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I'll
start with the bottom line: you don't NEED supplements
to burn fat or build muscle. The human body can
function and make excellent athletic progress
on nothing but quality food and proper training.
But
you CAN use supplements to help the process along
faster. The real key is knowing what works, what
is garbage, and when an advertiser is simply trying
to take your money.
Let
me put it this way...in a recent muscle magazine,
I counted 120 pages of full-page (in some cases
3 to 6 page), high-powered supplement ads. If
you were to buy all these products, you'd be laughing
all the way to the bank...laughing maniacally,
because you'd have to rob it in order to pay for
all those supplements!
There
ARE good supplement manufacturers who make good
products...they put in what they say they're putting
in and don't try to fool you with advertising.
But this article is about the BAD ones and it's
more fun to talk about them...
So
what sneaky tricks do advertisers use to separate
you from your money?
1. Unprovable Testimonials
How
many times have you seen testimonials like "I
lost 10 pounds in a week" or "I gained
20 pounds of muscle in a month." These testimonials
prey upon the desire in all of us for fast and
easy results. Who wouldn't want results this quickly?
After all, if this person did it, I should get
those same results too, right?
To
me, this is like a car commercial that uses special
effects to catch your attention then has an official
disclaimer like "car should not be driven
underwater" or "does not imply resistance
to meteor strikes." It looks and sounds cool
but you know it's just not real - you want to
believe but...
And
believe me, I would LOVE to think that results
like this are possible with just a supplement.
But how do you prove that those results even happened?
You can't. How do you prove it was due to that
supplement? You can't. How do you know the person
wasn't "on" something? You can't. And
how do you get your money back when it doesn't
work? You can't.
About
10 years ago, I did an experiment on myself to
see just how much weight I could gain in a week
(keep in mind, I was just aiming for total bodyweight,
which includes muscle, water and fat). By going
on a very strict diet and training program for
2 weeks then completely reversing everything and
loading up, I was able to gain 25 pounds of bodyweight
in 7 days. And I owed it all to the incredible
new supplement I was taking called Hydrogen Dioxide
(a.k.a. H2O).
Here's
the full story on that:
How
I Gained 25 Pounds in One Week
2. Before and After Photos
Before
and after photos can be very inspiring and offer
proof that a product works. Or they can fool you
like the time Homer Simpson opened a can of beer
that had just been in a paint shaking machine.
Here's
a before and after picture technique you can try
at home:
Your
Before Picture:
- slouch as much
as you can
- let your gut
hang out and down, push it out if you can
- bow your shoulders
in, hunch your back over, and bow your knees
in
- stand directly
square to the camera so you look as wide as
possible
- frown or look
miserable
- have a messy,
unflattering hairdo
- wear the most
unflattering clothing you can find - make sure
the clothes highlight every bulge
- don't flex or
tighten up anything - make yourself feel as
flabby as possible
Your
After Picture:
- stand up straight
and tall
- suck in your
gut and flex your abdominals
- keep your shoulders
back
- look happy and
wear a big smile
- stand slightly
sideways (tilting your body at angle makes it
look thinner)
- wear flattering
clothing and have your hair neat
- flex all your
muscles and keep everything tight
You
can make quite a change in yourself pretty quickly!
3. Pay An Athlete To Get Fat
Then Pay Them To Get Back In Shape
It
is a little-known fact that some supplement companies
have been known to actually pay well-trained athletes
to stop training and get fat. Why? To get a really
awful-looking "before" picture.
Then,
when the athlete starts training hard again, eating
right and, of course, taking their magic supplement,
they get into great shape very quickly. The goal
is to convince you that it was the supplement
that was the key to the transformation, not the
fact that it was a well-trained athlete in the
first place. But an average person is NOT going
to be able to make a transformation like this,
no matter how good the supplement is.
When
you're already a well-trained athlete, you can
make dramatic changes to your body extremely quickly
(as evidenced by my own 25 pounds in a week weight
gain I talked about above). To me, it's like telling
a professional boxer that he can only punch with
his face for a few rounds. When he starts up with
the fists again, he's going to make a pretty rapid
improvement!
4. Six Page Special Ad Reports
Have
you ever started reading an article in a magazine
only to realize partway through that you're being
sold a supplement? These styles of ads are VERY
common - informative enough to make you believe
it's the magazine itself writing the article but,
lo and behold, the best solution to the topic
in the "special report" is the supplement
they're trying to get you to buy.
