 Supplements. Uh, you hear about them all the time in the health and fitness space. It's where you probably see most of the information being pointed to. You see a lot of ads in today's episode. We're going to talk about the best supplements you can take for a lot of different goals. In fact, we rank them and we categorize them. And you know us. We're not full of crap. We're going to be honest. So today's episode, we're going to talk all about supplements. All right. So I think we should open and start by talking about how supplements are a complete waste of time. If you're not looking at your exercise and activity, your diet and your sleep, if you don't, if those things suck, then you're essentially taking a thimble of water and throwing on a house fire. It's not going to do anything. You're, you're, you're not helping yourself. The only, the only challenge I, the only way I would challenge that is, and I, cause I a hundred percent agree. In fact, I remember first talking about the Honda, putting a spoiler on a Honda Civic, right? It's kind of the similar analogy. Yeah. But where I do think it could make a big, big difference is if you have a deficiency, that's, that's different. So we'll get there for sure. Yeah. So there is, there is that part, right? Like, and I think that matters. And my, my views on supplements in general have completely changed in during my journey in the fitness space for as long as I've been in it. And, you know, of course, as a young kid, I was overly excited about it. And then realized how little it had to do with our results and then completely dismissed it. And then the more I got into understanding, like, micronutrients and how a lot of these foods and things that we, many people are commonly deficient in relate to different operating systems in your body that could result in some of the bigger rocks being improved. I now realize looking back, like, OK, there's obviously a place for supplements, both on the, you know, performance and cutting edge. And, like, after you've checked all the main boxes, and then there's also a place for it where you are deficient, where I think it could really make a difference. Yeah. I think that the, the, the, if you look at the space, it's a little, it's actually a lot distorted because the space, it's like any space or like any market is driven by profits. It has to be. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist. But the problem with that is the most profitable segments of the market are going to get the most attention and information that's going to be put out. Right. So if there's something that is profitable, people who move into our space who have to, who want to communicate around health and fitness, there's a strong incentive to communicate more or distorted information in the sense that it's going to make it look like supplements are more important than they are because they're so profitable. So they're going to overhype it. Yes, because it's, it's, it's hard to profit or make a living in the fitness and health space without selling products, without selling supplements. So it, so to the consumer, when they look at, you know, the space, when they listen to podcasts, when they watch YouTube videos, when they look, go to social media, it's the information is going to make it look like supplements are a bigger piece of the pie. Like they're really important, but they're not in the context of, of the whole picture. Of course, nutrient deficiencies are a totally different thing. We'll get there, but if you don't have a nutrient deficiency, then they don't make up any, especially if you're not exercising, eating right and getting good sleep, it's like a waste of, it's a waste of time. But I can see why people are confused. I mean, as a kid, when I was a kid, we didn't have the internet or at least we didn't have the internet like we do now. So if I wanted information on fitness or muscle building or fat loss, I went to the magazines and it was, you know, flex magazine and muscle and fitness and Ironman and muscle mag and all those magazines. And those magazines, I mean, they made money through selling magazines, but they made way more money selling ad space and supplements. So when I went through and read it, I was under the impression that supplements were a big, big game changer. Yeah. And I spent a lot of money on supplements and a lot of time taking different supplements and my expectations were always really high. And I was always disappointed with supplements. Well, I think too, like a lot of these companies found out like certain hacks of getting people's attention, especially with the transformation pictures. And it was like there was nothing attached to the work or what they were eating nutritionally or anything else that they're doing in their everyday life. It was like, I started taking this and look at this dramatic transformation. And then it was just like, that was the end of the conversation. And so it's easy for you to just be like, wow, look how powerful that supplement is in terms of like what my goal is and how I can get there. This was one of the things that connected us. Yeah. When we first, well, before we started the podcast, the business at all, part of my personal motivation of turning on the social media platforms that I did to build a potential business or brand was actually to call this out that this has been, this has been the way to make money and fitness for a very long time. It is get famous, whether that be through, you know, bodybuilding, television, magazines, now social media. Once you garner enough attention, then you partner with a supplement company or you create your own supplement line or affiliate with several different supplement companies and you pedal that and you make commission off of that. That has been the way to make a lot of money in the industry. And yet I recalled all the years and hundreds and hundreds of people that I train and could not, not one client that I ever train that, oh, because I put them on these supplements, they had this transformation. So when I started to document my transformation process, part of what I was constantly communicating was that I'm not taking any supplements. I don't need any supplements to do this, to get in this incredible shape and neither do most of you. And when we all first got together, it was one of the things that we all found most in common was that we were really turned off by this was the formula. And it wasn't that we were dismissing that these things have some value or that