Latest answers

• What are the best supplements for muscle pain and stiffness in the UK?Guides. What are the best supplements for muscle pain and stiffness in the UK is answered by sorting the complaint into the three tissues it comes from before any product is named, because muscle, joint and tendon each hurt and stiffen in a recognisable pattern and each has a different list. The muscle list: soreness after work trimmed a little by protein and removed mostly by the repeated-bout effect, and a cramp with no supplement claim. The joint list: the large publicly funded trial of glucosamine and chondroitin found nothing across the group, and load and body weight are the interventions. The tendon list: collagen or gelatin with vitamin C before loading has a narrow finding and progressive loading is the treatment. Covers the pattern that identifies each tissue, the statin note for a pharmacist, the stiffness that is a doctor's, and the worked example placed on the muscle list with the mineral's own claim.
• What supplements help you relax and sleep?Guides. What supplements help you relax and sleep is answered by treating relax as a dial rather than a feeling: the pre-sleep arousal the sleep research measures and that decides how long sleep onset takes. Four things turn the dial down, listed in the order they act across the last part of the evening: the light turned down first, because it governs the switch itself; the warm bath or shower next, because the fall in core temperature that follows it shortens onset in the trials; the evening meal with the two evening supplements that have a small finding, glycine and lavender oil; and the bed itself kept cool and dark. Covers the two things that turn the dial up placed where they do their damage, caffeine after early afternoon and the evening drink, the medicine a UK shopper cannot buy, the arousal that is a doctor's, and the worked example placed at the evening meal with the mineral's own claim.
• What supplements should a 40 year old take?Guides. What supplements should a 40 year old take is answered by treating forty as a set of measurements rather than a birthday, because the shelf sells age-labelled formulas to the birthday and a doctor can measure the five things that actually change the answer at forty: vitamin D status, ferritin, B12, the lipid profile and blood pressure. Each has a supplement, a medicine or nothing as its answer depending on the number, so the right list for one forty-year-old is vitamin D in winter and nothing else, and for another is iron on a test and a doctor's conversation about a lipid. Covers the two things that change for everyone at forty regardless of the numbers, the rate of muscle loss that lifting with protein reverses and the winter sun that vitamin D replaces, the health check that measures the numbers, the age-labelled formulas placed by what they contain, and the worked example placed where the plate puts it.
• What supplements do weight lifters take?Guides. What supplements do weight lifters take is answered in two columns rather than one, because the question has two honest answers that do not match. The first column is what lifters actually take, which the surveys of gym members report: protein powder and creatine most, then pre-workout blends, branched-chain amino acids, fat burners and multivitamins, advised by training partners, the internet and shop staff. The second column is what the evidence supports: creatine, protein for the shortfall, caffeine and a few conditionals. The gap between the two columns is the size of the marketing. Covers each product placed in both columns, the two that appear in both for good reason, the four that appear in the first and not the second, the one that appears in the second and rarely the first, and the worked example placed where its evidence puts it.
• Which supplements are actually worth buying?Guides. Which supplements are actually worth buying is answered with a return calculation rather than a list: the price per day at the labelled dose divided by the effect size the trials measured, which produces a figure in pence per percent of result for every product on the shelf. Worth is a ratio and the shelf prints only the numerator. Creatine, at pence a day for a few percent on strength and one to two kilograms of lean mass, is the cheapest result in the market; vitamin D, at a few pence for a corrected shortfall in most UK adults in winter, is the second; protein for a measured shortfall is the third; and the testosterone boosters, at pounds a day for a measured zero, have a ratio that cannot be computed. Covers the return table worked across the shelf, the two things that break the ratio, a deficiency and a drug test, and the worked example placed with its own figure.
• What is the best supplement for weak muscles?Guides. What is the best supplement for weak muscles is answered by measuring before buying, because weak is a word that covers a person who has stopped training, a person losing muscle with age, a person with a deficiency, a person on a medicine that weakens muscle and a person with a muscle disease. The two tests the sarcopenia consensus uses, grip strength on a dynamometer and the time to rise from a chair five times, say in a minute whether weak is weak and whether it is a doctor's. Covers the cut-off values that send a person for assessment, the one cause a supplement corrects, a measured deficiency of vitamin D, B12 or iron, the cause that lifting with protein and creatine reverses at any age, the causes that are a doctor's or a pharmacist's, the weakness that is urgent, and the worked example placed on the mineral's own claim for normal muscle function.