Note
to supplement companies: even a good product can
be wrecked with too much slick advertising.
5. Misrepresenting Legitimate
Scientific Studies
Here's
the set-up: take an ingredient that showed some
positive results in an isolated scientific study
that has nothing to do with actual weight training,
e.g. malnourished toddlers in Lithuania showed
an increase in lean tissue when given nutrient
"X".
Now
assume that the same results will also happen
in a 200 lb healthy male athlete. Tell people
that nutrient "X" is backed by scientific
studies. They know that you're not going to actually
READ those studies!
Here's
the kicker... now include 10 mg of it in your
product when the effective dose in the toddlers
was actually 1000 mg!
And
here's a fun way to kill an afternoon: call up
these companies and ask them to send you copies
of the studies they've used to prove their supplements
are effective. I've done that...they don't stay
on the line very long. Oh, they've sent me "studies,"
but where I went to school, legitimate scientific
studies don't generally include price lists.
6. Name Your Product Similar
to a Drug and Claim It's "Almost Illegal"
Luckily
for them, it's not illegal to be useless. If the
only thing a product has going for it is a mashed-up
name similar to a drug, pack up your underwater
car and go driving through a meteor shower. It's
going to be a long day.
7. Proprietary Formulas
I have
no problem with people keeping the lid on the
specifics of an effective formula to keep others
from copying it. But when that is used an excuse
to include next to nothing of the active ingredients
that actually do anything...
You
see, I don't want to pay for a pill that is 95%
methylbullcrapsomethingorother and 5% active ingredient.
When the phrase "proprietary formula"
is used, the manufacturer doesn't legally have
to say exactly how much of each of the ingredients
is in the formula.
The
best part is when the scientific study they used
to prove their product works shows a dose of 5
grams is needed to be effective and their serving
size/pill size is only 1 gram...AND they have
10 other ingredients listed as being in the pill.
8. Professional Bodybuilder
Testimonials
Because
I'm quite sure that a pro bodybuilder weighing
280lb at 4% bodyfat really gained all that muscle
from a couple of scoops of some fruity powder
that is supposed to give you a better pump.
9. The "Latest" Supplement
There
was a time when the AMC Pacer and the Gremlin
were the "latest" cars to come off the
assembly line. Just because something is the "latest"
doesn't mean that it actually works.
The
current craze: Nitric Oxide (a product that is
supposed to increase circulation to muscles, resulting
in a greater "pump"/blood flow to the
muscles for increasing muscle growth). Let me
put it this way...I've tried it, I've researched
it and don't waste your money on it.
The
only way it'll work is if you mix it with something
else that DOES work (like creatine, for instance).
Then you're just paying extra for the privelege
of combining the two supplements.
You
want a better pump? Drink more water - that's
what blood primarily is. The better hydrated you
are, the greater your blood volume will be. Need
proof? One of the primary dangers of diuretic
use for reducing water levels to show muscles
better is thickening of the blood, which basically
is reduced blood volume. The more water you have
in your body, the greater your blood volume will
be and the stronger your pumps will be.
Heck,
if you REALLY want to build muscle, half your
day should be spent sloshing around because you've
drank so much water!
10. "Eat What You Want
And Still Lose Weight"
Chances
are, a product like this contains something to
speed up your metabolism (most likely a herbal
stimulant) and/or something to block the absorption
of fat or carbs. You will probably lose weight
but you may be a nervous insomniac with debilitating
cramps and greasy diarrhea. What a great way to
promote good health!
Conclusion:
Bottom
line, I have no problem with supplements or supplement
ads that are legitimate. What I do have a problem
with (and you probably gathered this from the
article) is the way people are manipulated through
clever advertising into spending their hard-earned
money on useless products. It gives weight training
a bad name makes even good products look suspicious.
You
see, a supplement can only do so much - it can
only SUPPORT what you're doing with your weight
training and nutrition. If your training program
or nutrition don't work without supplementation,
no supplement is going to fix that.
I use
supplements every single day. They can help tremendously
in your training, especially when you use supplements
that are effective and have proven to be so! There
are plenty of good supplements and good manufacturers
out there (more on that below)!
---
SUPPLEMENT
REFERENCE EBOOKS
Bodydbuiling
writer Will Brink has two of the best supplement
review books on the Internet. If you're interested
in learning more about which supplements work,
which don't and which manufacturers you can trust,
I highly recommend checking out his books:
Diet
Supplements Revealed
Muscle
Building Nutrition
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