there are certain conditions. It's just that that was the prevalent message in the space was take supplements and look like this counterbalance in terms of how we saw it because it was way oversold, way overhyped. It's also the most dishonest part of the of the industry. I mean, I remember learning and I learned this from an industry insider when I was in my 20s. I learned that they would go to bodybuilders in peak shape. So ripped, shredded, pumped, and they would take a picture of them. And then they would tell the bodybuilder to get out of shape and then they would take a picture of them. So in other words, eat a bunch of garbage and crap, stop working out. And they paid them a lot of money to do this. And then they would make that the before picture. So they take a picture of them, you know, 60 days later, trying to purposely gain body fat and not work out and all that stuff. And then that would be the before picture. And so they reversed the pictures and it looks like this crazy transformation. I remember learning that and being so well, so upset because I got so fooled. I mean, I bought, I remember it was offered to me. It was offered to me that specifically, right? Yeah, it was offered to me. It's $5,000 was offered to me. I don't even remember the company. It was a company I hadn't heard of before. But these supplement companies would hang out at these bodybuilding events. And, you know, if you were a winner or even top five, because I think when I got approached, I think it took third that time, you know, and they'll solicit these competitors. Now, luckily I entered that space in my 30s. I had already built business and have been successful. And so I wasn't in a place to need. But, you know, $5,000 is a decent chunk of money for basically just having to take some pictures and then actually get fat, right? So that's how it worked is like, hey, we would love to offer you $5,000 to represent our supplement company. We have these powders, fat loss pills, all these things like that. We would schedule the photo shoot. We would take care of everything. The only thing we actually want you to do is actually put on body fat, and then we're going to take photos afterwards and that we will use that as it, as it's your before picture, since you've already done the hard work to get in there. And they sell that to you and it's really tempting. And if, if I, if I was 20 and I needed money at the time and I guess I didn't have as much integrity, I'd probably be really tempted, especially if I really needed it. I mean, let's be honest, if you were in a position where like $5,000 is, you know, a couple months rent back then for you, like, most people who make that, they're what they want to do are poor. It's not a great way to make money. No, right. And compete and put yourself on stage and stuff. That's right. Most people live in an apartment with roommates and they spend all their money on food and training and whatever God knows what else. $5,000 to them is a big deal. And, you know, it's, it's the most misinformation, the most lies comes from the space, but I don't want to just completely demonize it because the truth is the space wouldn't exist without supplements. The first muscle building magazines, the first fitness magazines were literally put out at first as a way to sell bodybuilding competitions and then as well as a way to sell supplements. Weeder, not the first supplement company, but the first supplement company really realized it as a brand. He used his muscle and fitness and later flex magazine as a way to sell their products. And this is what created the industry. And then I remember when it's, I mean, I could, I'm a huge fan or should I say I really like spectating and watching this side of the industry. And I remember all the evolutions, you know, went from there to, you know, Bill Phillips figuring out how to really, how to make a supplement company, a hundred million dollar supplement company. And then he kind of wrote the book and then they got massive and then supplement companies just exploded and they crushed the market and they, they did. They supported and created the market. And so people have these really false expectations, although now I think a lot of people are more privy to the false advertising and the lies, but they're still effective. Before and afters are still very effective, even if they look too good to be true, because it seems like it's, it's proof that something's working. I've, I've spent so much money on supplements as a kid. Hard earned money. You know, washing dishes at the pizza, pizzeria is a 15 year old and I'd save up my money and buy, you know, I remember cybergenics. They'd sent me a box of like 15 pill, you know, bottles. I thought, oh, this is going to work because I'm taking so many supplements and I got diarrhea. I didn't do anything else to me, you know, as a result of science images on it. Yeah, you know, and so I tried them all. But you know, that, you know, that being said, there are supplements that can have an impact, can move the needle. But I do want to be clear. They don't compare to good exercise programming. They don't compare to a good diet or good sleep. They do something, not all of them. Most of them do nothing. Some of them do something, but they don't compare to those things. I want to be very clear before we get on to the types of supplements that we have found in our experience and the ones that are most supported by science to be the most effective. Today's program giveaway is the Maps Super Bundle. I think that's like four or five workout programs that you can get for free. Here's how you can win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications. If you do those things and then if you win, we'll let you know in the comments section. We're also running a sale this month. Maps symmetry is half off and the RGB bundle is half off. If you're interested in either one, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here comes the show. Now, what we did is we actually categorized supplements because we're going to go down in order of importance and value. And so there are three categories. And the first one is the best supplements for nutrient deficiencies. The second category is just the best for overall fitness, performance, muscle building, fat loss. And then the third category is like weird supplements that actually have been shown to have some effect. Okay. But those are in order of efficaciousness. Okay. So Adam, you mentioned nutrient deficiencies. This is a big