• What supplements should a weightlifter take to build muscle?Guides. What supplements should a weightlifter take to build muscle is answered by starting from the decision that comes before any product for a lifter who competes in a weight class: fill or move. A weightlifter builds muscle either to fill the class they are in, replacing fat with muscle at the same body weight, or to move up to the next class, adding mass on purpose, and the two aims have different arithmetic. The fill aim runs a small deficit or maintenance with protein high and creatine held; the move aim runs a modest surplus with the next class's limit as the target. The supplements are the same two, creatine and protein, used with different numbers. Covers the class arithmetic worked, the surplus that adds muscle rather than fat, the mass gainers and the boosters placed by what they do to the class and the test, the under-18 note, and the worked example placed inside the class.
• What is the best supplement for rebuilding muscle?Guides. What is the best supplement for rebuilding muscle is answered per meal rather than per day, because the laboratory measures rebuilding as the muscle protein synthesis response to each feeding. The response rises when a meal delivers enough protein to cross the leucine threshold, around 0.4g of protein per kilogram or 20 to 40g for most adults, stays raised for a few hours and then falls regardless of how much more is eaten. The best supplement for rebuilding is therefore the meal pattern, three or four feedings a day each crossing the threshold, with a protein powder as the way a meal that falls short is lifted over the line. Covers the older lifter's higher threshold, the question of making muscles recover faster answered by the four clocks it actually runs on, the amino acid products that cross no threshold, and the worked example placed at one of the meals with the mineral's own claim.
• What are the best workout supplements for beginners female?Guides. What are the best workout supplements for a female beginner is answered by reading the two labels on the question as two subtractions rather than two additions. The label beginner removes every product whose effect is smaller than a beginner's own rate of progress, which is all of them except creatine and food. The label female removes nothing from that list and adds one test, a ferritin check, because iron losses through periods are the one thing known to differ that bears on a woman starting to train. What remains after both subtractions is a programme, a plate with the protein gap closed, creatine when progress has slowed enough to see it, and a blood test. Covers the products marketed to women placed by their evidence, the two notes for pregnancy and under eighteen, and the worked example placed where the plate puts it.
• What supplements should I take when working out to lose weight?Guides. What supplements should I take when working out to lose weight is answered by giving a supplement three jobs in a deficit and no fourth, because nothing sold burns fat and the deficit does that. A supplement's job is to protect what the deficit puts at risk. The muscle, protected by protein at around 1.6g per kilogram and by creatine holding the sessions productive. The session itself, protected by a caffeine tablet on the days it matters. The plate's micronutrients, protected by vitamin D through the winter, iron on a test and the mineral a smaller plate loses. Covers the fat burners placed by their gram-scale results and their stimulant load, the deficit's arithmetic worked, the sleep that a deficit makes worse, and the worked example placed on the third job.
• How do I know if a supplement is high quality?Guides. How do I know if a supplement is high quality is answered by following the tub backwards through the five links of its chain of custody rather than reading its front label. A high quality supplement is one whose chain is documented at every link and a low quality one is one whose chain has a gap. The raw material link: the ingredient arrived with a supplier's certificate that the manufacturer verified. The manufacturing link: the facility is certified to a named standard and audited. The release link: the finished batch was tested against a specification before it was allowed out. The storage link: the shelf life was set by stability data and the tub was kept within its conditions. The sale link: a named operator with an address answers for it. Covers the document that proves each link, the one question that tests the whole chain, the gap a buyer finds most often, and the worked example traced link by link.
• What are the top 5 supplements for men?Guides. What are the top 5 supplements for men is answered by building the list from the men's plate rather than from the men's hormone. The shelf's men's range is built on one hormone that no supplement moves, while the national diet survey describes what men actually eat differently: less fruit and vegetables and so less fibre and magnesium, more meat and so more iron and less creatine benefit than a vegetarian, more alcohol, more time indoors through the winter, and a protein total that is often fine with a per-meal pattern that is not. The five are read off that pattern: vitamin D through the UK winter, creatine for the lifter, protein as a per-meal pattern rather than a total, magnesium for the plate the survey finds a share of young men short of, and omega-3 for the man eating no oily fish. Covers the men's shelf placed by the audit that found nothing, the one blood test a man adds at forty, and the worked example placed on the list by the survey.