Ok so I lift and Mountain Bike. What should I be taking in gereral? I already take flaxseed oil everday.
Mulit Vitamins?
Extra Vitamin C?
What’s the difference between ZMA and taking regular zinc and magnesium?
What are your goals and present condition?
Just to be as healthy as possible. To make sure I am not lacking in nutrition vitamin/mineral wise.
Plenty of good food supplemented with protein powders and fish oils as needed. See Berardi’s lean eatin article series, Shugart’s Bodybuilder’s Hierarchy of Needs and the foods that make you look good nekid article.
But if you already have these bases covered, then tell us a bit more about your goals, training, diet and we can point you towards the right supps.
I would take fish oil with your flax oil. The best multi vitamin/mineral in my opinion is Ultimate Nutrition’s Super Complete Capsules—it covers almost everything.
It sounds like you have a pretty good base already. Unless you are Zinc deficient, you don’t need ZMA. Definitely take a good multivitamin, any will do, and you may want to consider taking an antioxidant complex. I take one called “Antioxidant Phyters.” It has a very good spectrum of some of the more rare antioxidants that you don’t get in a healthy well-balanced diet. The serving size is 2, but since I take a multi with it, I only take one.
Actually, your more likely to be low in zinc if your outside sweating on the bike. I’d stick with ZMA. It’s definitely helped my recovery and sleep, whereas I didn’t notice a difference with multi-vitamins or multi-spectrum antioxidants.
I firmly believe that ZMA belongs up there with a multivitamin, creatine, Surge, and EFAs as an essential. Most hard trainers are very susceptible to such deficiencies. The primary differences between ZMA and the individual minerals are: 1) ZMA includes the proper ratios of zinc to magnesium, 2) many magnesium supplements also include calcium, which cancels out the effect of ZMA, 3) ZMA includes Vitamin B6, and 4) most commercial zinc and magnesium supplements are not absorbed optimally. To learn more, check out: