Are Bodybuilding Supplements The Easy Road To Muscle Gain or Fat Loss?

Often when the term "natural bodybuilding" is mentioned, those who participate in such a hobby contemplate intense weight training workout sessions and structured bodybuilding diet plans, but one additional variable, supplementation, is promoted as a requirement for any individual to succeed in adding muscle mass to his or her natural bodybuilding genetic potential. Since steroids are avoided by many due to their serious health risks, bodybuilding supplements are promoted as the "safe" and legal steroid alternative that bodybuilders are urged to consider.

Because very few who dabble with bodybuilding supplements have performed their weight training routines without using such products, they are unable to analyze the true effectiveness of the bodybuilding supplements they regularly consume, and therefore, mistakenly attribute any muscle building or fat loss to these products, even when making changes to a weight training or diet regimen that, in fact, is the foundation for any successful fat loss or muscle building venture. Instead of conducting legitimate testing to note muscle gain or fat loss with specific bodybuilding supplements using the exact same weight training and diet routine, many tend to become frustrated with their muscle building or fat burning progress, and once they return from a break with newfound weight training zest, they not only experiment with a new weight lifting workout plan and diet, but also invest in several bodybuilding supplements to use simultaneously, and if they gain muscle or burn fat, they rarely credit the weight training workout or diet, nor do they factor in the ease of building muscle mass following a layoff with nearly any marginally potent routine, but rather are convinced that the bodybuilding supplements are the catalyst behind any positive improvement, even when this progress is short lived.

This skewed analysis leads weight lifters across the world to believe that bodybuilding supplements are a required component for results, and popular bodybuilding magazines, most of whom generate the vast majority of their advertising profits from bodybuilding supplement companies, also convince the bodybuilding public that they must, without question, rely on bodybuilding supplements as the secret weapon to enhancing muscle mass, especially when champion professional bodybuilders are shown holding the latest bottled craze (of course, he fails to mention that his muscle building results are due to steroid abuse as opposed to supplement use!). Nevertheless, the overwhelming lesson sent by the bodybuilding industry that these products are the natural key to impressive muscle gains fuels many to accept this as truth, and the bodybuilding supplement industry profits as a result.

But what's the truth behind the bodybuilding supplement propaganda? I have been involved in weight training for many years, and through my own experience, along with emails received from those who are disappointed with their own fat loss and muscle gain, despite the use of bodybuilding supplements, and have therefore devised a standard of thought that I hope all who read this article will decide is logical enough to consider accepting for their own muscle building or fat loss career. Most bodybuilding supplements do not offer advertised muscle building or fat loss results, and you will spend large amounts of money (or may already have) proving this to be factual, but even if you were to find a bodybuilding supplement that enabled you to gain muscle or lose fat faster than is possible through a properly structured weight training workout and bodybuilding diet, you will then potentially risk long term health. The only possible way of knowing for certain whether an artificially induced product will cause long term harm to health is with an extended (several decade) controlled study as to its impact, and since no such long term controlled analysis will ever exist on any bodybuilding supplement, you should be skeptical of their safety since, as we realize with the deadly smoking epidemic, legality does not ensure safety, and, over long range use, there are serious concerns that bodybuilding supplements can result in cancer, organ failure (due to unnatural stress on the kidneys, liver, etc), endocrine damage, and premature death.

For numerous bodybuilders who wish to maximize muscle building and fat loss, yet value the term "natural" due to its connection with preservation of health and clear rejection of all potentially risky external aids towards such progress, bodybuilding supplements that claim to grow muscle or burn fat faster than is possible through weight training and diet alone are clearly never an option. You can either take not of my warning, or waste large amounts of money as do so many each year searching for the perfect steroid substitute that offers complete health preservation, when this, in fact, is an oxymoronic fantasy that has no possibility of becoming reality.