I am training in Muai Thai 6 times per week and lift weights 4 times per week. There are times that I feel tired. Should I use a nutrition supplement and if yes which one? PDF Print E-mail
 
This is one of the most common questions that we receive from athletes.
The fact about supplements is that they are just that. Supplemental to real food and nutrition.
First you have to check if your nutrition is correct and if you rest and sleep well.
We have to consider that training destroys muscle tissue. It is during resting that we are building new stronger muscle to adapt to the stimulus of training. Thus resting is very important and most trainees tent to ignore this.
Our body is talking to us and we have to listen.
If you feel tired and have no energy, there is good chance that one of the following things happens:
1)    Your nutrition is poor 2) you don’t sleep or rest enough (note that you must have at least 8 hours of quality sleep) 3) your training volume is so big that you are slowly burning out. In that case you need to reduce your training load, and take it easy.
Life style and high stress levels play a very important part too.
So before deciding to take any supplement check if you fell victim to one of the above.
There is no need for amateur athletes to push themselves to the limit. Our progress can be compared to the growth of a plant. If you take good care of it the plant will grow naturally. On the other hand if you start to pull it to accelerate growth you will most probably uproot it.
If you are an amateur athlete that trains for fan, good health and a strong body, there is no need to start spending money to supplements to cope with your training.
Take care of your nutrition, rest and training volume and you should be fine.
Also, you should know that most supplements are of poor quality and they don’t really work. They are produced in labs and are not natural food and you don’t really know what you are feeding to your body, or what implication they might have, on the long run.
On the other hand if you are a pro athlete and you have certain responsibilities (on coming fight etc) you should have expert people that they have the knowledge to guide you on what you need and to supplements that really work and can improve your performance. In any case the improvement is small and it will not make considerable difference especially for a recreational athlete.
Top Strength coach Jason Ferruggia pulls no punches in his book ”Muscle gaining secrets” Click Here!
He explains “The supplement industry is a billion dollar business these days and it is run by crooks, ex-cons and soulless scam artists who will do whatever it takes to separate you from your money. The fact of the matter when it comes to supplements is this- there is no supplement in the world that can ever give you more than a 5% advantage over what you can achieve naturally”
So think about it. Does it worth to spend your hard earned money and risk your health for a 5% boost?