Stacking Success: Your Guide To Supplement Stacks
In life, there are lots of things that are great on their own but are so much better when paired with something else. Like peanut butter and jelly, burgers and fries, Batman and Robin, piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. The same can be said for your sports nutrition supplements.
Supplement stacks work together to offer you the best results possible. But if you’ve never tried a stack before, or even know what they are for that matter, the idea of taking a bunch of supplements all at once might be a little daunting. Don’t sweat it, because do you know what else makes for a great pair? You and Axis Labs. So let’s take a look at supplement stacks and what you need to know.
What Are Supplement Stacks?
Much in the same way that Them Crooked Vultures is a supergroup of rockstars from Led Zeppelin, Foo Fighters, and Queens of the Stone Age, supplement stacks are the supergroups of the sports nutrition world.
Simply put, a stack is a collection of supplements that are used together to enhance your performance. Stacks feature a variety of products that are meant to work together to enhance your energy, aid your endurance levels, and assist you in recovering faster. To achieve these effects, you’ll find that many stacks use three or more products to cover all of your bases during your workout. While a supplement stack may not turn you into a rockstar, it can help you crush your fitness goals and feel like one.
It’s All About Timing
Your workout goes through phases as you exercise. That’s why you’ll want to include supplements that offer you different vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that you need during different parts of your workout.
Pre-workout Products
If you read our article on using your pre-workout effectively, you already have a good sense of what these are, and what they do for you. Basically, pre-workouts are meant to offer you the energy you need to get through your exercise routine. You’ll find a stimulant of some kind in your pre-workouts, like caffeine or creatine.
Intra-Workout Products
These are to be taken during your workout. Generally, you’ll find that an intra-workout product makes use of Branched-Chain Amino Acids. These help you increase your body’s capacity for exercise, and help to boost your body’s fat burning abilities.
Post-Workout Products
All the exercising in the world means nothing if you can’t sustain your gains. That’s why it’s vital to have a post-workout supplement too. You’ll often find proteins and carbohydrates in your post-workouts, as they enhance your muscle growth even after you’ve finished your workout.
Which Supplements Should You Stack?
A quick trip to the health and wellness store, even a walk down the vitamin aisle at the grocery store can lead to decision paralysis. There are just so many options to choose from that it can be hard to tell which supplements you need the most for your stack.
Don’t lose your cool. Below you’ll find some of the most important supplements to utilize in your stack.
Creatine
As you’ll find out in our previous blog post, creatine naturally occurs in the cells of your muscles. Your body stores this naturally in the phosphocreatine that is found in your muscles. By supplementing with creatine, you can increase your body’s ability to produce adenosine triphosphate, which is your body’s primary energy molecule.
You can get more creatine through your diet, but to get the amount you need for the demands that rigorous exercise puts on your body, supplementation is the best way to get it.
Caffeine
Caffeine is a natural stimulant and offers your body extra energy when you need it most. But more than just extra energy, studies have found that caffeine can enhance your performance by limiting your perception of muscle pain.
When used in a pre-workout product, caffeine can increase the intensity and length of your workout. That could mean greater gains in less time.
Glutamine
You’ll find the amino acid glutamine in your skeletal muscles, where it helps your body synthesize protein and move nitrogen around where it’s needed. Glutamine also helps your immune and digestive systems stay healthy. While this amino acid is "conditionally essential," which means your body usually produces enough for your daily needs, you can quickly deplete your body of glutamine during strenuous exercise. That leads to the breakdown of your muscles and your immune system to weaken.
Supplementing with glutamine can help keep your muscles strong and your immune system at its peak.
Protein
Within any good supplement stack should be a source of protein. Your body makes use of protein to develop, repair, and maintain your muscles. But our bodies can’t store extra protein, so when you exercise, you often exhaust any protein you have in your body.
That makes protein a critical part of any post-workout supplementation. Studies have found that when taken after exercise, protein can help to accelerate recovery times, improve the functioning of your immune system, and stimulate the development and maintenance of lean body mass.
BCAAs
Leucine, isoleucine, and valine make up your essential amino acids or your Branched-Chain Amino Acids. These are "essential" because your body doesn’t produce them naturally. You have to get these amino acids through the foods you eat or the supplements you take.
BCAAs are broken down during exercise to produce energy. When used before, during, and after your workout, you offer your body all of the energy it needs to keep exercising and then recover more quickly.
Build Your Own, or Buy Off the Shelf?
When it comes to using supplement stacks, you’ve got a seemingly endless litany of options. There are a ton of ways you can DIY your supplement stack to get the exact results your interested in. Or you can buy a premade stack. Both come with their advantages.
Roll Your Own Stack
Making your own stack offers you precise control over which supplements you’re using, how much you’re using, and when you’re using it. This allows you to mix and match the products that you know work best for your level of activity, your fitness goals, and your lifestyle in general.
To get the most out of building your own stack, you’ll want to do a few things.
- Start with quality supplements. Don’t just pick anything off the shelf at the grocery store or sports nutrition shop. Take the time to read the nutrition labels and understand what’s in each supplement. We take the quality and potency of our products, that’s why you’ll find an exhaustive label on the back of each Axis Labs product.
- Work with a physician or trainer. If this is your first time building your own stack, a little guidance is never a bad thing. Working with a physician or personal trainer will help you pick the right supplements and quantities that meet your fitness goals.
- Try the stack for a month before making any changes. You want to have a sense of how the combination of supplements in your stack affect you before you make any changes. At the end of the month, you can make a change, and repeat the process. Taking it slow allows you to make the perfect stack.
Buy a Premade Stack
If you’ve never used a supplement stack before, it’s not a bad idea to try a premade stack. Many sports nutrition companies will offer their own collection of stacks that target one set of exercise or health and wellness goals.
But if you can tailor your supplements by making your own stacks, why would you want to buy a premade stack? It’s simple.
- You already know the supplements work well together. When you build your own stacks, you run the risk of accidentally doubling up on certain supplements. For instance, if you take a stack that has nitric oxide and another with caffeine, you’ll find yourself experiencing jitters throughout the day. Premade stacks are offered together because the company already knows that they work best when taken together.
- You get a high-quality product. Another advantage of buying a premade stack is that it takes the guesswork out of your supplementation regimen. If you already like one brand and you trust them, why wouldn’t you use their other products?
- You save money. An obvious benefit for anyone. When purchased individually and from different brands, you might find that your stack of supplements gets expensive fast. This could keep you from using your stack as often since you aren’t ready to stomach the costs of buying another round of supplements. When you buy a premade stack, you're getting a package discount on the products. In fact, Axis Labs even offers a recurring order discount, so if you like the effects of a certain stack, you can ensure that you’ve always got it on hand and that you get it at a lower cost.
Get Your Supplement Stacks Today
We weren’t just making things up earlier when we said that you and Axis Labs makes a great pair. That’s because we’ve got a supplement stack for just about any health and wellness goal you can think of.
Trying to lose weight? There’s a stack for that.
Looking to get shredded and lean? Yup, there’s a stack for that.
Want to boost your testosterone? You know the drill, there’s a stack for that too.
While we’ve got our own stacks to offer, we’re confident you can pair our other products together to create the ideal supplement stack for your needs and goals. Check out the complete lineup of Axis Labs products today!