Creatine
3–5 g a day of plain monohydrate. Loading is optional, cycling is unnecessary, and the exotic forms cost more to do the same thing.
Ingredient-first supplement guides
Read the label, not the ad copy
Ingredient-first guides to pre-workouts, protein, creatine and vitamins — what the research says about doses that actually do something.
Most supplement buying decisions get made on packaging. The useful skill is narrower than it looks: knowing the dose the research actually used, and being able to check it against the Supplement Facts panel in front of you.
That is all this site does. There are no scored rankings here and no “best of” tables, because ranking finished products honestly would require laboratory testing we have not done — the reasoning is here. What you get instead is the ingredient-level information, which is verifiable, and which transfers to whatever is on the shelf.
Start here
If you read one page, read the one on reading a Supplement Facts panel. It makes every other page on this site more useful.
Pre-Workout
Caffeine, creatine, beta-alanine and citrulline carry the category. Check them against effective doses and treat the rest of the panel as decoration.
Protein
1.6–2.2 g per kg of bodyweight daily, from food first. Powder is a convenience tool for closing the gap, and concentrate closes it as well as isolate for most people.
Beta-Alanine
3.2–6.4 g daily for four weeks or more. The tingling is a harmless side effect, not a signal, and splitting doses reduces it.
Reading Labels
Check serving size against servings per container, demand per-ingredient doses, and treat proprietary blends as missing information rather than a trade secret.
Vitamin D
D3 with food, commonly 1000–2000 IU daily. It is fat-soluble and accumulates, so the upper limit is a real limit — test rather than guess.
Magnesium
Compare elemental magnesium, not compound weight. Glycinate and citrate absorb well; oxide mostly does not.
Caffeine
3–6 mg per kg before training. Count every source, and keep it far enough from bedtime that it does not cost you the sleep your recovery depends on.