one. If you have a, if you're lacking a key nutrient, your body cannot opt, it cannot operate optimally. And if it gets bad enough, you can actually cause big health problems. So this is why this is a big deal. If you don't have any nutrient deficiencies, what we're about to say, we'll do nothing for you. But if you have a nutrient deficiency and you supplement with the right nutrient, it's life changing. Well, and the reason why it is is because, and I'm looking at the list that you made right now, and it's because these can directly impact some of the big rocks. Yes. Hydration, sleep, recovery, like hormones. Yeah, hormones. A lot of these play a major role in your results. And if you're deficient in that, having, supplementing so that your body is optimally running, then helps something that your, your body naturally is supposed to do, which actually supersedes any of these performance supplements. Think of it this way. If you have a nutrient... Supporting all the work. Correct. Think of it this way. If you have a nutrient deficiency, you're sick. That's really the best way to describe it. So if you have a genuine nutrient deficiency, your body is sick. So exercise, diet, sleep, the best workout programming. It's like applying those to a sick body. It's going to be very, very tough. And the worse the nutrient deficiency, the bigger the impact when you fill that deficiency. So before you, before you start, I'm looking at your list right now, and I actually don't see something on here. And I'm just curious to why you didn't. Maybe you just missed it, or I want to know why you didn't put it on here, is Omega-3s. Yeah, Omega-3s typically aren't a deficiency, although people do see benefits from taking them. If you... I'm trying to list the most common deficiencies, but Omega-3s do have some value. So actually we can add those to the end of the list. I just thought that I wasn't sure there was a purpose for it. It's just not the most commonly like where you test. And I don't think there's like a classic, what would be considered deficiency with Omega-3s. And it's not as common as the ones that I listed. The ones I listed are like widely recognized as one. Yeah, I don't disagree with anything with you. I think those are all... When I think back to clients, like these are the big five, I would say. These are the ones that you'll find at least a significant minority. Some of these, a majority of people, will have a deficiency. And so the first one kind of covers the bases. That means that if you don't have a huge nutrient deficiency, this should be enough. Now, if you have a huge nutrient deficiency, you want to target that specific nutrient. But a good multivitamin covers kind of all the bases. Fills the gaps. Yeah, so if your nutrient deficiencies are at borderline or slightly below, so you have these like really big outward symptoms, a good multivitamin will cover those, for the most part, will cover those nutrient deficiencies. So multivitamin can be quite valuable to many people, especially if you don't eat a super balanced diet that's high in nutrient-dead foods like meat and eggs and fruits and vegetables. Then this becomes a little bit more valuable. It also becomes more valuable if you're dieting or you're in a calorie deficit. What people don't realize is when you cut your calories, you also cut your nutrients. So a 3,000 calorie diet that has a certain amount of nutrients versus the same exact foods, but you're only eating 2,000 calories. You've reduced 1,000 calories, but you also cut out a third of the nutrients that you normally get. So the lower your calories, typically the more likely to have nutrient deficiencies, all things being equal. So multivitamin fills the gaps and tends to make a difference. And the studies in the past were kind of murky on this because there's like a self-selection bias. People who tend to take multivitamin tend to work out, tend to eat better, but we have better studies now that show that multivitamins definitely can make a difference for most people. Now in your experience, is there a type of person that you've noticed the biggest difference in these or there are certain questions that you would ask somebody that would lead you to be like, oh, we should probably do this or is it a blanket, you know, most people should just take it. The more restricted your diet is, the more likely you would need a multivitamin. So like if you were following like a carnivore or a ketogenic diet or vegan diet. So if you're a less diverse diet, more than likely, you should probably definitely be a lot more. Yeah, because the nutrients, you know, you're gonna have more of certain nutrients and certain types of foods and more of other nutrients and other types of foods. Vegans classically have a high rate of nutrient deficiencies. And then if you had a very high processed food type of diet, because processed foods are typically high in calories, high in things that make the food palatable, but very low in nutrients. Now the problem with that though is it aren't a lot of processed foods fortified with a bunch of- They try to in a lot of them to make up the difference, but I mean, it's not the greatest types of or versions. When you get nutrients from food, you absorb them more than you would if you get them from supplements or from fortified processed foods. They're just more absorbable. So there are, like you could take, for example, iron and meat or liver is gonna be much, it's gonna be assimilated much better than an iron pill, for example. Well, I've even noticed with certain clients too that weren't following a very specific type of a diet, but they just have like the same food, the same thing all the time. And they're not rotating vegetables or not rotating meats. So this kind of fills the gaps with people like that that kind of fall into that same kind of pattern. Now the most common single nutrient deficiency is the TOSA, but it's probably vitamin D, vitamin D3. Over magnesium? Over magnesium. It's one of the higher nutrient deficiencies that people will have. And it's interesting, the worst of deficiency, the bigger the side effects, I mean, this one can cause depression, anxiety, joint pain, low testosterone. You know who just- There's a hormone effect to it. And in fact, some people refer to vitamin D3 as a hormone. You know who just discovered they had a deficiency? My dad. Now my dad, the reason why he didn't understand, realizes he's outside all the time. Now, my dad is dark, so the sun doesn't convert vitamin D as