Why is it good to take supplements?
One of my favorite things to say is that diet is the foundation of everything because severe health issues can arise when proper nutrition is lacking. However, in the world of athletics, there are occasions when, even with a healthy diet, we are unable to meet our needs, and we are forced to use dietary supplements.
Food supplements that help reinforce a diet are what we mean when we refer to them as sports supplements. The issue emerges when people get the terminology confused and base their diet on supplements instead of food.
Abuse of anything, including exercise, can be detrimental to our health. Thus we should avoid doing so at all costs. You could be thinking, "But getting exercise is good." That's right, getting enough exercise is beneficial to the body, but doing too much of it might have the opposite effect.
We put another straightforward case to the test in the water. Water is essential to life, and while it is recommended to consume a lot of it, drinking too much water can lead to major health issues if it is used in excess. It would help if you found a way to preserve equilibrium, which means finding the middle ground and sticking to it.
To better understand why taking supplements is beneficial, we will examine the cases of two different people: one who takes supplements without any kind of control, and another who takes supplements to support their regular diet.
Uncontrolled consumption of supplements
In this example, we will look at someone who recently joined a gym and has been working out consistently for the past three weeks. His primary objective is to increase his muscle mass, but due to his ectomorphic somatotype, he is naturally skinny and finds it difficult to put on weight.
This individual has never gone on a diet, let alone one designed to help them put on muscle mass.
You have observed in an online article on nutrition and exercise that in order to gain weight in a healthy way, you need to diet, but this individual does not feel like following a rigid diet. He would rather consume whatever he pleases and spend his weekends eating fast food like hamburgers, pizza, and other similar items.
He makes the decision to purchase some pills in order to compensate for the lack of high-quality nutrients that he is receiving and the lack of energy that he is experiencing at the gym as a result of not dieting.
Whey protein, weight gainer, creatine monohydrate, BCAA, and some protein bars for when hunger strikes should all be part of your pre-workout routine.
This rookie in the gym will consume an excessive amount of pills but will not obtain the benefits he anticipates. As a result, he will come to the conclusion that taking supplements is not as beneficial as he once believed it to be.
Because you didn't begin doing things correctly, it is inevitable that after a few weeks of going to the gym, you will become exhausted and decide to stop going. Diet plus exercise plus nutritional supplements.
Controlled consumption of supplements
On the other hand, in this second illustration, we will find a more lucid individual who enjoys keeping himself well-informed before taking any action.
It makes no difference if you are just starting out in the world of weight training or if you have been training for years; what matters is that you decide from the very beginning to do things the proper way by reading and comparing information from credible pages on nutrition and sports.
This individual follows a specialized diet tailored to their day-to-day requirements and goals, as well as a training regimen centered on that primary objective, which, much like the objective of the person who came before them, is to increase their muscular mass and strength.
You don't need to take supplements because you follow a diet that is personalized to your needs, but there will come a day when you feel like you've hit a plateau in terms of your body weight and workouts, and you will need to keep pushing forward in order to achieve your goals.
He believes that he has been at the same weight for some time now, and that he has reached a point in his training where he cannot continue to improve since he has been stuck at his targets.
At that precise point, he decided to make use of sports supplements in order to maintain his forward momentum in terms of both his physical and athletic performance.
As was the case with the previous person we examined, this individual makes the decision to purchase whey protein to increase the amount of protein he consumes as well as weight gainer to increase the number of calories he consumes during the day and enhance his capacity to ingest more carbohydrates after exercise.
In addition, BCAAs, which speed up recovery after a workout and encourage muscle building; creatine monohydrate, which boosts both strength and endurance during training; and pre-workout supplements, which get you pumped up and ready to lift heavy weights when you go to the gym.
The answer is that it is the identical dietary supplement that the first subject purchased. But because this second individual has done things correctly from the beginning and has followed a diet that has been matched to his needs and well-structured training, he will get the most out of each supplement and will continue to develop towards his goals, which will become increasingly within his control.
Ergogenic aid
Because it is an ergogenic aid that can help increase one's athletic performance, supplementing needs to be utilized sensibly, as we have seen in both of these cases, which are both quite genuine.
Diet reinforcement
Because taking supplements allows us to avoid eating as though there is no tomorrow, our diet is able to be significantly simplified and made much more tolerable. The fact that we can consume a very high number of calories through the consumption of a straightforward smoothie makes things much simpler for us.
Improved sports performance
We are also able to significantly increase our athletic performance, our muscle recovery following training, our personal bests, we can train with a greater intensity, complete longer and more intense workouts, and a great deal of other benefits.