The Most Overrated Supplements

Next question is from I am sofa king. Awesome. I love this person's day. What are the most overrating overrated supplements? Didn't we do an episode dedicated to this? I think we kind of did. I think it was literally titled that too, wasn't it? Something like that. I think we'd all agree BCAs. I mean, we've talked about that. That was in there. So I know that was one of the, I think we did five. I want to say we did like the five most overrated supplements. If you're consuming enough protein. Branched chain amino acid supplements and essential amino acid supplements are valuable for specific types of people. People who don't eat a high protein diet can get gain some value from them. So if you eat, you know, if you're eating 50 grams of protein a day and you work out and you supplement with branched amino acids, you will get better recovery, you know, better muscle growth, all that stuff. But if you just eat more protein, you'll get that benefit. And then some, if you're eating a high protein diet, it's literally, you know what it is? I actually saw a meme that really illustrated this. Well, there was a guy that was outside, it was raining. And then he had a water hose and he was washing his car. Yeah. And it was like, that's what branched amino acids are like, right? It's like it's raining and you're throwing extra water. I've seen the water polo one. The guy's treading water and he's got a water bottle. He's dumping water bottle in his head. So I would say that's got to be up there. And again, I see value in specific types of people. I would recommend it to clients who had really low protein diets, but nobody else really benefited from it. I would put fat burners in there. So I would put most of the fat, not all. I can't think of any fat burners that I wouldn't put on there. They don't burn fat. That's right. That's why I think they're... They might make you eat less because they suppress your appetite for a short period of time, but they don't burn body fat. They're fun. So any fat burner would go on there. BCAAs would go on there. What else do we have on that list that I... I can't recall what the five were. I know we had five on there. Yeah, there's a lot of... Every year, right, new supplements come out and they promise the latest and greatest, whatever. I mean, the truth is... Most supplements are overrated. Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, you know what? Even the best supplements, okay? We talk about how great creatine is. We know the value of protein if you're under consuming. At the end of the day, I mean, our goal should always be to get most, if not all the things you need through Whole Foods. And where I see the most value in supplements is to supplement those needs when you can't hit them. So if you're under consuming protein, then protein powder is extremely valuable. I mean, very, very valuable. But it's even more valuable to get it through Whole Foods. So if you can get it through Whole Foods and not use any protein powder, that's even... You're winning even more. So, you know, the supplements are such a small percentage of the benefits that you get from training and dieting. Yeah, I guess too. I mean, there's ones that are just specifically trying to target, like for pre-workouts or like, you know, like No Explode or like, you know, the NO2 portion to get you a better pump. Whereas you could just drink a lot more water and, you know, you'd probably be doing just fine going in that direction versus like adding, I don't know, citrulline and all these other things that have value. But in terms of it stacking up against just like making sure you're properly hydrated, I would think it falls a little bit in comparison. So there's the five we listed before. So we listed branched chain amino acids, fat burners, nitric oxide boosters, to your point right there, Justin, testosterone boosters and collagen. And so the case was on the testosterone boosters were if in the context of you having, you know... Low testosterone. Low testosterone, like really low testosterone. Some of them will show it. Then a booster can kind of bring you up to a higher, more normal level. But if you were like I was, a 17-year-old kid who's got probably testosterone through the roof when I was trying these things, they're absolutely worthless. Also, the effect seems to be temporary for testosterone boosters in that case. You start to see kind of this losing effect. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of like you have a car and you put a new air filter on it. So does the air filter do something? Yeah, maybe increase a little airflow. Is it going to give you like five more horsepower? No, it's not going to give you five more. You might sound a little better. It might make it a little bit more efficient. Oh, they say it gives you like 15 more horsepower. Yeah, I mean, okay. Have you ever put an air filter? Like put an air filter, go measure your quarter mile, put it out, you know. Is there going to be a drastic difference? Probably not. Creatine, the most effective supplement that's out there is going to add like a few reps to your lifts. You might add five pounds to some of your lifts. And creatine is by far one of the most effective supplements out there. Just to give you an idea of how big of a, you know, how overrated most supplements are. I think most people think that supplements are like 30% of their success when it's more like 5% or less of their success. So, I mean, and that's just the truth. Like it doesn't make that big of a difference, especially if everything else is off. Like if your training sucks, take all the supplements you want. It's not going to do anything for you. It doesn't make that big of a difference. So aside from maybe filling some nutrient deficiencies where I could see a lot of value, I don't see a huge amount of value for most of them. The other one that we talked about was collagen protein, which I think that if you're getting regular, getting your protein intake, then it's all protein powders are worthless if you're hitting your protein intake. And then collagen, I think pulling it out to just collagen protein, if you're taking something like whey protein, it's superior than that. We've already talked about the studies that support whey protein being more valuable. If your protein is low and you supplement with protein, you'll notice a difference. Collagen or whey, or any other protein. And some of them are a little different. Like collagen, you will notice more nail growth and hair growth just because the amino acid profile. But if you have, if your protein intake's high, you've got enough of all the amino acids and the benefits that the law provides. Well, I've noticed that game more popular like in the wellness world, especially in with women. That's what the hair, the nails, the skin. Right. So hair, nail, skin angle that they're trying to use as like a beauty. Along those lines, think of the average female client that you had. Not the fitness fanatic, the average female client. They don't eat enough protein. So they notice it. So they do it. They go, oh my God, it worked. That's why it's gotten so popular because there's someone listening right now. 100%. We have enough people that listen. They use collagen and they probably swear by it. Yeah, my skin, my hair, my nails. Yeah, because someone told them to take it. They started taking it and they noticed those things improve. The thing that I would say back to them is, I guarantee if you got rid of your collagen protein powder and you replaced it with whey, you'd get the same benefits. Or if you just made sure you hit your protein intake every day through Whole Foods, you would notice the same benefits. There's nothing magical about collagen but it's marketed that way. It's marketed like it's doing something magical for the hair, skin, and nails. But in reality, it's just that you just took somebody who was probably only averaging 30 to 50 grams of protein a day and you just boosted them to 80 to 90. To their defense, if they're not willing to eat more protein, they're not willing to make any other changes except for taking some collagen protein every day and they're noticing health improvements. To their defense, I guess there is value because of the convenience and stuff. But I think that the real question is, how valuable are these things in comparison to what they're trying to replace or supplement? And in that context, they're not. Protein powders are great when you can't get enough protein from your diet. In comparison to getting protein in your diet, protein powders are a waste of money. So that's, I think, the big point with most of this stuff.