How Much of Everything to Take

Creatine monohydrate is the most-researched sports supplement there is, and the maintenance dose is a flat 3 to 5 grams every day regardless of your size. An optional loading phase of about 20 g/day (4 x 5 g) for 5 to 7 days fills your muscle stores faster, but you reach the same end point either way. Consistency matters far more than timing — take it whenever you will remember.

Caffeine is the one pre-workout ingredient that reliably improves performance, in the studied range of roughly 3 to 6 mg per kg of bodyweight taken 30 to 60 minutes before training. We treat 400 mg in a single serving as the ceiling, and EFSA puts the safe daily limit for healthy adults at 400 mg from all sources. If you train in the evening, caffeine has a 5 to 6 hour half-life and will cost you sleep — switch to stim-free.

Beta-alanine raises muscle carnosine over 2 to 4 weeks, which buffers fatigue in efforts lasting roughly 1 to 4 minutes. The ISSN puts the effective dose at 3.2 to 6.4 g/day, best split into smaller servings to control the harmless pins-and-needles (paraesthesia). Like creatine it is cumulative, not acute — the time of day is irrelevant, only the daily total over weeks. Most pre-workouts underdose it, so a standalone tub is usually the honest way to hit the number.

L-citrulline raises nitric oxide to support blood flow and "pump", with modest evidence for endurance and reduced soreness. The effective dose is 6 to 8 g of pure L-citrulline, or around 9 to 12 g of citrulline malate (which is only about two-thirds citrulline, so it takes more to reach the same citrulline dose), taken 45 to 60 minutes before training. It is acute like caffeine, not saturating like creatine. Watch pre-workout labels: a 2:1 malate blend at "6 g" only gives you around 4 g of actual citrulline.

Betaine anhydrous has a reasonable body of evidence for small improvements in power and strength at a consistent 2.5 g/day, taken daily rather than only pre-workout. It is one of the more credible "secondary" pre-workout actives. The catch is that most blends include a fraction of the studied dose, so check the label — if it is not close to 2.5 g, you are not getting the effect that was tested.

L-theanine is an amino acid from tea that takes the edge off caffeine — pairing 100 to 200 mg with your caffeine dose (roughly 1:1 to 2:1) can give a calmer, smoother focus with fewer jitters. On its own it does nothing for performance; its whole value is as a caffeine companion. It is cheap, safe and one of the few "focus" ingredients with sensible evidence behind it.

Taurine has modest evidence for endurance and cellular hydration at 1 to 2 g, usually taken pre-workout. It is safe and inexpensive, but the effect is small and it is frequently sprinkled into pre-workouts at token amounts. Treat it as a minor, nice-to-have active rather than a reason to buy a product.

L-tyrosine is a precursor to focus-related neurotransmitters, and the evidence mostly shows it helping cognition under acute stress, sleep deprivation or cold — not in a well-rested lifter on a normal day. Doses in studies range widely from 500 mg up to around 2 g. It is safe but situational, so treat any pre-workout focus benefit as minor.

Electrolytes matter when you are actually losing a lot through sweat — long sessions, heat, or heavy sweaters — where replacing sodium (roughly 300 to 700 mg per hour, more for salty sweaters) helps maintain performance and hydration. For a normal hour in an air-conditioned gym with a water bottle, plain water and a normal diet cover it. It is a situational tool, not a daily essential.

Whey is simply a convenient way to hit your daily protein target of roughly 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of bodyweight, which is what actually drives muscle — not any magic in the powder. A 20 to 40 g serving delivers the ~2 to 3 g of leucine that maximally triggers muscle protein synthesis. The "anabolic window" is far wider than the industry implies: spread protein across the day and total intake matters more than timing any single shake.

Casein digests slowly, giving a longer, lower amino-acid drip than whey, which is why it is often taken before bed or before a long gap without food. The evidence for a meaningful overnight-recovery edge is modest — total daily protein still does most of the work. It is a reasonable convenience for hitting your target, not a supplement that unlocks anything whey cannot.

Essential amino acids provide the full set of building blocks for muscle protein synthesis, and 6 to 15 g can be useful if you train fasted or struggle to hit your protein target. The important caveat: for anyone eating enough total protein, a normal meal or whey shake already supplies all the EAAs, making a separate product redundant. They earn their place only in specific low-protein or fasted situations.

