Creatine is an organic acid. That means your body makes it on its own. Bodybuilders and athletes take it upon themselves to supplement with over three times as much as they could derive from their diet and body processes in order to gain muscle mass.

Let’s talk about exactly what’s going on when you take creatine. There is a reason it’s become so popular over the years, and it all boils down to one thing: force. Taking creatine allows your muscles to exert more force than you are normally capable of, which translates to you lifting a lot more weight than you normally could. Think of it like this: in crisis situations, your body recruits every single strand of muscle fiber in order to help you get out of whatever situation you might be in. You’ve all heard of the stories of a grandmother lifting a car to save her grandchild. While I’m not saying creatine can cause this effect, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that our bodies are capable of much more than we see them do on a daily basis. Creatine helps our bodies use our muscles more effectively, recruiting more muscle fibers more effectively in order to help you push out a new personal record on any exercise you might be having trouble with.

Of course, with results like these there have been many scientific studies to determine if there are any negative effects to creatine use. These studies have overwhelmingly shown that although supplementing with creatine equates to taking over three times as much as “normal”, anywhere from five to twenty grams of creatine in a supplementation stack is completely safe and has basically no side effects whatsoever.

One of the only things that you have to make sure to do when supplementing with creatine is to drink more water. It definitely pulls more water into your muscle tissues, so you have to make sure to add a few glasses a day to your average intake to make sure that you don’t get dehydrated. Dehydration is the only serious side effect but if you’re smart about what you put into your body, you’ll have no problem remembering to drink more water and avoid the problem completely.

That’s about all there is to know about creatine. For any of you that want to build muscle and strength, the last question I have for you is: why aren’t you taking it yet?

The very first thing that you need to be aware of is the fact that creatine is a naturally occurring compound in our bodies. In fact, it’s found in almost any red-meat animal as well as some fish. We synthesize it ourselves in our own bodies because it’s a necessary compound for our bodily processes.

So why are we consuming additional creatine on top of what our body already creates and the extra that we consume from animal products? Isn’t this a dangerous addition that will cause serious harm to our bodies? The short answer is no. If you use it safely and responsibly there are no side effects or dangers whatsoever.

As long as you make sure to drink enough water whenever you’re taking creatine, you should be completely fine. Creatine draws more water into your muscle tissues, giving them a higher ability to create energy. This means that you’ll find the strength within you to do a few more sets or repetitions on any exercise you might be doing that day. Or, you’ll be able to increase the overall weight on all of your lifts while keeping the sets and reps the same.

Because it dehydrates you, there is a chance that you could run into some kind of kidney problems because of the way that it affects your urine. However, as long as you remember to keep drinking water – usually just a few extra glasses a day – your kidneys will have no problem doing the job that they were built for.

The last “danger” of creatine is not a problem of the supplement, but the person using it. Some people think that it is a godly supplement that will take them to their highest goals in a very short period of time. So, they think they can go into the gym and rack up an extra 50 pounds on some of their weakest lifts and be completely fine handling this amount of weight. While they might technically complete the lift, they can and will be straining their musculoskeletal system far beyond what it is used to. While pushing yourself in the gym is the key to growth, there is a red line that you don’t want to cross. If you do, you can find yourself in the hospital with some serious muscular injuries or tendon tears. I have seen it too many times in people I know to not pass on this very important concept. Creatine or not, you need to approach the gym with a clear and level head.

Protein is vital macronutrient, along with carbs and fat, but many of us don’t get enough through our diet to sustain muscle growth over time. This is a problem for any of us who are trying to pack on pounds of muscle and contribute to a stronger body and mind through our efforts in the gym. So, sports nutrition companies have come up with a clever way to help us out – they created protein powder.

When choosing a protein powder the first step is to look at what kind of protein it contains. Whey is the goal here. There are a lot of whey protein reviews out there, but if I were asked on the spot which whey protein powder I personally use I would say Optimum Gold Standard. They have a huge selection of flavors and also sell all of them in huge bulk quantities. Once you settle in on a flavor you like, you can just buy the biggest tub out there to get the lowest cost per ounce of the powder.