easily as it would in, let's say, Justin, for example, or Doug. And he's not outside as much as he probably should be or his ancestors evolved to be, because we're from Mediterranean and- I have theories around that. Sure. Because this is something that I figured out that I was massively deficient in. So massively that I was supplementing with it and I still came tested back low in it, which that blew my mind. And I looked scratching my head like, that's so weird to me. But the biggest difference I can say in my life today as a adult versus when I was a young, as a young kid, I lived outside. Always. Always. I was in the sun 24-7 all the time. And then when I turned 20, I started working bell-to-bell job in these big buildings where I have nothing but fluorescent lights and I was maybe on the weekends occasionally out in the sun doing some things like that. But I would say like a complete, like if you could say 80% of my child who was in the sun, 20% was in closed doors, that did a complete flip. I went to like 80% of my life indoors, maybe at best 20%. So I have this theory that my body adapted to the little high levels of getting vitamin D naturally, like through the sun and stuff. And then it went, then I went later in my life and completely neglected it. And so it caused it greater. The darker your skin is naturally, the more sun exposure you get to create the same amount of vitamin D. So you'll see vitamin D deficiencies will be higher in people with darker skin. Oh, interesting. Because we evolved, I say weeks, I'm dark too. We evolved being outside all the time. So like my dad, my dad literally every day, he's outside for at least a couple of hours. So we can handle higher levels versus like someone like Justin, like just a little bit of sun. You'll get more vitamin D. He's gonna take up all of it because- His body's gonna convert more. So like I said, my dad, I mean, we're Sicilian and when we did our genetic testing, like people are, some of our ancestors came from the Middle East. And so, you know, so if we don't get like all day sun, then this is something we need to supplement with. Now, you know what his symptoms were? He had anxiety and joint pain. And now he's older. So he thought he was just getting older. Went to the doctor for a checkup. They're vitamin D's low. Took vitamin D, within a week, joint pain's gone. He's like, I can't believe it made that big of a difference. People who live historically, people who lived in cold, darker climates. Yeah, northern Europeans. Northern Europeans, they would consume, naturally consume foods. I don't even think they realized it was just old wisdom that contained high levels of vitamin D, like cod liver. Cod liver, it contains a high levels of really a bioavailable vitamin D. And this is what they would consume in the winter to prevent winter illness or whatever they were called. What was the deficiency, like the extreme version of the deficiency? Was it rickets? Yeah, okay, that's what I thought. So vitamin D3, some estimates 30%, some as high as 70% of the population, probably too low vitamin D. We're just indoors all the time. Okay, so that's why I was curious because the next one is magnesium. Magnesium also. And magnesium is 60%. I've read that before because that was, I mean, I remember when I was so blown away by, again, it's so funny this out, this is literally how skeptical I am of supplements. It's like, I take a supplement, I like feel like, oh my God, this is game changer for me. I still question it and I gotta dive into like, what is it that is making me feel this way? Lo and behold, I have a major deficiency in magnesium and it's not that the hello Ned was freaking making me so, you know, like this a miracle supplement for sleep. It's that I was so deficient in it, it's high in magnesium and the right kind that's like, and that made the biggest difference in my sleep. Lack of magnesium can cause sleep issues, anxiety, weakness, fatigue, this one's very common. Now, one of the reasons why magnesium deficiencies are common is the foods that we have lower levels of magnesium than they used to because of the way that we grow food. The soil, right? Yeah, the soil is far less dense. Yeah, less mineral dense. Yeah, because what we've learned, we figured out how to replace the components in soil that allow it to grow food, but we don't replace everything. So it's like, you know, just put this in there, now we can grow plants, but now the plants and foods have lower levels of magnesium. So this is a common one and supplementing with magnesium, by the way, not all magnesium is created equal. Magnesium glycinate is typically more bioavailable. Magnesium three and eight seems to be better for the brain. And then there's like magnesium citrinate, which you don't really absorb very well, but acts more like a laxative. So in some people we use it in that way. So not all forms are the same, but this is one of the more common nutrient deficiencies. I should have known better because this is the same with like plants. I've told you guys before what made me so fascinated with marijuana was that in plants, it's NPK, right? So your nitrogen, phosphorus in N, what's K? So potassium? Potassium, yes, thank you. Are the three main like macronutrients? So it's like very similar to like proteins, carbs and fats for the human body. And then your ones that like if the plant is deficient, a lot of times it'll show itself in its leaf coloring or the way it's withering or curling. Magnesium is like one of the number one things that it's deficient in and you supplement it. There's so many parallels to like feeding a plant, a balanced diet of NPK like that, just like it is protein carbs. And if you're not, all these other levels are thrown off and the plant expresses it. It's just that it's so obvious in a plant where sometimes for us it's not as obvious for people to pick up on it. Yeah, that's wild. So this next one isn't really an issue if you eat the standard American diet, you don't work out. This is probably not an issue for your people because you probably get plenty of sodium in your processed food diet. But among people who are fitness and health oriented, who avoid heavily processed foods, who eat whole natural foods, who sweat regularly because they work out or people who work outside a lot, construction workers and roofers and who also are health conscious, who sweat quite a bit. Sodium makes a big deal in most people when they bump their sodium intake, if they eat a whole natural food diet and they