Many people think they are so and some people even think that they are a rip off. And honestly some supplements really do take their marketing too far by promising you’ll get huge or lose a ton of fat just by taking their pill or powder. So a healthy sense of skepticism is good. Don’t believe everyone who is just trying to sell you something.
But even though some supplements are a scam, that doesn’t mean that they all are. Many basic supplements actually have a ton of research behind them that shows how safe and effective they are. Many of these supplements have stood the test of time by continuing to be on the market for years and they’ve been used by millions of people. Usually these are the ones you want to stick with.
A good example is creatine, which is made naturally in the body for use in energy production byt the cells of the body. However, supplementing the amount of creatine you make naturally with an external source can have positive effects of your energy levels, strength, and can increase the amount of lean body mass that you have. Meat naturally has creatine in it and if you’re eating a lot of it then you might be getting enough creatine already. However, cooking meat lessens the amount of creatine in meat, meaning that even if you eat some meat, you could still benefit from increased creatine in some cases. Anyone who doesn’t eat meat for whatever reason can certainly benefit from increased creatine intake since no plant source of nutrition contains creatine – it’s only made by animals.
Contrary to popular belief, creatine is NOT a steroid and has never been shown to cause any harm in any amount that a normal human could sanely consume. Thousands of studies have shown it’s safety and effectiveness for a variety of populations, yet you rarely hear of anyone but bodybuilders taking it. That’s really too bad since anyone who is aging is likely losing muscle mass every year to sacropenia – muscle wasting due to aging.
Fortunately, a supplement like creatine isn’t very expensive and isn’t difficult to take. Taking just 5gm a day, every day for several months then cylcing off of it for a while can provide you with most of the benfits of creatine with almost no risk. So rather than considering a supplement like creatine as a rip-off, we might see it as a low-cost way to boost our physical training with little downside.
So why do people think even useful supplements are rip-offs? Because they expect them to replace hard work in the gym and when they don’t, people feel ripped off. The fact is no pill or powder is going to put tons of muscle on you or rip the fat off your body so stop expecting it to. Put in the hard work and only use supplements to help out a little. That’s the path to fitness success with supplements.