Which supplement is best for increasing strength?

Three phases, three answers: why a supplement's visibility is set by the rate of progress, the novice phase where the best supplement is none, and the intermediate phase where creatine becomes visible

Which supplement is best for increasing strength is a question that has a different answer at three points in a lifter's career, and a page that gave one answer would be wrong for two of them. The thing that decides the answer is training age, because a supplement's effect is only worth buying if it can be seen, and whether it can be seen depends on how fast strength is rising without it. The research on training age and adaptation describes the progression: a novice adds strength every session, an intermediate adds it over a block, and an advanced lifter adds it over a year, and the rate at each phase is the noise against which any supplement's signal has to show.

The novice phase is the first year or so of consistent training, and in it strength rises every session, sometimes every day, because the nervous system is learning the lifts, recruiting more of the muscle and coordinating it better each time the pattern is practised, with the muscle itself contributing a growing share as the months pass. Against that rate no supplement's effect can be seen: creatine's few percent over a block is invisible beneath a block in which the squat rose by a third, and a novice who takes anything will credit it with gains that came from being a novice, which is how a lifelong supplement habit is formed in the first month. The best supplement for a novice increasing strength is none, and the money goes where the novice's largest gap is, which is food, protein to around 1.6g per kilogram a day and enough calories to recover, and to a programme that practises a few compound lifts and adds load on a schedule. A novice who wants to take creatine anyway loses nothing by it except the ability to tell what it did, and the honest advice is to wait until it can be seen.

The intermediate phase begins when progress slows from every session to every block, when the novice's linear additions stall and the programme has to be organised into weeks of accumulation and realisation to keep the bar moving, and it is the phase where creatine becomes visible and is bought. Creatine monohydrate at 3 to 5g a day, after the store is saturated by a count of doses, adds a few percent to strength measures and one to two kilograms of lean mass over a block in the meta-analyses, with an authorised claim for performance in repeated short bursts of high-intensity exercise, and an intermediate progressing a block at a time can see a few percent in the log where a novice could not. It is the best supplement for increasing strength in this phase and the only one worth buying in it, since the intermediate's other gains still come from the programme, the food and the sleep, and the margin a caffeine tablet adds to a session is not yet worth the sleep it costs on a lifter whose blocks are the point.

Two phases with two answers, none and then creatine, and the advanced phase where every small margin is worth its price, the men's question and the booster audit, and the worked example, which is the next section.

The advanced phase, where every small margin is worth buying: creatine, a caffeine tablet for the session that matters and protein kept at the target; the question of strength for men and the booster audit; the worked example in every phase; and the verdict

The advanced phase begins when progress is measured in kilograms a year rather than a block, when a lifter's one-rep max moves by small amounts after long preparation, and it is the phase where every small margin is worth its price because the margins are all there is. Creatine stays, at 3 to 5g a day every day, for the same few percent that now represents a large share of a year's progress. Caffeine enters, at 3 to 6mg per kilogram as a tablet about an hour before the session that matters, a heavy single, a test day, a competition, where it lowers perceived effort and adds a small amount to maximal strength on the day; it is kept for those sessions and not for every session, because tolerance blunts it and because the sleep it costs on an ordinary training day is worth more than the margin. Protein is kept precisely at the target rather than roughly, around 1.6g per kilogram a day spread across meals, since an advanced lifter's recovery is the limit and the material it is built from is the one input that can be measured on a plate. Beta-alanine is still in the wrong energy system for a maximal lift, and the boosters are still nowhere, which the next paragraph covers. An advanced lifter who competes in a tested federation adds the strict liability rule to every purchase and buys batch-tested products only.

The secondary question, which supplement is best for increasing strength for men, is a question the shelf has built a whole aisle for, and the aisle's audit is the answer. The testosterone boosters sold for strength and muscle in men were audited across dozens of products, and the audit found that almost none had any data at all and that the ingredients with trials did nothing to the hormone in healthy men; the products sold as strength for men are sold on a hormone they do not move, and a man increasing strength uses the same three phases and the same products as anyone, with the one addition that a man over forty who is tired, weak and losing muscle talks to a doctor about a blood test rather than to a shelf, because a measured deficiency is a medicine's question and not a supplement's. The strength difference between men and women is a difference in the muscle each has, and creatine, caffeine and protein act on it in the same way in both.