I’ll give you a few things to look out for when conducting your own protein powder review. First, look at the cost per ounce. How expensive is it compared to similar products on the market? You want to shy away from anything that’s priced heads and tails above any other product out there, and is making outrageous claims that don’t seem like they could possibly be true. Next, check out the list of ingredients. A protein powder should list a protein complex at the beginning of the ingredients list. They’re listed by total percentage of the product, so if something else is number one you know that it’s the most prevalent ingredient in the product and probably not a very high quality protein blend.

If you haven’t added protein to your supplement stack yet, you’re doing your body a huge disservice. Muscles are made of protein, and when you create the small tears in them that is the goal of lifting weights, you’ll be needing additional protein to rebuild those tears and create a stronger muscle in general. You wouldn’t want to deprive your body of other essential nutrients like water and vitamins, so why would you deprive yourself of the only supplement that can actually have the biggest impact on whether you build massive muscle or simply an average amount?

Back to the review of No Xplode, though. I believe there’s some caffeine in the formula, so you’re going to feel a lot more alert when you take it. I would recommend taking half of the standard dose the first time just to gauge how sensitive you are to caffeine. I had a friend who took the normal dose and his hands were shaking like crazy the entire time he was at the gym – he could barely re rack his own weights! I think he was the exception to the rule, but still – there’s no need to overdo it the first time you give it a try.

In the gym, you’re going to notice that after doing a couple exercises you will look a lot bigger than you normally do. Don’t worry – this is what No Xplode is meant to do. It fills up your muscles with blood, making you look bigger than you normally do. While this can be a big confidence boost while you’re in the gym, remember why you’re there in the first place. You’re not there to show off to all of the other guys and girls in the gym, you’re there to create a meaningful and significant change for the better in your life. No Xplode can help in the sense that it allows you to push yourself that much further on that decline bench press or full body squat.

In fact, I found some of the biggest benefits from No Xplode in the large compound exercises like bench, squat and deadlifts. You might have found that one of your body parts fails far before any of the other ones in a compound exercise. No Explode can give you the boost you need to power through that weakness for a couple more seconds or reps, allowing you to fully tax your entire musculoskeletal system. This is where the product absolutely shines. So ignore their marketing message and get it for what it does well.

The first thing to consider with any nitric oxide product is if the manufacturer claims that it is the best product out there. If they’re promising outrageous results that can’t possibly be true even if the product worked very well, then you’ve got a potential scammy product on your hands. Yes, the product is going to give you an edge that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, but let’s get right down to it – without diet and exercise you have no chance in hell of getting the results you want.

Next thing to check is if they have any ingredients in the products that are basically just filler, to make it more bulky and thus charge you more money for a supplement that may as well be made of sawdust. Do some research on common ingredients that are filler material in a lot of bodybuilding supplements so you can get educated and spot them when you’re out looking at new potential supplements to add to your workout regime. Also, even the ingredients that aren’t necessarily “filler” can often times be found a lot cheaper in other places. For example, if a nitric oxide product is 90% made up of one ingredient, it might be best for you to just go buy that ingredient separately and just avoid the whole supplement altogether. A few buddies I know that are workout fanatics have done this with a few of their favorite products. I’m not so sure that it applies to nitric oxide products but you never know. It doesn’t hurt to do the research.

One of the last (and weirdest) things that some nitric oxide products are doing is claiming effects other than in the gym. The effect of nitric oxide in general is to increase blood flow to your muscle tissue, so some companies have taken it upon themselves to advertise NO2 products as a sexual enhancer as well. While this may be true to some extent, if you actually have a problem with ED then this isn’t the way to solve it. There are plenty more healthy options for treating a condition like this.

Don’t get caught up in the nitric oxide scams. Do your due diligence and get around talking to people who you know and trust. If they have had good results using a particular brand, then you’re probably safe using it as well. Go with your gut on this, but make sure that gut feeling is backed up by solid knowledge.

First, what are nitric oxide supplements are intended to do? They’re designed to deliver more blood to your important tissues while you work out. They do this by opening up your blood vessels as well as thinning out your blood so it can be transported quicker than normal. This allows you to create more force during a workout, and lets you push out a few extra repetitions that you would normally not be able to do. This causes a higher amount of the small tears in your muscle fibers that are the key to muscular growth.

So, how can we be affected by this in a negative way? Well, often times guys who workout and use one of these supplements get so amped up on the caffeine and energy boost when they initially take it, they can go way too hard in the gym. This means they’re pushing their limits far past what they can do, even with the added boost of the nitric oxide supplement. This is very dangerous and can cause tears and damage to muscles that are far beyond the microtears that we want for muscle growth. Try to not get overexcited when you use a product like this and take the first few gym sessions after use very cautiously.

