The Best Muscle Building Supplement of All!

Before getting into the best muscle building supplement you can take, let's get a couple of things straight.Supplements do not matter if you don't have your training and your nutrition (from food) in order!

Supplements are supplements to good training and nutrition. Supplements are not powerful drugs! If you aren't eating and training properly you'll be wasting your money.

That being said, supplements have come a long way and if you are training and eating right, they can make a big difference in the gains you make and how fast you make them.

So what's the best mucle building supplement of all? Protein! Yeah, yeah, not sexy. But hear me out.It can be difficult to get enough quality protein from food alone, especially if you are naturally skinny and need to take in a lot of calories in order to see some muscle gains.

Not to mention, cooking all that food, since protein rich foods aren't the kind you get by ripping open bags or boxes. No, good protein foods take prep time and cooking. But one serving of Hot Stuff has 40 grams of awesome tasting protein plus all the workout enhancers and test boosters in one!

If you need a lot of calories a protein based shake is the easiest and most convenient way to go about it. There are plenty of ingredients you can throw in there, from milk to ice cream (yes, for high calorie weight gain shakes, a little ice cream is okay), and peanut butter.

If you're underweight and want to make gains fast, be sure and get 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight. This means if you weigh 150 pounds you should get 150 to 225 grams of protein per day. A serving of Hot Stuff with 3 cups of milk and 4 tablespoons of peanut butter will give you about 80 grams of protein, depending on other ingredients you might add to your weight gain shake.

You definitely need to get some protein before your workout. Don't hit the weights on an empty stomach. Besides the fact that your training performance may suffer, your cortisol levels will skyrocket, and that means your muscle gains will come to a screeching halt.

A study published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport (Tarpenning, K.M., et al. (2001) Influence of weigh training exercise and modification of hormonal response on skeletal muscle growth 4:431-436) took a look at the results of taking in a carbohydrate drink before a lifting session.

The trainees in the study drank a no calorie placebo before their first workout.Before workout number two they took in a drink that was a 6% carbohydrate solution.

The results were kind of stunning when it came to cortisol levels. For the pre-workout carb drink, cortisol levels only rose 7% from the workout.When the placebo was ingested, corisol levels rose 99%!!

By keeping cortisol levels down during a workout, this can help to preserve muscle.

Be sure and get enough high quality protein every day, especially before and after your weight training session if you want to build muscle mass.