work out a lot. Like this is so big that I know eight out of 10 people that I recommend this to are gonna come back to me and report that they saw a big difference. Well, this is huge in our community. Like so if you're listening to this podcast, I actually think this is one of the big ones. That's why I put it there. Because you're a health and fitness person. If I'm talking to a friend of the family or some family members that are not into health fitness, I'm not even worried about this because of how much sodium is loaded in processed food. But if you're a health conscious person and you would consider yourself somebody who eats mostly whole foods, this is actually like one of the first go-to things that I end up recommending that ends up making a huge difference. And a lot of that has to do with how much we demonized salt for so long that if you are a health conscious person, one of the things you right away do is like, oh, I should also reduce my salt. And you're like, oh, shit. If you went from processed foods, eating whole foods, and then you're also trying not to salt your food, you're almost certainly low. Yeah, you pretty much just eliminate it out of your diet. And that's just gonna cause a whole another host of problems for you. Yeah, even if you salt your food, it's probably, still not a lot. No, it's probably still not that much. Especially in comparison to processed. It's not even in the same universe. That's right. If you eat low carb, you need even more. Low carbs, it sucks the salt and water out of your body. In fact, the whole keto flu is probably most likely due to an electrolyte imbalance. So people like all of a sudden drop their carbs. Like, oh, I feel like garbage for a week. I gotta adjust. Just throw some sodium and some water. Electrolyte powder would do it. Element is a company we work with. They have a good product. And you'll probably feel better within the next 10 minutes. It's pretty profound. By the way, symptoms of not having enough sodium, muscle cramps, fatigue, low grade, constant headaches. Yeah, like bad, like you don't get good pumps or you feel flat in the gym and just reduced athletic performance. All right, this next one is also quite common. It's especially common in vegans. And that's the B vitamins general, but B12 in particular. Low B12, your energy's gone. And you can develop anemia. You can actually have good iron levels, but B12 is so low that you're anemic and feel like death. I've worked with people like this where they, everything looked good. Everything, like their diet, everything was fine. Then they went, and by the way, you can have a B12 deficiency because you have gut problems, you're not absorbing enough B12 in your diet. I had a client once who got a shot of B12 and she's like, within 15 minutes, I felt like a completely different person, so. I think this one highlights, again, what we've talked about many times, which is just how many people under consume protein. I think that- Yeah, you'll get that in your meeting. That was the correlation that I found with this, was that if I had a client who thought they ate, because they had one meal or they had four ounces of meat in the day of, they just were not getting enough B vitamins. And so it's obviously found a lot in red meat. And so if you don't hit your protein intake consistently, this is also one of the most, and of course, if you're vegan, right? Vegan is number one. If I had a vegan client, that we almost always would probably have to supplement with this for sure. And then even if I just had like a normal client who was under consuming protein, especially like red meats, this was also a super common. I always had my vegan clients take B vitamins and sometimes iron, oftentimes iron and vitamin D always because the vitamin D form you'll get in vegan sources is not D three, it's called D two. And it's not nearly as bioavailable or as useful. The iron you get from plant sources, same thing. And then B vitamins are pretty much non-existent. So I would always, when I get a vegan client, I'd have them take these supplements. And I would say probably 70% of them noticed a pretty profound difference. The next category are the best overall supplements for fitness that aren't necessarily filling nutrient deficiencies. Now, no shocker to us, but maybe to you, there's only two. This is a short list. There's only two in this category. I like this though, because this, I mean, this is so true to like, when I think back to the two things I have used the most or spent the most money on in my entire career, these are the two, right here. So the first one, which I will label the king of all supplements because besides again, nutrient deficiency filling supplements, because it's the one that has the most studies. It's the one that has been shown to be safe unequivocally across the board. It's also the one that contributes to not just muscle gain and fat loss and athletic performance. Cognitive. But now we know, now we see that it's good for the brain, it's good for the heart, it's good for the liver. It may actually be anti-cancer there's some studies now that are suggesting that. I feel like they're gonna keep finding things about it. This is a longevity supplement, not just a fitness supplement. And I went from saying, hey, creatine's a great supplement, take it or not to, everybody should probably take it. So creatine, king of all supplements, creatine monohydrate, that's the form that you take, five grams a day. This one for me was a game changer when I first took it, not because creatine blew my mind with the muscle gains, but because it did something. Like I took so many things before it. There's a first supplement I felt. That's it. That's 100% what happened to me. I took so many supplements, they didn't notice anything. And then I took this, I remember I bought, it was EAS sold it. And it was expensive by the way. It was like a 20 day supply for $45. It was back in 1995, I wanna say. So like now you could buy a fowl, like you could buy a huge tub of it for that much. The irony of this is these two are like some of the cheapest supplements that you can buy. And so to that point on both of these, and this is what happens in this space is if it is universally the best and every supplement company knows it's the best, well then it becomes highly competitive. So then what do they do? They try and market it in a way or change something about it. Our version is better. That's right. They'll change one thing about it, like how it's made or processed