What's up(plements)??

Pre-workout, fat burners, green powders, digestive enzymes, fish oil, multi-vitamins, shark cartilage...the list goes on and on.

Trying to figure out which supplements to add to your diet and what brands to buy can seem overwhelming. Walk into a health food store and you'll be bombarded by hundreds of supplements, all with some lofty claim of changing your life.

In this post, I'd like to identify the top three supplements that I recommend for the general population. I'd also like to identify the three most "bogus" supplements on the market today. Before I get into my "top three" lists, however, I'd like to preface by saying that most people who maintain a desirable physique can attribute their success to the foods they eat, rather than to the supplements that they take. Want to lose some fat, gain some muscle, and feel better? Eat a clean diet with a low to moderate amount of carbohydrates, and a fair amount of lean protein and quality fats, and get set up on a progressive fitness program which focuses primarily on resistance training.

My top 3 supplements

1) Vitamin D - for the price and potential benefits, you can't go wrong. Vitamin D aids in calcium uptake, and helps to support positive mental health. For Native Canadians, take 1000-2000 IU per day in Summer/Spring months and 4000-5000 IU in Fall/Winter months

2) Whey Isolate Protein Powder - For those that find it hard to eat enough protein in a day, whey protein powder provides a cost-effective, easily digestible, high quality protein source. Great for a meal replacement shake and post-workout shake.

3) Greens Powder - Most food logs I analyze lack green veggies. For some clients, I've realized that the reality of consuming 3 servings of green veggies per day just isn't going to happen. Green powders can be thrown into a shake and will provide you with an abundance of vitamins and minerals, keeping your cells healthy and making you feel good!

Honorable mentions - multivitamins, fiber powder, fish or udos oil, creatine

My top 3 DO NOT BUY Supplements

1) Fat Burners - there is no peer-reviewed research showing that fat burners actually work. Often loaded with guarana, caffeine, yerba mate, and cayenne, fat  burners are more likely to lead to dehydration and fatigue than actual fat loss. To my knowledge, the only "proven" fat burner on the market is CLA, a pill containing a special fat found in cows.  CLA has some research showing that is can positively lead to fat loss, but the results are neglible (ie. 0.25 to 0.5 lbs of fat loss per week). Simple adjustments to your diet can achieve far greater results without having to dish-out the extra cash.

2) Pre-Workout Supplements - perhaps the most heavily marketed category of supplements on the market today, pre-workout supplements such as Super Pump and N.O. Explode get away with making grossly exaggerated claims. They are usually loaded with caffeine, and the main "super" ingredient is an amino acid called arginine. The problem is that high doses of caffeine have been shown to impede the desired effect of arginine; arginine improves blood-flow to muscles but caffeine gets in the way of this process. If you really need to get "amped-up" before a workout, try coffee. It's much cheaper, and less likely to cause you to crash after your workouts.

3) Detox "kits" or cleanses - So much money is wasted on detox supplements. Again, there is no actual research to show that a detox kit, or a detox diet, do anything more to detoxify our bodies than we can naturally do on our own. One of the most popular detoxes on the market, is the Wild Rose Cleanse, designed by Dr. Terry Willard. You'll see that the "kit" is sold at what I estimate to be a 500% mark-up, and may actually make you less "healthy" than you were before you began the cleanse (many people report feelings of fatigue, headaches, and dizziness).

Dishonorable mentions - testosterone boosters (ie. tribulus), glucosamine, ephedrine

Terry Willard, founder of the Wild Rose Cleanse

In summary, you likely don't need supplements at all unless directed by a doctor or dietician. The supplements that you see on the shelves are part of a largely unregulated market which rakes in billions of dollars on grandiose claims that can't be backed up by actual research.

As I mentioned earlier, the BEST thing you can do is to eat a clean diet and limit your intake of processed/starchy carbohydrates and bad fats. If your plate usually consists of large portions of lean protein and green veggies, and smaller portions of starchy carbohydrates, you are doing more to change your body composition than any supplement on the market could!

Also, if you'd like to order any supplements from the most reputable and trusted source in North America click this link to visit : WWW.BODYBUILDING.COM 

I purchase all of my supplements through bodbuilding.com and have them shipped straight to my door. I am proud to call myself a bodybuilding.com affiliate.

Learn Your Compounds!

I remember when I was in Junior High School and my parents bought me my first set of weights for Christmas. The set was a beige-coloured, plastic, concrete-filled set of dumbells and a barbell that, even when handled properly, would pinch your hands and give you blood blisters.

Once I got this weight-set, I decided that I better buy an exercise book to learn how to use the weights. I went to Northlands Mall and bought the biggest, cheapest exercise book that I could find. It was $5 and it had a picture of a "well supplemented" man in short-shorts, white tube socks, and a purple sleeveless shirt. Despite it's provocative front cover, it actually turned out to be one of the best $5 dollar purchases that I have ever made.

While, initially, I had really interesting interpretations of the exercises and programming suggestions, there was one piece of advice in the book that I stuck to. Following this advice allowed me to get pretty strong for my size and age.

Fast forward twenty years later and I believe that piece of advice to be just as true today as it was then. The advice is quite simple: "Prioritize COMPOUND weight training exercises and spend less time performing ISOLATION exercises." To give you an option to read the long and the short of this article, especially if you're new to weight training, here is what will follow: I'll provide definitions and examples of compound and isolation exercises, benefits to prioritizing compound movements, and lastly some pictures of 4 compound and 4 isolation exercises.

Before I get to all of that, if you want the "Coles notes" of this article, here they are: try to make sure that 75% or more of the exercises you choose in a workout are compound. You can scroll down to see some pictures of 4 of my favourite compound exercises, or enlist the help of google, AskJeeves, and Youtube, to expand your repertoire.

So here we go: compound exercises are defined as exercises that involve the movement of more than one joint at a time. This in turn means that all compound movements utilize 2 or more muscles to lift the weight. Examples of compound exercises include: push-ups, lat pulldown, lunges, and leg presses.

Isolation exercises are defined as exercises that only involve the movement of one joint at a time. This means that isolation exercises only utilize one muscle to lift the weight. Examples of isolation exercises include: biceps curls, leg extensions, triceps extensions, and laying leg abductions.

3 major benefits of prioritizing COMPOUND exercises are:

1) Increase full-body strength: Because compound exercises utilize more than one muscle at a time, your bigger muscles are involved in the movements, which allows you to lift heavier loads. Lifting heavier loads with your bigger muscles is the best way to get your entire body strong.

2) Increase body's ability to burn fat: Compound exercises have a greater oxygen and energy demand on the body. If you are going through a "fat burning" weight training program that focuses more on compound than isolation, you will have a much higher EPOC (also known as the "After-Burn"). The higher the EPOC, the greater the demand on the body for stored fats to be utilized post-workout to replenish sugar/glycogen that was expended during the workout.

3) Improve day-to-day life: If you get stronger at compound exercises, you will find day-to-day tasks easier. Get better at deadlifts (compound) and you will be able to pick heavy objects up off of the floor with more ease and less risk of injury. Get better at squats (compound) and you will be able to jump up off of the toilet like a spring chicken. Get better at biceps curls (isolation) and you will be able to bring that mug of beer to your face with no effort at all!

We are all bombarded with the latest fad workouts and information overload in the fitness industry today. In light of this, I'm happy to know that some very simple workout advice that I got more than 20 years ago is just as valid now as it was back then. Below you'll find a few examples of isolation vs. compound exercises. If you'd like to learn how to incorporate more compound exercises into your routine, drop me a line at innerimagept@gmail.com  

COMPOUND vs. ISOLATION (pictures)