I really feel for newbie lifters. It's such a common thing to see a young person (Sometimes not so young) who is really keen on building muscle mass, but to be absolutely confused about a few things. And so often it is supplements that they are confused about. And this is fair enough. There is so much rubbish out there on supplements that it's really hard to gauge what is correct and what is hype.

So I'm going to outline my philosophy when it comes to supplements and list a couple of supplements that I use myself and can personally recommend to you too.

Think about the word supplement for a moment. Most people don't actually realise what a supplement is and then feel robbed when they realise they got what they should've expected. You see, a supplement is just that. It supplements your diet and training regime. While supplements for building muscle mass can definitely help, they will only work if the rest of your program is great.

I like to call this phenomenon the magic pill phenomenon. People think that by just popping a pill or drinking a special shake that their problems will go away or they will instantly skyrocket their results. A great example is my dad. He takes fish oil every day because he read that it helps prevent heart disease. Now, this is true, fish oil has been shown to decrease the risk of heart disease. However, if my dad was serious about his health, he would improve his diet and exercise more. But by taking a pill each day, he is satisfied that his health is fine and so he goes along with his normal daily routine.

And the sad thing is that lots of people do this with supplements for building muscle mass. Taking creatine and not working out is not going to make you more muscular. What you need to do instead is first educate yourself. Once you have done this step, you will be on your road to success.

By educating yourself properly, you will learn how to construct a proper diet regime and you will also learn how to train. Once you have these two things in place, you can then start to worry about supplements.

I guess now you've heard my little rant about when to use supplements, you actually want to know which supplements to use and which to stay away from. I'm going to give you my 3 favourite supplements. The 3 supplements for building muscle mass that I use myself.

First up is whey protein powder. It's great for convenience sake and for getting some extra protein into you before and after a workout. Second comes creatine, it's cheap and is pretty handy for getting a couple of extra percent of results for you. And finally, fish oil is a great way to get your daily fats in you. Since they come in capsule, they are easy to take, so you can monitor how much fat you are getting in your body.

So that's it for this article. By now you should understand how to properly use supplements and which ones get my personal stamp of approval.