or what is added to it. Cytrate or yeah. Yes. And then what they have to do is then put a lot of energy and effort into talking about the thing that's different about theirs to convince you to spend the extra $3 to $5 per bottle on it than going somewhere where it'd be less expensive. There is no version of creatine better than creatine monohydrate. That's the one that's studied. And so what you run the risk of by going with other forms of creatine is actually getting a worse form or one that might have some negative effects because of what it's attached to or how they made it. Creatine monohydrate, that's it, period. End of story. That's the creatine you want to buy. It's also the least expensive. But yeah, I remember taking it and my strength after a week I added five to 10 pounds on my lifts. You know, I was a 16 year old, no, I may be even younger, 15 or 16 year old kid and it blew my mind. Yeah, I can't get that last rep, no problem. It definitely was mind blowing that it worked. So that's at the top. Now second, also very valuable protein powder. Now why is protein powder valuable? Because it's hard to hit protein targets. We know if you eat about a gram of protein per pound of target body weight, you're going to get better results than if you eat less than that. It's hard to do it with all natural food. Like protein is hard to eat because it's satiating, it's hard to get and prepare. Even if you're light, even if you're a 120 pound female, go eat 120 grams of protein a day and you'll see how hard it is. It's not like fat and carbs, which are easy to eat. Protein is hard to hit. Hands down, it's the most mis-macronutrient ever that I've seen consistently across the board in all clients. In fact, you could argue that this could go in the other category because if you are somebody who is deficient in protein chronically, like under eating like that, supplementing for that is a big deal. I mean, how many times have you had clients like that that were only female clients eating 20 to 30 grams in a day and they had hair loss or they have an issue? Like, I mean, just there is definitely a case to be made that this could also fall in the category of deficiencies on some people. So this one definitely is right up there with creatine as like the ultimate, you know, best for fitness, but then also an area where a lot of people tend to miss. Now that being said, you've heard it on here many times from us, I'm always using this like, like creatine, like you take every day no matter what, right? But with protein, my goal is to get it through whole foods and then I keep the bars or shakes as a thing to check in with myself at the end of the day and go, oh man, I've already ate everything. I'm pretty full. I don't wanna, or I don't, it's eight o'clock at night. I wanna go make another big meal in the kitchen and I'm shy, 40 grams of protein for my day to hit my bare minimum of what I need to. I'm gonna use my shake. That's how I'm using it. It's an insurance policy. That's how I look at protein. It's my, just, it's my in case bottle. And when I track my whole day, I end the day and I go, oh, I'm off by 30 or 40 grams. By the way, I don't like people taking more than let's say a serving or two, depending how much protein. If you eat a lot of protein, you're a big guy, you might need two servings of protein, but I don't like people taking a lot of servings of protein powder because you miss out on the satiety benefits, the nutrient benefits, and some of the digestive benefits of eating whole natural foods. Nothing beats whole natural foods. If you can eat your protein target with whole natural foods, then don't worry about protein powder. I just know, through training people, that's a hard thing to do. And unless you're a fitness fanatically, pay attention, you're probably not eating enough protein, in which case protein powders make a big difference. Yeah, it's gonna take a little bit of work, too, to kind of, there's various versions of protein that you'll be able to digest effectively and assimilate, so there's no specific one we're recommending because everybody has individual needs and they're gonna receive it differently, so there's vegan sources, there's, there's whey, there's all these other different sources in collagen and whatnot, so you just have to kind of work your way through that if it works best for your body. I'm so glad you said that, Justin. The number one thing to consider with a protein powder in the context of you actually hitting your protein targets is digestibility. You're gonna see a lot of companies advertise their protein powder as the most bioavailable, the highest in branched amino acids or essential amino acids, the most anabolic. That only is true when your protein intake is low, so if you're missing your targets, then whey protein is gonna beat the crap out of, let's say, collagen protein, but if you're hitting your targets, it doesn't matter and the studies show this. You have plenty of amino acids from, because you're eating so much protein, it doesn't matter, and if you use protein the way we say it, which is to hit your target, then its digestibility is what you need to consider and it doesn't matter. None of the other, nothing matters in terms of the source, except for the fact that I digest this the best and that makes me the feel the best. All right, last category. I saved this one for last, because these are the least important. They're the fun ones. Like how you labeled it. Yeah, these are the best weird supplements for fitness. I said the weird because they're exotic or they're herbs or there's some kind of plant extract. Now I included the compounds in here that have the best data or the best experience, okay? I said or because studies aren't perfect and I am gonna anticipate that some of the ones that I listed in here that might not have tons of studies, they have some but not tons, will eventually have the studies to support them. Really it's only one category that's like that. So these are the ones with the best data and or the best track work record in terms of experience. Now the first one though that you're gonna list off which is Ashwagandha is across the board been researched. Great data. Some of the best data as far as like it being been. Ashwagandha is great for helping the body deal with stress. Okay, well, what's important with that? Do I just feel relaxed? Well, yeah, but that's not really it. It literally enhances the adaptation process. Okay, so if you're trying to build muscle or burn body fat or