Supplements For Baseball

Disclaimer: All of the material about supplements for baseball within this article is for informational purposes only. Only you and your doctor can decide what is best for you. These are not recommendations for you specifically. Please consult your doctor before beginning any workout or supplementation plan.

One question I have been getting over and over again is "What are the best supplements to take for baseball?"

This is a very hot topic, especially since there are some really great supplements out there…and some really bad ones as well. Buyer beware. You really have to do your homework. So I figured I'd give my readers an "inside look" in how the premier strength coaches in the business set-up their players supplement programs.

While I cannot provide specific advice for your situation, I can explain what my athletes have been doing with great success.

The Basics

These are the products that will help ensure proper nutrition is met. They are not sexy or new, but are time tested products that is a part of every single one of our athletes plans. On basic's you are looking for value because they are basically commodities. Good quality products at a fair price. Some companies over-charge for basic products and some are so low the quality is terrible. So which brand you choose is paramount to the results you will see. I have provided what supplements for baseball we use for informational purposes.

Protein Powder/Meal Replacement Powder

Nutrition is a critical part of our success and we make sure our athletes have sufficient protein to allow for proper recovery, building of new muscle tissue and burning of fat. We aim to get between .75 and 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight each day. No need for most to go into higher levels such as 2 gram/pound of body weight that are recommended so often now. If we cannot get the .75 - 1 gram per pound of bodyweight through foods we supplement with protein powder or meal replacement powder (MRP).

Our favorites: Xtreme Formulations Ultra Peptide & Optimum Nutrition Pro-Complex.

Multi-Vitamin

This is looked upon as "insurance" for our athletes. With lower quality soil and food selection it's virtually impossible to get all nutrients from food alone. This solves that problem.

Our favorite: NOW ADAM

Creatine Monohydrate

There has been a lot of controversy about creatine over the years. But the truth is it's the most researched sports supplement of all time (sans Gatorade) and it's safe and effective. There are a lot of myths. Evidence proves there is no reason to load at high amounts. We use 5 grams with our post-workout meal. That's it. We skip all the fancy products and use straight German Micronized Creatine.

Our favorite: Certified German Micronized Creatine - any brand

Omega 3 Fish Oils

Omega 3 fatty acids have a ton of health benefits such as increase Testosterone production, cardiovascular health, increase recovery and healthier skin, hair and nails so we use it daily. We use between 2-6 caps a day, depending on the time of year and intensity of the athletes program.

Our favorite: NOW EFA

Performance Enhancing Supplements

Obviously we are always looking for a "secret weapon" to give our athletes a legal, natural and safe performance advantage. Despite what many magazine ads will lead you to believe 99.9% of all supplements will do very little in terms of performance enhancing.
Trust me we have used everything under the sun. And these are the few that we have found to have a significant effect on performance.

Expect these to carry a higher price tag than basics. They are specialty products and usually are proprietary blends from that company alone. The extra price is more than worth it for us.

Three of the products are by one company, USPlabs. While they are somewhat new to the supplement world, they have the best researchers, scientists and formulators in the game. We work very closely with them because we have found their products to give us the best results and they provide us with real research to back their products. To prove just how much we believe in these is the fact that we actually pay for them. We have hundreds of boxes of supplements sent to us by just about every supplement company under the sun. But we won't put them in our athletes if we don't believe in it.

Anabolic-Pump™ by USPLabs

This is a really unique product because it allows our athletes to get to levels their genetics normally wouldn't allow them. In other words, it gives our guys a significant advantage because it allows for increase of muscle tissue and decrease of bodyfat at the same time. To say this is the best product we have ever used would be an understatement. What I like about it is it's a unique formula and backed by a ton of research so it's safe, effective and, of course, legal by all known governing bodies.

PowerFULL™ by USPLabs

With all the terrible steroids and Human Growth Hormone scandals going around baseball today one thing is clear, a lot of baseball players are using and now they are paying the price. But lets be honest, these illegal enhancers work or players wouldn't be risking their lives, their careers and their names if it wasn't worth it.

Certainly we would never give anything illegal to our athletes so we use PowerFULL in order to naturally increase Growth Hormone in the body. One study USPlabs provided us with showed an increase of 221%. The strength gains our guys make on this is nothing short of amazing. And there's nothing that documents this, but it seems as though all our guys gain a decent amount of muscle when taking PowerFULL. We just had an athlete gain 11 pounds in 5 weeks. This is our secret to getting strong and faster than everybody else.

We only use this with our athletes over 21 years of age.

SuperCissus RX™ by USPLabs

To us this is really the ultimate joint formula. Glucosamine/ Choindroitin/MSM have not performed well, even though the marketing shoves those products down your throat. Theory suggests the ingredient in SuperCissus RX, cissus quadrangularis, delivers critical healing nutrients to tendons, ligaments and joints to speed recovery. Those areas of the body are "white", meaning not much blood (and therefore healing nutrients) are delivered. All I know is our players report feeling great when taking SuperCissus RX and claim their pain goes away. The research on this herb also shows it can speed healing of bones by 55% so we give it to anyone who breaks or has broken a bone. In addition it's been used or centuries in India with no negative side effects. I give this stuff to everyone in my family to help with joint pain. It's great stuff.

We usually stay clear of any Nitric-Oxide or "NO" - type products because we have found them to have a poor effect on the central nervous system which leads to decreased performance and injury.

So there you have it…a sneak peak into a world-class supplementation program. Hope you enjoyed!

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