Can Bodybuilding Supplements Offer the Easy Road to Muscle Building Results?

Often when the term "natural bodybuilding" is thought of, those who participate in such a hobby contemplate intense weight training workout sessions and structured bodybuilding diet plans, but one additional element, supplementation, is deemed a requirement for any individual to succeed in building muscle mass to his or her natural bodybuilding genetic potential. Since using steroids is avoided due to their serious health risks, bodybuilding supplements become the "safe" and legal drug alternative that bodybuilders feel compelled to pursue.

Because so few who experiment with bodybuilding supplements have performed their weight lifting routines without using such products, they are unable to analyze the true effectiveness of the bodybuilding supplements they are constantly consuming, and therefore, mistakenly attribute any fat loss or muscle building to these products, even when making changes to a weight lifting or diet plan that, in fact, is the foundation for any successful fat loss or muscle building pursuit. Instead of conducting legitimate testing to note muscle gain or fat loss with specific bodybuilding supplements using an identical weight lifting and diet routine, many tend to become frustrated with their muscle building or fat loss progress, and once they return from a break with renewed weight training enthusiasm, they not only search for a new weight training workout plan and diet, but also purchase several bodybuilding supplements to use simultaneously, and if they build muscle or burn fat, they rarely credit the weight training workout or diet, nor do they factor in the ease of muscle building following a layoff with nearly any marginally potent routine, but rather feel that the bodybuilding supplements are responsible for any positive change, even when this progress is only temporary.

This biased hypothesis leads weight lifters of all ages to believe that bodybuilding supplements are a prerequisite for impressive progress, and popular bodybuilding magazines, most of whom generate the vast majority of their advertising profits from bodybuilding supplement manufacturers, also convince the readers that they must, without question, rely on bodybuilding supplements as the weapon of choice to maximizing muscle gains, especially when champion professional bodybuilders are pictured holding the latest bottled craze (of course, he fails to mention that his results are due to steroid abuse as opposed to supplement use!). Nevertheless, the overwhelming message sent by the bodybuilding industry that these products are the natural key to dramatic muscle gains fuels most to accept this as truth, and the bodybuilding supplement industry benefits as a result.

But what's the truth behind the bodybuilding supplement craze? I have been involved in weight training for well over a decade, and through my own experimentation, along with emails sent to me by those who are frustrated with their own results, despite the use of bodybuilding supplements, and have therefore devised a standard of thinking that I hope all reading this article will decide is logical enough to consider adopting for their own muscle gain or fat loss pursuits. Most bodybuilding supplements do not offer advertised muscle gain or fat loss results, and you will spend thousands (or may already have) proving this to be factual, but even if you were to stumble upon a bodybuilding supplement that allowed you to gain muscle or lose fat quicker than is possible through a properly designed weight lifting workout and bodybuilding diet, you will then potentially harm long term health. The only method of knowing for certain whether an artificially induced product will harm long term health is with an extended (several decade) controlled study as to its impact, and because no such long term controlled analysis will ever exist on any bodybuilding supplement, you cannot be certain of their safety since, as we realize with smoking, legality does not ensure safety, and, in the long term, there are serious concerns that bodybuilding supplements can lead to cancer, organ failure (due to unnatural stress on the kidneys, liver, etc), endocrine damage, and premature death.

For the many bodybuilders who wish to produce maximum muscle building and fat loss, yet value the term "natural" due to its connection with preservation of health and clear rejection of all potentially harmful external aids towards such progress, bodybuilding supplements that promise quicker muscle gain or fat loss than is possible through weight lifting and diet alone are a contradiction to such a philosophy. You can either heed my warning, or waste large amounts of money as do so many each year searching for the ultimate steroid substitute that offers complete health preservation, when this, in fact, is an oxymoronic fantasy that has no chance of becoming reality.

Francesco Castano authors MuscleNOW.com, a diet and weight training program teaching the exact techniques for muscle gain without supplements or drugs. He also owns FatVanish.com, teaching exactly how to lose weight without supplements.