Another problem that people run into is overuse. This isn’t a supplement that you should be using every single time to you go life – it’s merely a way to bust plateaus and get to the next level on some of your more challenging lifts. Some people also have a problem with taking the correct dosage. They incorrectly assume that more is better, no matter what the substance or supplement. This is incorrect for nitric oxide supplements and shouldn’t be something that you even consider doing.

How do you know if you’re taking more than the prescribed dose? Sometimes even the suggested amount can be too much for those with a more sensitive body, or smaller stature than normal. If you’re feeling flushed and tingly, that’s a sign that you may have taken too much. Also, if you feel lightheaded and abnormally low on energy after you take it, you should consider eating a bigger meal pre workout and drinking the supplement further away from the start of your workout to let the effects kick in a bit more gradually. That being said, it’s a great supplement for those of you who really need to throw an extra 20 pounds on the squat and you just can’t seem to do it, no matter what you’ve tried in the past.

Well, here are a few things to think about before you start taking jack3d. First off, it is a stimulant – big-time. It’s going to give you that extra edge in the gym to lift heavy, hard and often, almost to the point that you may not look like you’re “normal” to other people in the gym, or even to family and friends before and after you head out to lift. You might notice that you’re more testy than usual and have little patience for those around you. While the creators of jack3d seem to think that this is an overwhelming positive, it is definitely a double edged sword that you need to be highly considerate of before you even think of gulping down a glass of this stuff.

If you have any kind of low tolerance limit for stimulants, you might find that jack3d is going to cost you quite a bit to use as it comes in very small tubs. You could run out quickly and then find yourself needing to grab a new tub a lot more frequently than you originally expected. This is especially true if you’re the type to really latch onto a particular supplement that seems to be working and maybe abuse it a little bit. Sometimes when you get such a “good” result from a workout product you don’t want to workout without taking it. This is a sign of a potential mental addiction to jack3d which has been reported by several users. Typically, they are people who have a hard time with other stimulants and substances as well, so if this sounds like you I would advise thinking twice before you try jack3d.

Lastly, the common thread of complaint that seems to be going around amongst jack3d users is that its effects wear off over time. I’m not talking about a one time use situation – I’m talking about the fact that people have reported that its effects over a two to three month period seem to drop off significantly and not return. So, maybe it’s good for the first month of a program for that extra pump and energy kick, but not throughout the length of an entire workout regime. It’s possible that you could use it safely for a month or so and then taper off in favor of a more traditional approach to supplementation and nutrition. That said, the choice is yours. Just make sure to do your research and feel comfortable before you make a final decision.

Surprisingly, in my research I have found that Jack3d actually has very few side effects – and the ones that do show up are relatively mild. When we look at what is actually in Jack3d, all of the ingredients are very safe on their own.

First off, let’s take creatine. I’m sure you know all about creatine, but I’ll cover it just to be safe. It’s a main ingredient in Jack3d and has no known side effects, simply because it’s a byproduct of the human body. That’s right, you have creatine in your system even when you don’t take any as a supplement.

Next, we have caffeine. Ok, so there are some side effects to caffeine, but as anyone who drinks coffee will tell you, they’re not that bad at all. Certainly not bad enough to make them quit the habit that they have probably been nursing for years on end.

Now we get into some of the more funky ingredients that you might not have heard of. Beta Alanine is one of the ingredients in Jack3d, and it seems like the biggest side effect that you’re ever going to get is similar to the feeling you get when you wake up and your arm is asleep, just less intense. It’s sort of a flushing feeling, but it’s nothing to worry about from a health standpoint. AAKG is also present in Jack3d and from all of the research I’ve managed to do (I’m a medical research paper addict – I like to dig into the details) it seems like the amount of AAKG in Jack3d isn’t even CLOSE to enough to have any side effects at all. Even when you do get to the dosage range where side effects can be an issue, it seems like they are extremely mild.