improve your athletic performance, you are stressing your body. That's what's triggering those changes. And so Ashwagandha enhances the adaptation process. It's been used for thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine. So it has a long track record and we now have studies to show that it does in fact do those things. It does help boost strength. It does help with fat loss and it does raise testosterone in men with low testosterone. Now this would be considered the number one adaptogen on the market, correct? But with the most data for sure. And explain the, you've done it before but just for people that might be listening to this episode for the first time, I love your dimmer switch example of like trying to explain what an adaptogen is doing in our body. Yeah, so adaptogens, your body's ability to deal with stress really has to be balanced in order for your body to adapt really well. And so adaptogens allow your body to handle more stress and adapt better to the stress. Meaning if you're not getting the best sleep and you're working really hard and you're working out, taking Ashwagandha will improve your body's ability to deal with all that. So rather than having to cut your workouts in half and really look at your stress levels, you can take Ashwagandha and it could make the difference between whether or not you get stronger or whether or not you're overtrained or fried as a result. I recommend Ashwagandha. I used to recommend it to moms and dads of new kids who were just getting poor sleep. And I'd say, all right, here try this and see how it works. You also had me taking it when I was years ago trying to naturally kick up my testosterone levels. Like where is it playing a role with something like that? They're not quite sure how it works, but it's traditionally was using Ayurvedic medicine for libido in men. And they know why it works or how it does that. So if you have low testosterone, Ashwagandha will reliably raise your testosterone about 20%. It's not this huge, crazy, oh my God, I tripled my testosterone boost. And I don't think that's where the muscle gains come from, it's not a big enough boost. And I think for somebody who is a young teenager who's trying to build muscle, that's not the way you sell this. It's to a guy like me who was 40 or close to at the time and is low testosterone, that person would feel the difference. Now to the young person, I would give Ashwagandha like this. I would say, this is gonna allow you to train harder. It's gonna allow you to get away with more practices. Burning the candle at both ends. That's right. So if you're an athlete, if you're a young athlete, you're constantly juggling overtraining. You always know, you know this, right? Oh, I'm too sore, I'm too stiff, and oh, you know, coach is pushing me too hard. Ashwagandha, it's like, it's gonna basically allow you to recover faster and adapt better to that stress. All right, this next one, this is the only one. It's got, there's studies that support it, but they're not the best studies and there's not a ton of them yet. I say yet because my experience with both myself and every single person who I've ever had try this and in combination with old Soviet studies, supports the use of turquasterone or ectosterone, which essentially are compounds that contain what are called ectosteroids. These are plant hormones or insect hormones, but they get them from plants, but insects contain these as a hormone and the Soviet studies were remarkable. Now there's quite, lots of people like to question these Soviet studies, but based on my experience, I think they're legit. They actually compared ectosterone to five or 10 milligrams a day of dynamol. For those people who don't know what that is, dynamol is an anabolic steroid. It's five to 10 milligrams a day is not a huge dose. Bodybuilders go way higher than that, okay? But you give the average person 10 milligrams a day of dynamol, they're gonna feel it. They're gonna gain five to seven pounds of muscle. Their strength's gonna go up maybe 15, 20 pounds on some big lifts. They're gonna get a little leaner. So the average person will notice this. Bodybuilders in the 50s, 40s and 50s would take about five to 10 milligrams of dynamol. So if you wanna look at what genetically gifted bodybuilders who took a little bit of dynamol look like, look at pictures of people like Larry Scott, the first Mr. Olympia. So he's a genetically gifted bodybuilder because they all are, plus he took about 10 milligrams a day of D-Ball. So that's what they look like. Tecrosterone and ectosterone in the Soviet studies performed, outperformed them. They actually, the people in the studies- Outperformed spideroids. Built a little bit more muscle and strength. And- At the lower dose though, right? That's what you're- Five to 10 milligrams of D-Ball dynamol. I mean, bodybuilders don't take that much. They only take more than that, I should say. But they only, so I'm trying to remember. I think, just I messed around with D-Ball. Probably 25 milligrams. Yeah, 25. On top of other stuff. Oh yeah, of course. Nobody just does these days. But I mean, for the audience that has no idea what that feels like, like 25 to 50 milligrams of D-Ball was crazy. Yeah. Like I- Yeah, within three, two weeks- I actually came off of D-Ball because I was embarrassed of how big my shoulders are. That's a real, that's a true story. Like this was me in my 20s. I wasn't openly discussing or telling people that I was taking steroids. And it was blowing my shoulders up so fast. I was like, every, and every shoulder workout, I remember like stacking on like a lot of weight. And I remember I got to a point, I'll never forget I was standing like this. And I saw my own reflection and it looked like I had basketballs on my shoulders. And I was like, embarrassed. I was like, oh my God, everybody's gonna know. I'm gonna just give you like a- Yeah, everybody's gonna know. I wouldn't have been embarrassed. Cool, let's keep going. I mean, of course, there's a party that's cool, but it was that obvious that, I was going to have to tell people I'm taking steroids because they're going to ask because it was like this such a- Now for people listening right now, there's a big difference between five to 10 milligrams of D-Ball and 25 milligrams. I mean, that's five times the difference. Yeah, so, but like I said, it's still something people would feel. And like I said, bodybuilders in 40s, 50s, this is what they took. Olympic athletes in the 40s took this to compete in the 