Foundation Supplements for the Natural Bodybuilder: Multivitamin/Mineral

As I have already stated in previous posts, supplements can be a great aid for making your progress easier and quicker, acting as a complement for ensuring that you get enough of all needed nutrients, and for optimizing physiological processes, such as muscle growth, fat loss and recovery. However, one must not forget that supplements can never fully compensate bad eating habits or inadequate training. The basic supplements for the bodybuilder (a.k.a. foundation supplements) are those that provide substances that are mandatory for proper body functioning such as vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, protein and essential fatty acids (EFAs). If you could follow a perfect diet, you would obtain the needed amount these substances from food alone. However, in reality this is often difficult to accomplish. Foundation supplements come into play to alleviate this problem, and should always be the basis of your supplementation regime. This post initiates a series discussing the supplements falling in this category. This first post is dedicated to the multivitamin/mineral supplement.

This supplement is probably one of the most important ones. Many body functions require vitamins and minerals to be accomplished. In fact, levels of these substances must be kept above a certain level for optimal functioning of the body. These levels are higher for bodybuilders, since intense training increases the need of these substances. For this reason, bodybuilders are susceptible to have deficiency in vitamins and minerals if their diet is not totally balanced. Such a deficiency can impair optimum functioning of the body and consequently hinder your growth. Supplementing with a multivitamin/mineral can prevent this deficiency.

There are great amounts of brands that offer multivitamin/mineral. Typically, they differ somewhat in their composition and provide the vitamins/minerals using different shapes, such as pills, tablets, powder-filled capsules or even in liquid form. The important thing to look for is that you get at least 100 percent of the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) (formerly Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA)) for all or most of the vital minerals and minerals. The DRI provides the daily dietary intake level of a nutrient considered sufficient to meet the requirements of nearly all healthy individuals in each life-stage and gender group. When choosing your multivitamin/mineral, it is also important to assure that the pill/tablet/capsule can fully dissolve in your stomach. A dose (containing the aforementioned DRI of each of the vital vitamins and minerals) of the multivitamin/mineral supplement should be taken daily, preferably in the morning with your breakfast.

In addition, there are some substances, known as antioxidants, which help to neutralize harmful toxins and free radicals. Antioxidants also help control inflammation, muscle fiber damage, and fatigue. They also help to build muscle and improve the immune system. Intense exercise increases the number of free radicals in the body, making even more necessary to maintain a good level of antioxidants. Supplementation can help to accomplish this. Some vitamins and minerals are also antioxidants, for instance vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium. According to this, it is typical to supplement extra vitamin C in divided doses over the day. Vitamin C is water-soluble and passes through your system quickly. For this reason, several smaller doses are better than one big dose.

Further details about multivitamin/mineral supplementation can be found in the article “Top 10 Supplements For Bulking” by Big Cat and in the article “Beginner's Bodybuilding Program!” by Matt Danielsson. In addition, deeper information about vitamins and minerals can be found in the article “Water-Soluble Vitamins For Bodybuilders” and in the article “Fat-Soluble Vitamins, Minerals and Trace Elements”, both by Big Cat.