#408 Supplements That Kill Your Gains - Q&A

Siim Land (0:00)

Hey, my name is Siim Land, and today we're doing another Q&A. The first question is, what are some supplements that can affect your muscle growth in a negative way? I've mentioned several times in my videos and in my books as well, that doing some sort of like severe anti-inflammatory intervention after a resistance training workout specifically, has been found to be associated with reduced muscle growth, and it could also affect like strength gains in a negative way slightly. There's no evidence that it's going to apply to endurance exercise, but muscle growth per se does appear to be like negatively affected by massive anti-inflammatory interventions after a workout. So cold baths, like ice baths for several minutes are going to be doing that. A cold shower probably isn't strong enough for that, but the same applies to some of these anti-inflammatory supplements, specifically like vitamin C, vitamin E, NAC is also in this category, and all these like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen, et cetera, they can also affect your muscle growth and your negative if you take it after a workout. Now, there are some other supplements as well that could have effects on other parts of gains or other aspects of physical performance. So, reseratrol is something that has been found to reduce VO2 max, and possibly also like testosterone levels in elderly men specifically.

So, it's one of those supplements that you really don't want to take even before the workout if your goal is like VO2 max or optimal testosterone levels. Metformin isn't a supplement, but it's a pharmaceutical, and it has like similar findings that it can affect VO2 max in a negative way, and also lower testosterone levels. But most important is like these anti-inflammatory supplements, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, beta-carotene possibly, and NAC are the most like common supplements that might have this kind of effect. But the most potent effect will probably come from these NSAIDs, aspirin, ibuprofen, et cetera. Another follow-up question was, can astaxanthin affect muscle growth? There is quite interesting studies about astaxanthin having a positive effect on testosterone levels. Not in all studies, so it's kind of, you know, not so completely clear if it has that effect. But in a few studies, they do find that astaxanthin has a positive effect on testosterone levels. Now, astaxanthin also has been found to reduce aspects of muscle damage after a workout. So people who are doing high-intensity exercise, soccer or some other like high-intensity sports, they find that their muscle damage and muscle soreness is lower when they're taking astaxanthin. Now, I'm not sure if this can also affect muscle growth in a negative way, because yeah, like reducing inflammation, having an antioxidant effect, they can be counterproductive for muscle growth. So I haven't found any study linking astaxanthin supplementation to lower muscle growth or in inhibition of muscle growth, but it does reduce muscle damage, which can be great for if you're wanting to recover from the exercise faster, but it can be also more suboptimal if your goal is muscle hypertrophy. And interestingly, omega-3 supplements, they actually find that it helps with muscle growth. So supplementing with omega-3s actually has been found to be associated with higher muscle growth, especially in the elderly people. So it's kind of interesting that omega-3s, they have anti-inflammatory effects, but they don't appear to have a negative effect on muscle growth. Regardless, in my opinion, the best time to take anti-inflammatory supplements is either before a workout or not on the days that you're doing resistance training with the goal of muscle growth. So you can take anti-inflammatory supplements, NAC, vitamin C, vitamin E, or aspirin, or whatever it is, but do it not on the days that you're lifting weights. Next question, gelatin powder instead of glycine, and can you drink, eat it as it is? So gelatin powder, regular beef gelatin powder, is an excellent source of glycine. So it's about like one fifth of it is going to be glycine. So if you're having 100 grams of gelatin powder, then about 20 grams of it is a glycine, which is a large amount. But at the same time, of course, you're not going to be eating the gelatin powder with a spoon. You know, maybe you are.

You're like a different breed in that case. But, you know, technically, you could just eat the gelatin powder with a spoon and you will be getting the glycine. Your body will absorb the glycine. I guess the easier or tastier way to consume gelatin powder would be to just make jello out of it. So you can use gelatin powder to make your actual dessert jello with some berries or some fruits or something else that kind of sweetens the taste. Then you have a very healthy and high glycine dessert. So I make it myself quite frequently. But if I don't have time to wait several hours to make the jello, then I'll just mix it with maybe yogurt or something else like that. And I'll still consume it in a flavorable way. But yes, it's a great source of getting glycine, and it can be used in a lot of dishes.