Those of us who love to build up our muscles tend to have an unfortunate attitude of wanting to achieve too much, too soon, and our progress, and even our overall health, can suffer as a consequence. This is not a good approach to take if you want to achieve solid, long lasting results.

Simply taking muscle building supplements, with the expectation that your muscles will magically grow as a result, is a wholly misguided point of view. The key is in the word 'supplement', i.e. they are meant to supplement your main efforts, not be the main effort itself.

Still, sometimes your body can do with a little assistance, and there are some worthwhile muscle building supplements. It is just a case of finding a diet and regime that is working well for you first. Once you have that established, then adding muscle building supplements into the mix can significantly improve the progress that you make.

With that said, let's look at what you should be doing to in order to maximize your muscle building sessions:

Water - No, there is no mistake, and I'm not losing my mind, water definitely tops my list as the number one essential to a proper workout regime. Just think, water comprises almost 3/4 of the total muscle tissue. In other words, it is what muscle is mainly made of.

Powdered Proteins - Protein powder is cost-effective while being a super convenient way to add much needed protein and calories to your current dietary program. All you need to do is mix the powder with a little milk or water, et voila, you're ready to go! If you're one of those extremely lucky individuals who don't naturally put on weight, but you want more muscle mass, protein powders are just what you need. The most popular being Whey protein, derived from milk whey.

Vitamins and Minerals - Whilst there are still people who claim that the benefits if multi-mineral or multi-vitamin tablets and supplements are negligible, no-one can claim that they will do you any harm. There are enough supporters of them to give them credibility, and you have nothing to lose by using them, particularly so if you're following a limited dietary program.

Creatine - This is the most commonly used muscle building supplement. Why is that? Well, put simply, it works! By all means try out other supplements, but always use them as an addition to creatine, not as a replacement for it. The fact that so many fanatical muscle builders use it is evidence enough of its worth.