Leucine is the amino acid that flips the "build muscle" switch, and about 2 to 3 g per feed maximises that signal. But flipping the switch without the other amino acids present does not build much — which is why a whole 20 to 40 g protein serving (already rich in leucine) beats dosing leucine on its own. As a standalone it is rarely worth buying; it makes sense only to top up a genuinely low-protein plant meal.

BCAAs (leucine, isoleucine, valine) were a huge seller, but the evidence has moved on: with only three of the nine essential amino acids, they cannot sustain muscle protein synthesis by themselves, and for anyone eating adequate protein they add nothing. If you want an intra-workout amino product, a full EAA blend is the better buy. For most people BCAAs are money better spent on whole protein.

Glutamine is a staple on supplement shelves, usually at around 5 g, but for healthy, well-nourished lifters the training evidence is thin — it does not reliably improve muscle growth, recovery or immunity in that group. It has legitimate uses in clinical settings, which is a different context entirely. For the average gym-goer it is one of the easiest supplements to cut.

Vitamin D acts more like a hormone than a vitamin, and a large share of people in the UK run low over winter, which is why supplementing 1000 to 2000 IU (25 to 50 µg) of D3 daily is sensible baseline insurance. The benefit is in correcting a genuine shortfall — for bone, immune and general health — not in "boosting" an already-normal level. Long-term high doses can push blood calcium too high, so more is not better; if in doubt, a blood test settles it.

The useful part of fish oil is the EPA and DHA, and 1 to 2 g combined per day covers most general-health and anti-inflammatory goals, especially if you rarely eat oily fish. The trap is the label: a "1000 mg fish oil" capsule may contain only 300 mg of actual EPA+DHA, so read those two numbers directly. Very high intakes offer little extra and can thin the blood, so there is no need to megadose.

Zinc is genuinely involved in testosterone, immunity and recovery, and correcting a real deficiency (common in heavy sweaters and some plant-based diets) helps. A sensible 10 to 15 mg/day covers most people as insurance. Once you are replete, more does nothing extra, and sustained doses near or above the 40 mg upper limit can deplete copper and cause nausea — so this is a shortfall-fixer, not a lever to exceed normal.

Magnesium supports muscle function, sleep and hundreds of enzyme reactions, and many people fall short of the target intake. Supplementing 200 to 400 mg of elemental magnesium in the evening is reasonable, particularly for sleep and if you train hard. Choose the form carefully — glycinate or citrate are well absorbed, whereas cheap oxide is mostly a laxative. Going higher tends to loosen your bowels rather than help.

A basic multivitamin is cheap insurance against small dietary gaps, which is a fair reason to take one, but it is not a performance supplement and you will not feel it working. Beware mega-dosed "athlete" formulas: hitting several hundred percent of the RDA on fat-soluble vitamins or minerals is pointless at best. A good diet remains the real multivitamin; the tub just covers the edges.

Vitamin C is essential, but the body becomes saturated at modest intakes — around 200 mg a day covers requirements for most people, and higher doses are largely excreted. The gram-dose "immune-boosting" products are mostly expensive urine. There is even a theoretical case that very high antioxidant doses could blunt some training adaptations, so there is no reason to megadose it.

Ashwagandha is the best-evidenced herbal here, with human trials showing reduced stress and cortisol, better sleep, and a modest testosterone bump — mostly in people who were stressed or run down to begin with. The studied dose is 300 to 600 mg/day of a standardised root extract like KSM-66. Buy a named extract so you actually get the dose that was tested, and expect a modest, genuine effect rather than a transformation.

For tendon, ligament and joint support there is growing evidence that 15 g of hydrolysed collagen with vitamin C, taken 30 to 60 minutes before loading the tissue, can help connective-tissue synthesis. Note it is a low-quality muscle protein (missing key aminos), so it does not count toward your muscle-building protein target — it is a joint tool, not a whey substitute. Reasonable if you have niggles; optional otherwise.

Melatonin can help with sleep timing and jet lag, and the evidence favours low doses (0.5 to 2 mg) taken 30 to 60 minutes before bed over the large doses sold abroad. Important for UK readers: melatonin is a prescription-only medicine here, not something to buy over the counter or import casually — that is a conversation for your GP or pharmacist. Nail sleep hygiene first; it does more than any pill.