So, if you’re looking for a product that’s going to give you a pump before you hit the gym on a big squats or chest day, then I would say it is definitely safe to give Jack3d a try. The side effects of Jack3d are so mild or nonexistent that if it’s the way you want to go for that extra boost, then the choice is yours. Keep in mind though, that this isn’t a product that’s going to get you completely huge in no time – it only exists to pump your muscles full of blood and give you the extra energy to throw down a few more reps. That’s what’s going to stimulate those muscle fibers into action, tearing them down and building them back up to be bigger and stronger.

First off, here’s what I find cool about Muscle Milk. I’m sure by now you know a good amount about the different types of protein that you can consume. Muscle Milk has a blend of both the quick release whey protein, and then the slower to release casein protein. This makes for a nice mix of both fast and slow releasing protein, making Muscle Milk a good choice for a morning protein shake, but also as a post workout shake when you absolutely need protein released into your muscles as quickly as possible.

Second, the taste. Sadly people seem to care about the taste more than how effective the product actually is, so I’ll cover it briefly. Without a doubt, Muscle Milk has formulated some of the BEST tasting protein powder and shake formula that I have ever come across. I don’t say this lightly, because I am very serious about which workout supplements I actually use, but Muscle Milk is quite literally delicious. They have a huge range of flavors from chocolate malt all the way to strawberries and cream, so you’re bound to find one that matches your tastes. Let’s just put it this way: you’re going to look forward to drinking these shakes, hands down.

As far as the effectiveness: there are a few protein powders that give you that extra 5%, and Muscle Milk is one of them. I think it’s the fact that they don’t use any lactose in the formula, so if you don’t mix it with milk you’re not going to run into any of those lactose problems that a lot of us seem to have. Also, milk and lactose help to coat the stomach and delay absorption, so I’m thinking that the lack of lactose helps you metabolize Muscle Milk a bit quicker than the other protein powders.

Lastly, the formula actually contains a bunch of vitamins and minerals. Now I don’t know about you but I often forget to take my multi on a daily basis – but I never forget to drink my shake. With the addition of vitamins and minerals into the mix I don’t even have to worry about taking them! I just drink down my delicious shake and I’m all good!

In summary, hopefully my muscle milk review has helped you make a more informed choice when it comes to what protein supplement you should choose for your own life and workout plan. Personally I’ll be sticking with Muscle Milk for some time to come.

Your eating habits may be the single most important aspect in building muscle. A big mistake most
people make is neglecting their diet. They either eat a ton of unhealthy foods, expecting to gain weight
or simply just don’t eat enough and never grow. Ideal foods to gaining muscle mass would be foods that
contain a great deal of protein, even if it has some fat. Yes, eating some fat is alright, especially if you
are looking to put on some weight. This could be steak, chicken, fish, eggs, etc… For example, a normal
3 ounce skirt steak (1 serving) contains roughly 23g of protein. A typical serving of eggs contain roughly
25-30g of protein. This may have you pondering about how much protein you should be in-taking each
day. Well, a solid amount would be 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight. So, if you weigh 100 LBS,
you would want to bring in about 150g of protein every day.

Now that you have your diet down, it’s time to hit the gym with a workout routine. Your upper arms
are made up of two muscle parts: Biceps and Triceps. Although having big biceps looks great, you can’t
neglect your triceps, considering they are actually a bigger muscle than your biceps as they make up
two-thirds of your upper arm. Forearms are an important muscle group too for building a proportional
shape to your arms.

Some standard bicep exercises include EZ-Bar curls, wide grip barbell curls, dumbbell hammer curls,
and concentration curls. Then, you have more complicated bicep exercises, such as spider curls, high
cable curls, and reverse cable curls. There are endless amounts of workouts and exercises you can do to
target your bicep, so it is sometimes a good idea to switch up your routine every 3 to 4 weeks, to avoid
maintaining muscle mass, which is known as a plateau. Building your biceps, you want to directly target
them rather than compounding other muscle groups while lifting.

To go along with your biceps, it is important to directly target your triceps. There are many compound
lifts, such as close-grip bench, deadlifts, and standard bench presses that are definitely important for
gaining an overall mass, but it’s best to solely target your triceps through direct work. These direct
targeting exercises include dips, skull crushers, dumbbell tricep extensions, rope pull downs, and
dumbbell kickbacks. Again, it would be a wise idea to switch up our tricep routine every once in a while,
in order to lower your chances of plateauing. You will also want to give each muscle group 48-72 hours
of rest, before hitting that group again.