Introduction
Part I: Your Nutrition guide to Essential Support
Part II: Prioritise Your Supplements

Introduction

The focus of bodybuilders diets tend to be on the big players; calories, carbs and protein. So you'd be forgiven to forget the important roles vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and antioxidants play. Lifting weights can take its toll, increasing the wear and tear on your body. Extra stress is placed on your body including, bones, joint, ligaments and tendons, so you must look after them.

Including these 'essential support' nutrients in your bodybuilding diet will help:

• Improve your performance
• Protect against injury
• Boost your immune system
• Improve general health
• Recovery
• Strengthen bones and joints
• Reduce risk factors for diabetes, obesity and heart disease

Part I: Nutritional Guide to Essential Support

Your diet plays a key role in providing your body the support it needs to adapt after heavy training sessions. Your diet should be well balanced and have plenty of variety, based on complex, starchy carbohydrates and high quality protein. To support training demands, pay particular attention to your vitamin, mineral, fatty acids and antioxidant intake.

Go Fish

Fish are a good source of quality protein and are packed with vitamins and minerals. Always try to eat a wide range of oily and non-oily white fish.

Oily fish are loaded with the essential fatty acid (EFA) omega-3 and vitamins A and D. Omega-3 is termed 'essential' as the body can't produce it, so it must be eaten in the diet. EFA's are needed in the formation of hormone like substances involved in the production of growth hormones. EFA's have also been shown to boost metabolism for increased fat and carbohydrate burning. Oily fish include:

• Salmon
• Fresh tuna
• Mackerel
• Trout

Non oily white fish contain omega-3 but in smaller quantities compared to oil fish. Non-oily white fish include:

• Haddock
• Cod
• Plaice
• Tinned tuna
• Skate

Eat Your Greens…and reds, oranges, yellows (even purples and blues)

One thing's for sure, fruit and veg are essential to a bodybuilding diet. We've seen the government's campaigns to eat at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. This is even more important to weight lifters. Fruit and vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals and fibre. These nutrients help protect us against heart disease, cancer, diabetes and boost your immune system.

More importantly for regular trainers are fruit and vegetables content of antioxidants. Antioxidants help fight against muscle damaging radicals produced intense training. An accumulation of radicals cause damage to cells and tissues leading to muscle damage and delayed recovery. Eat a range of coloured fruit and veg to get the full vitamin and mineral spectrum, the more intense the colour, the greater the antioxidant content.

The vitamins and minerals that are most important to support weight training for growth and repair, recovery and energy metabolism are:

• Vitamin E
• Vitamin C
• The B Vitamins
• Calcium
• Iron

Stock Up on Water

I'm not just saying this because it's important not to dehydrate. Muscles are predominately made up from water and 2/3 of body weight is water. Training increases water loss through sweat and will increase further if you train in the heat of the gym. Replace these losses and saturate your muscle by drinking plenty of water. Training dehydrated will affect your lifting capacity as blood flow you your muscles will reduce.

If you're taking fat loss products or drink tea and coffee you may be at higher risk from dehydration. This is because caffeine is a diuretic that increases water loss in the urine. So drink up!

Part II: Prioritise your supplements

Supplements that provide essential support aid your training in addition to your daily diet. Supplements can act in several ways to:

• Increase energy supply
• Supply concentrated nutrients, difficult to obtain from your daily diet
• Protect against injury
• Aid recovery from weight training
• Provide convenient hassle free ways to get the nutrients you need
• Boost immune function reducing the risk of illness

As a guide we will introduce the supplements that provide essential support to your training, starting from the basics so your nutritional bases are covered and moving on to more advanced products as your training intensity increases and your budget allows.

Step 1: Essential supplements – Get the basics covered

Vitamins and minerals

Every decent bodybuilder will tell you, making sure you get enough vitamins and minerals is essential to success. The additional demands you place on your body during training leaves you vulnerable to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Vitamin and mineral formulas provide a good insurance policy so you're not left behind.

Essential Fatty Acids

Contrary to popular myth, the body needs fat, especially fat in the form of EFA's. Essential fatty acids are a form of polyunsaturated fats that are termed 'essential' as the body can't produce them so they must be obtained from the diet. Omega 3 and 6 are essential fatty acids that are often deficient in the diet that can:

• Reduce inflammation
• Support cardio-vascular health
• Reduce cholesterol
• Improve memory
• Reduce blood pressure

Step 2: Accelerate gains when the basics are covered

Joint Care

You put a huge stress on your joints every time you train. Joint care supplements contain a range of ingredients to support healthy, supple and flexible joints whether you are involved in sports, weight lifting or wanting the best support for later in life.

If you suffer from painful or tender joints and tendons, a joint care supplement will help you protect you from long term damage, maintain mobility and alleviate joint pain. Active ingredients include:

• Glucosamine to help repair damaged cartilage
• Omega-3 oils reduce joint pain and inflammation
• Chondroitin which increases healing and joint mobility.

Antioxidants

Exercise, particularly high intensity exercise, increases the release of muscle damaging molecules, called free radicals. Antioxidants, including vitamin C, E and alpha lipoic acid (ALA) are a range of substances that prevent free radical build up by increasing your natural defence. Antioxidants aid recovery and help prevent muscle soreness after exercise to support strength gains.

A daily antioxidant supplement may give you increased protection from heart disease and cancer, slow down the ageing process, as well as promote recovery after intense exercise and reduce post exercise muscle soreness.

Herbs

A variety of herbs have been used for centuries to support physical activity and improve exercise performance. These traditional herbs can support several area of health, vitality and essential support, including:

• Ginkgo Biloba – Improves memory and cognitive function.
• Green Tea – Reduce cholesterol and improves immune function.
• Milk Thistle – Promotes a healthy liver in the breakdown of pollutants such as alcohol.
• Rhodiola Rosea – Helps prevent fatigue, stress and depression.

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