The worked example is placed in every phase on the mineral's own claim: {FL}, 1500mg magnesium bisglycinate stated as 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, two capsules with the evening meal, with authorised claims for normal muscle function and normal protein synthesis, which describe the mineral's role in a working muscle and are not a strength claim, batch tested for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium, UK made, 180 capsules for £19.99 at 22p a day, taken in any phase by a lifter whose plate is short of the mineral, for the plate. The full label breakdown is here.

The verdict: the best supplement for increasing strength is set by training age. For a novice, none, because every session's gains hide any product and the money belongs to food and a programme. For an intermediate progressing by the block, creatine, whose few percent becomes visible. For an advanced lifter progressing by the year, creatine, a caffeine tablet for the session that matters and protein kept at the target, each worth its small margin. For men specifically, the same, because the aisle built for them was audited and found empty.

What to check on the label

Questions people also ask

What is the best supplement to get stronger fast?

For a novice, none, because strength rises every session from the nervous system learning the lifts and no product's effect can be seen above that rate, so the money goes to protein at around 1.6g per kilogram, enough calories and a programme that adds load on a schedule; for an intermediate progressing by the block, creatine monohydrate at 3 to 5g a day, whose few percent on strength in the meta-analyses becomes visible in the log; for an advanced lifter, creatine, a caffeine tablet before the session that matters and protein kept precisely at the target, each worth its small margin.

Should a beginner take creatine for strength?

A beginner loses nothing by it except the ability to tell what it did: in the first year strength rises every session from the nervous system learning the lifts, and creatine's few percent over a block is invisible beneath a block in which the squat rose by a third, so a novice who takes it will credit it with gains that came from being a novice, which is how a lifelong supplement habit is formed; the honest advice is to spend on food and a programme first and add creatine when progress has slowed to a block at a time and the effect can be seen.

What is the best supplement for strength for men?

The same as for anyone, in the same three phases, because the aisle built for men was audited and found empty: dozens of testosterone boosters sold for strength and muscle had almost no data, and the ingredients with trials did nothing to the hormone in healthy men; creatine, caffeine and protein act on a man's muscle as on a woman's, and a man over forty who is tired, weak and losing muscle talks to a doctor about a blood test rather than to a shelf, because a measured deficiency is a medicine's question.

Should I take caffeine before every strength session?

No; caffeine at 3 to 6mg per kilogram about an hour before adds a small amount to maximal strength on the day by lowering perceived effort, and the margin is worth having for a heavy single, a test day or a competition, but daily use builds a tolerance that blunts it and the sleep it costs on an ordinary evening session is worth more than the margin to a lifter whose blocks are the point, so it is kept as a tablet of known dose for the sessions that matter and not taken before every session.

Does magnesium increase strength?

It makes no strength claim and this page makes none; magnesium has authorised claims for normal muscle function and normal protein synthesis, which describe the mineral's role in a working muscle, and the trials in people who are not deficient are small and inconsistent, so the worked example is taken in any phase by a lifter whose plate is short of the mineral, for the plate, at 300mg elemental, 80% NRV, two capsules with the evening meal for 22p a day, batch tested for four metals and UK made.

Sources

1. The training age literature: untrained lifters gain strength and muscle rapidly on any sensible programme through neural adaptation and novel stimulus, with the rate slowing as training age rises, so that supplements with small additive effects are undetectable against a beginner's rate of progress. PubMed record
2. Rawson ES, Volek JS. Effects of creatine supplementation and resistance training on muscle strength and weightlifting performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 2003;17(4):822-831: creatine with resistance training produced around 8 per cent greater gains in maximal strength and around 14 per cent greater gains in repetitions at a given load than training alone. PubMed record
3. The caffeine and strength literature: meta-analyses report small but consistent improvements in maximal strength and power after caffeine doses in the range studied, typically 3 to 6mg per kilogram, with individual response varying. PubMed record
4. The 2020 audit of testosterone booster supplements: of fifty top-selling products, under a quarter had any published data showing a testosterone increase for their ingredients, a tenth had data showing a decrease, most had no human data at all, and many exceeded upper intake levels for vitamins and minerals. PubMed record

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