50s to compete with the Soviets. This is a window, right? Yeah, of effectiveness. Yes, so I'll get there, right? So, but the studies show that it's as effective. I've used ectosterone and turquesterone on and off for, I don't know, 10 years. And it's, you feel it, you really do. I get stronger, I build more muscle. It'll put about seven pounds of lean body mass on me. Your appetite goes up. You sleep hard. You get really weird, vivid dreams, which is a strange side effect. Libido tends to go up on it. But the window effect is about 45 to 60 days. After that, it stops doing anything. And I don't know how it affects women necessarily because they're starting to think that it, the way that it works is through the estrogen receptor, which is strange. Which can't be good. Well, I mean, so here's the deal. It improves cholesterol profile. It's been shown to be good for the liver. It boosts the immune system. So it's actually like a good for you supplement as well, which they showed in the Soviet study, but they also show now. Interesting. Here's the problem. Good luck finding real turquesterone and ectosterone. A lot of supplement companies out there saying they have it. It's expensive, it's hard to get. But if you find the real stuff, you know, in fact, I found some real stuff and we'll see you later on if we end up working with this company. So I'm not gonna mention them yet because I haven't vetted them completely. But I had the editors take it. And I'm like, let's see if this is real. I told them. That's actually you to guinea pig then. He's like, I'm not sure if it's real or vetted yet. So I give it to my employees. Hold on, let me be clear. Do you think you're gonna take it either? I had all of us taking it. I'm like, let's see what happened. Well, sure enough, they'll hit PRs. Everybody hit PRs. Everybody noticed their appetite go up. Everybody knows they slept better. So it's legit stuff. It's more on the hardcore end, but there's a window. And when you go off, you do notice a little bit of a dip for a couple of weeks before you come back up to normal. Next one. Next one is Cordyceps. Cordyceps is weird because this is a fungus that takes over insects and acts like it makes some zombies. The Chinese have used Cordyceps for a long time. It does improve stamina and endurance. Studies will show this. It's also anti-cancer, antioxidant, and it's healthy for you. But when it comes to stamina and endurance, you feel this for sure. I don't notice it as much with strength training unless I'm doing short rest supersets. When I did Jiu Jitsu, this was crazy. It was like, I'd take it. And within a week, I was like, my stamina was like significantly better. Well, isn't there a famous story of the women's Olympic swim team? Oh, the Chinese swim team? Who knows if this is really what happened. But they were winning and they were like, oh, it's Cordyceps. Maybe they were taking some other stuff. Oh, I thought they tried to ban them because they were taking that. No, Cordyceps is legal. It's still legal. So you could take it. Yeah, no, I know it's still legal, but I thought that that- They were making a deal about it. Yeah, they were making a deal about it because it makes- The Chinese coaches said it was Cordyceps. But who knows? It might have been just them being like, yeah, it's not some undetectable hormone that we just invented. Doesn't this also have some benefits with your tolerance for like sauna and heat too? Yes, yes. Now that I noticed, and that's other people have noticed, I don't know if there's any data to support this. That may be where the stamina comes from. The fact that you don't overheat as much. I'm wondering if that's where it comes from. Because I noticed I can go in the sauna forever when I'm on Cordyceps. There's some crazy studies about that core temperature studies that remember that you put the glove that was like cooled down like in between bouts and your recovery time was like in half. Yeah, pretty crazy. Lastly, this is a famous, another famous Soviet herb, era herb, they actually gave this to their soldiers. And there's some crazy studies on rhodiola. They'll take mice, rats, let them swim until they drown. So basically like max exertion, I know messed up, right? But rhodiola significantly increases the amount of time animals can swim until they drown. In athletes, this improves stamina, endurance. It's got some mild stimulatory effects. It's also acts as an adaptogen. Some people, if they use the recommended dose, start to feel a little bogged down or overheated, that happens to me. But if I use a lower than normal dose, this definitely makes a big impact. What was, I remember we talked about that study a long time ago. If you remember, I wanna hear what it was because I remember it was like a crazy amount. Like it was, again, you correct me if I'm wrong here. But it was like the mice were thrown in a bucket with no rhodiola, basically after a couple of minutes they drowned, the ones that were given it was like 10 times longer or something. It was like a ridiculous amount longer. It wasn't like, oh, they 30 seconds longer and then they drowned. It was like they were able to sustain. That's why the Soviets studied this because they're like, if we go in this long drawn out, remember the Soviets, this was after World War II it was a crazy war and they said, oh, our soldiers can survive longer in cold weather, no food, no sleep, and just being out there with needing crazy stamina. That's why they invested so much time and money in rhodiola. Rhodiola's got a lot of studies that support it and it actually works. I personally use rhodiola as a way to come off caffeine. So coming off caffeine sucks. Is that in red juice? Correct, that also has quarter steps. The Organified Red Juice has both but rhodiola for me helps me with caffeine withdrawal. Otherwise it's terrible because I notice it gives me a little bit energy, a little bit of stimulant effect and I don't feel like I'm brain dead because my caffeine intake is down to zero. So there you have it. Those are the best supplements in each of the categories that we listed. If you like our show and you want more free stuff from us, we have a lot, go to mindpumpfree.com, check out all of our fitness guides. We have guides that can help you with all kinds of fitness goals, everything from building muscle to burning body fat to improving longevity. You can also find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump DeStefano and Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam.