What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, Athlean-X.com.
Today I'm going to help you to determine whether or not supplements are a right fit for you.
Supplements are not the right fit for everybody, but you can ask yourself a series of questions
and determine whether or not you are a candidate.
It starts right here in our "yes" or "no" with where you are at in terms of your program.
Are you just starting out?
Are you a beginner?
Are you a really skinny guy who's never really lifted a weight before in your life?
Guess who knows somebody that's like that?
I do!
That's exactly what I was.
As a matter of fact, this is my actual, very first dumbbell that I ever used.
You can see it right there; that's my five pounder.
This five pounder went on to allow me to start lifting a lot heavier weight, but I started
with that.
As a matter of fact, my brother told me growing up "You have to earn the right, earn the privilege,
to be able to start taking supplements."
Because if you're just starting out with really light weights and you're not really that sophisticated
with your training yet, supplementation is overkill.
You'd be much better off figuring out the basics and understanding how to start building
your body from the ground up.
Learning the proper movements, the right way to train, and how to put it all together before
you start finessing it with supplements.
On the other end of the spectrum, and on the same note, if you're a guy who's allowed yourself
to get incredibly out of shape – 40% body fat or above because of your absolutely poor
nutrition habits – trying to fix them with supplementation is not the right way to go
about it either.
So you want to make sure that you're in that zone where you've dedicated yourself to getting
in shape, you've been on that path for a while, and you're looking to take it to the next
level.
Then you would be a "yes".
Otherwise, if you're starting with either one of those extremes you're going to wind
up over here as a "no".
Here's a scenario that I know a lot of you can probably relate to, but I'm actually living
it and breathing it every single day right now.
That is high levels of stress.
It doesn't have to be bad stress.
It could be good stress.
In my case it is good stress.
We've had twin boys.
They came a little bit early.
That's stressful, but we're trying to get them to grow and develop and catch up to where
they need to be.
That's provided a lot of stress for my life, but guess what?
I'm still going to train, I'm still going to try to eat as good as I can, but as I covered
in my nutrition video the other day where I showed you some fast ways that I can create
lots of meals at once – I'll actually link that here if you haven't seen that already
– stress is present in my life right now even more.
Supplementation can help you to overcome stress because it can do two things.
Number one: we know how nutrition can be a large component of providing your body with
the fuel it needs to stay healthy even in the face of stress, and we also know that
we don’t necessarily have the time to prepare it in stressful times.
So supplementation would be extremely easy to prepare and allow you to be consistent
with your nutrition.
So for me, I've never been more reliant on my supplements than I am right now because
I'm not always in a place where I can get good nutrition.
The cafeteria at the hospital isn't the best place for me to get proper nutrition, but
if I can mix up a shake, take it with me, and now that I'm going to have optimum nutrition
at my fingertips whenever I need it; it becomes that much more imperative.
I will say, if you're in a high stress job, or find yourself in a high stress situation
and you don’t want to sacrifice on your nutrition and you still want to be able to
train and you're applying a lot of stress to your body, make sure at that point that
you absolutely incorporate some form of supplementation to allow your body to recover that much faster
and allow you to bounce back even better.
Okay, the next one is actually a person question that I'm going to bring it down, bring it
in here and get man to man with you and ask you to be honest with yourself.
Are you the type of person who takes your supplements and then finds yourself eating
crappy food because you figured you already did what you were supposed to do?
If that's you then supplements are not for you, okay?
They're not for you.
But there's a key point to be learned from all of this.
That is that sometimes supplements will make that person much more accountable for the
rest of their actions throughout the day.
You go and spend all your hard earned money on your supplements and you take them religiously,
you take them regularly, you have that opportunity to then screw off and do what you know you
shouldn't be doing to be in line with what you're trying to achieve with your physique.
You become much more aware knowing how much money you spend on your supplements, knowing
the hard work that you've spent in the gym, and the time and effort you've put in the
gym to do what you knew you were supposed to do.
You become less likely to fall off the beaten path where you know you shouldn't.
That's where supplementation can become incredibly important and can make you accountable for
all your actions beyond the time you're taking your supplements.
Anybody can take a supplement.
That's the easiest damn thing you could ever do.
That's why so many people love to take them.
We all know how simple it is to mix something up and drink it, but it's what goes on in
all the other hours and minutes surrounding the time that you take your supplements that
counts.
If it makes you more accountable then I absolutely think they should be part of your plan.
Especially if you're that type of person.
Okay, the next question you want to ask yourself is whether or not you're an athlete.
When I say "athlete" I don’t necessarily mean professional athlete.
As a matter of fact, we have a lot of guys that train here with this channel to look
more athletic.
But if you're an athlete you'd better start taking your supplementation seriously.
If you don’t, I can tell you right now, you're going to be left behind.
Having just come back from the winter meetings last month in Nashville, Tennessee the major
focus of the strength and conditioning coaches at the major league level is supplementation.
Let's face it, the game of baseball has undergone some serious changes in the last few years
to eliminate drugs from the game.
There was a large portion of how players prepared themselves every year, but that's gone.
That's out of the game now.
They need to be able to replace that with some real, solid research, evidence backed
supplements to allow them to take their games to the next level.
Those that aren't doing it are going to fall behind.
The same thing could be said here.
Again, for those that want to take, not just their performance, but their physique to the
next level.
You've already dedicated, you're already on that path and you want to take it to the next
level; those are the guys that need to start looking into the benefits of supplementation.
Last but no least we're going to play a little True or False here.
I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to answer which side you think.
Do you think that you can get all your benefits of your supplementation through food alone?
That you don’t need supplements to achieve the benefits of the things that you're trying
to supplement with.
I'll give you a second here.
Okay, I could end the suspense now because the answer is a resounding "False".
I'm going to give you two examples of this.
When people try to take a supplement – let's say they're taking glucosamine, the joint
formula, and they're taking glucosamine; people would argue that they could get the glucosamine
that they'd get in our Athlean Mechanics.
Where are you getting that from?
Are you out there at a restaurant ordering surf and turf and telling them to hold the
lobster meat and just give you the shell because it tastes so damn good?
What are you eating to get the glucosamine that you need to gain the benefits of the
supplement?
Now, does everybody have to take a joint formula?
No.
But if you're going to tell me that you're going to take a joint formula, or you want
the benefits of glucosamine from a joint formula but you don’t need the joint formula you're
kidding yourself.
You're playing the unnatural game and it doesn't really add up.
The same thing could be said about creatine, one of the well-researched supplements out
there.
There's no doubt that creatine has plenty of research behind it backing its efficacy
for anyone that trains.
We have creating in our Rx2 Post Workout supplement and I can ask you again: where are you getting
your creatine from?
I hear all the time "Jeff, you can get creatine from meat.
Jeff, you can get creatine from tuna."
Let's take tuna as a perfect example.
Tuna actually has 4.5 grams of creatine per – get ready – 16 ounces of tuna.
That's a pound of tuna, okay? 4.5 grams of creatine is great.
That's a good dosage for you, but guess what?
You know – if you know anything about creatine – that in order to gain the benefits here
you're going to have to take it daily.
That means you're going to have to take 16 ounces of tuna daily.
That means your budget is going to have to provide you with the opportunity to buy tuna
at 16 ounces – which is 1lb – at around $17-$25 per pound, depending on sushi grade
or not, every single day.
When we start thinking about what your monthly bill is going to be – maybe around $500
– to get your creatine, does that make sense?
Not to mention you'll probably end up with mercury poisoning along the way.
That doesn't sound like a really efficient way for you to get creatine.
Does everybody need creatine?
No!
I'm not saying they all do, but don’t come to me and say "Jeff, I want to get the benefits
of creatine and I'm going to do it through my regular diet and through the foods that
I eat."
It ain't going to happen.
Again, a big "false".
If you want the benefits of specific ingredients to get the ergogenic benefits then you'd better
start realizing that most likely, you're going to have to supplement here, too.
If you're not looking for those benefits then you don’t necessarily need it.
As I said at the very beginning, if you're the type who's going to take your supplements
and think "That's it", that you're all set, all the hard work goes out and you think supplements
are a replacement for hard ass work; guess what – do me a favor, don’t take my supplements
because it's a slap in my face.
I don’t believe that supplements are the answer for everybody, but I think the majority
of the people that follow this channel and follow the advice I give here are a little
e more serious about their training.
In those cases, and a lot of the examples I just gave you here, you might be fitting
one of those; supplements might be something you should probably look into if you want
to start taking your results to the next level.
We have our supplements, guys.
I'll stand behind them every single day, every time I do a video here.
We've got them over at AthleanRX.com.
In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful, or at the very least refreshingly
honest, then please do me a favor and leave your comments and your thumbs up below.
Let me know.
Tell me what else it is that you want me to cover here on this channel.
Maybe something regarding supplements, but I'll do my best to do that here in the coming
weeks.
All right, guys.
I'll talk to you again real soon.