If you ever go to a supplement store with the goal of buying every 'muscle building' supplement in there, you would end up spending all of the monthly salary or pocket money you have. 

However, even after spending so much money, you would not have bought even 20% of those 'muscle building' supplements. The supplement industry markets a lot of the supplements as potent muscle builders and wants to sell you useless stuff with the false premise of saying it will help you build muscle.

As a matter of fact, less than 5% of those supplements contribute towards your muscle building goals. Here's a list of muscle building supplements that actually work and how you can fit them into a budget of Rs. 100 per day or even less:

© Thinkstock Images

Protein is the most important macronutrient. In a muscle building phase, you are trying to build new muscle protein. To synthesize and build new muscle protein, you need to consume an adequate amount of protein on a daily basis. The general recommendation being 1 gram per pound of body weight.  

Whey Protein is one of the most convenient ways to get in this target protein intake for the day. The convenience aspect of this supplement makes it very desirable and one of the most sold supplements in the fitness industry.

A good brand whey protein would cost you around 70 to 75 rupees per serving.

© Thinkstock Images

You would see every self-proclaimed gym freak praising caffeine as the most wonderful discovery on the planet Earth. It truly is. Caffeine is a stimulant that activates the central nervous system. With regards to your workout performance, it enhances your power output, workout volume, and suppresses fatigue.  

A study in 2012 had 16 Rugby players split into two groups. One group was given 4 mg/kg caffeine and the other was given a placebo. They were further split into two sub-groups:

A. Sleep Deprived

B. Well slept

Caffeine supplementation helped the sleep-deprived group of players perform just as well as the well-slept group. The well slept group performed slightly better when they supplemented with caffeine. [1]

If your goal is maximum performance, caffeine supplementation in the range of 3 - 6 mg/kg would work best pre-workout. If you want the real deal, I would suggest supplementing with a caffeine pill.

A 200 mg pill would not cost you more than 10 bucks.

© Thinkstock Images

Creatine is an amino acid that is typically found in food such as fish and meat. It is one of the most researched supplements with around hundreds of studies supporting its benefits in increasing strength and power. It is also a very safe supplement. 

A lot of people think that consuming creatine will make them appear puffy but creatine draws water into your muscle and not anywhere else. 

All creatine would do, is to make you look more jacked. Creatine is sold in a lot of variety and compounds as well, but there is again no data that shows any other form of creatine as effective or better than creatine monohydrate.

Studies also show that there were no health risks associated with around 21 months of daily creatine supplementation proving its safety. So you do not really need to go off or stop supplementation. 

If you want to supplement with creatine, go for monohydrate and consume 5 grams of it per day. The timing does not matter that much.  A 5-gram creatine monohydrate would cost you no more than 10 bucks.

That concludes the budget-friendly muscle building stack and in a summary, the supplements you would want and their prices:

1. Whey Protein - Rs. 70 per serving

2. Caffeine - Rs. 10 per serving

3. Creatine Monohydrate - Rs. 10 per serving

Total - Rs. 90 per day.

The monthly investment would be half the cost of a new and improved muscle building pill on the market that does not do anything.

References:

1. Cook et al. Int J Sport NutrExercMetab. 2012 Jun;22(3):157-64.

Author bio:

Pratik Thakkar is the co-founder and director of GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company. He is regarded as someone who will make it easy for you to understand the process by putting things in the right context and providing science-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding. You can reach out to him at pratik@getsetgo.fitness and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.