkler mentality where the endogenous antioxidants are like a fire hose and the stuff that we consume is sort of like, just like dripping in. So I tend to not worry too much about like how many antioxidants I'm eating. There may be, you know, a small effect for, for some health outcomes. I haven't been super impressed by that evidence at all. This is contra to what our previous professor would think about red wine.

Who, who claims we're coming after you, Brad?

Yes, that's it. So yeah, not a fan. Don't, don't take them. And if you enjoy red wine, you can, you can keep lying to yourself that it's because of the antioxidants, but just, just enjoy it without lying to yourself.

I, yeah, I, I drink red wine for the antioxidants. And I watch the B movie for the plot. Yeah, for sure. Okay, buddy. Okay, cool. So, yeah, and, and just to, to, to clarify, like Danny said, like the amount of red wine, dark chocolate and blueberries you would have to eat to see this negative detriment to, to performance and muscle growth is. It's outstanding. So really it's just a matter of not taking antioxidant supplementation specifically is what we're, we're, we're telling people to avoid. But yes, of course we're not demonizing blueberries or any other food that is known to have like antioxidant benefits. Okay, last thing here. And it's kind of a big category in general gene specific supplementation. I think this is something that has recently saw a meteoric rise in, in, in, in people's spheres is genes. Cause it makes sense, right? Everyone's genes are a little bit different. We all are. We're clearly all very different from one another. So maybe we should be tailoring our supplements, nutrition and even workout plans to our specific genes. You think that holds up?

Well, I would say currently it does not hold up. It's very possible in the future we may be able to have some sort of ability to prescribe either supplements, exercise diets, based on somebody's genetics and. But currently, especially for the supplements that are on the market, I don't think there's anything out there that says that you will benefit more from this specific supplement compared to another person with a different genetic polymorphism. So one thing to consider is that when it comes to muscle size at least, but this is true for most exercise related outcomes where physiological characteristic of all time. Yeah, there's, there's some, there's some that are obviously more pronounced in terms of, there's a few genes or one gene that clearly points toward an individual that's susceptible to a certain disease and so on. But for exercise outcomes specifically, there's very, very, very, very few candidates of genes that will have anything more than like a fraction of a percentage toward that specific adaptation. So there's going to be tons of genes that are associated with that adaptation, and each one of those genes is a small fraction of, of contributing to that adaptation. And we've tried pretty hard as exercise scientists to find candidate genes that explain more than a, a small fraction and we haven't been able to do so. So taking that and then trying to say, all right, we don't really know which ones are having a tremendous benefit, and if anything, we're actually finding out that it's a ton that have all these, you know, small contributions. How are we then gonna layer on that a specific supplement due to a specific set of genes is going to have a more dramatic benefit in you versus me? That's another reach. So currently we have close to no evidence that's compelling that is gonna allow us to tailor those recommendations especially for supplements. So I would definitely avoid any sort of blend or company that's making strong claims about being able to tailor supplements toward your specific genetic makeup.

Cool. Cool. Yeah. So gene specific stuff is assumptions based on assumptions based on assumptions, essentially. And is at the current state kind of a wash as far as. And maybe down the road, like, like Danny boy said, like, there may be. We may be able to find your perfect workout and nutrition plan based on all of the specific genes that you have, but as of right now, simply not the case. Uh, okay, great. I think, I think we're good. I think that's. We covered all of the supplements that I can think of off the top of my head that we oftentimes see people taking. Um, I'm not even gonna go through a summary because we only named so many. Don't take BCAAs or EAAs. Create stick with creatine monohydrate. Fat burners probably are. You'll know if you're actually taking them. Same with test boosters. But as always, just use your. Your own, like, critical thinking and, and, and look to look to like, actual scientific research on supplements. If you ever hear someone making very wide, sweeping claims about the benefits of a supplement that you've never heard of before. Okay, you have anything you want to say before we close out?

Yeah, let's look. Let's quickly go through the list. You can, you can go one by one, and then I'll give an alternative that works that way. People aren't like, all right, these are all the crap that I shouldn't take. What am I actually supposed to be doing if I want to get, you know, some headway toward that goal? And I'll be super brief because we're going to have a specific podcast on supplements. So I'm not even going to necessarily talk about supplement alternatives. I'm just going to be talking about tried and true alternatives. So go for it.

So like Danny said, stay tuned for our next podcast, which will be on supplements that you should be taking or that we recommend you take. Okay, starting off Fat Burners.

Yeah, so we talk about fat burners. Why they don't work. If you want to lose fat, just make sure that you're in a caloric deficit and do what's necessary in order to create the habits that facilitate you being in a caloric deficit. So that's gonna be the tried and true way to do. To do things. Make sure you're resistance training in order to make sure that you're holding onto that muscle mass as you lose fat. And that's gonna be the complete and utter main lever that you pull in order to lose fat.

Cool. Well said. Creatine.

Yep. So we talked about the alternative there. Take creatine monohydrate, don't take any of the other ones.

Well said. BCAAs and ECA. Essential amino acids.

Yeah, so we talked about the alternative for that one. So get adequate protein. That's gonna be the main lever that you pull there. If you're not getting adequate protein and you want to supplement, reach for an eaa, not a bcaa. Cool. All right.

Glutamine. Same, same. Same thing there. Proprietary blends of protein.

Yep. Just go with regular old protein. We talked about that one. So we're good there.

Cool. Test boosters and Turkesterone, they've kind of been similar.

Yeah. So if you have low testosterone and you're feeling the effects of low testosterone, like low motivation, having trouble sleeping, things along those lines, definitely go to your doctor and ask what's going on. Get your levels tested, and then they'll either give you actual testosterone or look at what's going on. So, like, the only thing that I'm aware of that consistently produces low testosterone in individuals that don't just have low testosterone is being chronically under slept. So if you're getting four hours of sleep a night and you're like, why am I feeling like this? And then you get your testosterone levels measured and they're low, maybe try, if possible, getting adequate sleep before you start actually taking testosterone. But other than that, don't take test boosters and don't worry too much about your testosterone.

Yeah, yeah. Usually if your test levels are low, you. You'll probably know it and definitely seek medical attention if that's the case. And they'll, They'll. They'll tell you for sure what the right next steps are. And I can almost assure you they're not taking plant steroids. Okay. Antioxidants.

Yeah. So that's just something that I would avoid taking in supplement form and not really any sort of huge recommendation there other than endogenous antioxidant defense is contingent upon just being healthy overall. So, like, you will do those processes better if you get adequate sleep, you exercise you do all the right things in terms of eating and all the healthy habits of living a stress free bodybuilding lifestyle. So that's what we recommend here.

Yes, a bodybuilding lifestyle and a stress free lifestyle. That's not paradoxical at all. All right, and finally, gene specific supplementation.

Yeah, so I think we, we covered that adequately where it's just, it's not ready for its limelight currently. So we do not recommend supplements that claim to tailor themselves to your genetic makeup.

Cool. Especially. Cause we didn't even touch on generally gene specific supplementation is usually like inordinately expensive. So yeah, definitely not worth the money as of right now. Okay, awesome. Make sure just to tie this all together, there's a lot of supplements that don't work out there and we kind of covered a lot of them here. And then if we still miss a couple that you've heard of or you're interested in, please reach out to us @bwsiltwithscience on Instagram. And if there's any other topics that you guys want covered in future episodes, please reach out to us as well. And as always, thank you guys so much for listening.