The 5 Best Muscle Building Supplements for Women

For women, growing muscle can be a little harder than it is for men, but with the best muscle building supplements for women, it can make it a whole lot easier. 

If you’ve been putting in all the effort in the gym, it goes without saying you’ll want to do everything you can to make sure you’re getting the best out of all your hard work. With the right muscle building supplements, not only will you get the most out of the workouts, they’ll come quicker too. 

So, to help you see the results you’re working for, we’ve rounded up the five best muscle building supplements for women below. Find out more about how they work and how much you should consider taking. 

5 Best Muscle Building Supplements for Women

1. Protein Powders

First up is the most obvious, but the most scientifically proven supplement available – protein powder. 

The amino acids that make up protein are what your body uses to heal and grow muscle after a touch workout. While it’s really important to ensure you get your protein intake through a varied diet, a handy protein shake can be a cost effective and really efficient way to ensure you’re getting enough protein in your diet. 

This is absolutely crucial. If you’re not getting enough protein in, you just won’t see the muscle gain that you’re after. So, if you’re serious about building muscle, and doing it quickly, then a protein powder can help you get there. 

Recommended Article: Whey Protein Vs. Plant Protein – Which is Best?

Your macronutrient intake can be entirely dependent on your body and your goals, so check out this article to find out more about how much protein you should be taking on each day to achieve your fitness dreams. 

Take: If you’re having a nice high protein diet, you should be ok to supplement with one protein shake a day. That’ll usually give around 20g extra protein per serving. If you’re struggling, go for two shakes a day, but split them up so your body has time to process.

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2. Creatine

Next up as an absolute must is creatine. Along with protein, it’s up there as one of the most highly researched, proven and best muscle building supplements for women. 

Normally you get creatine through eating meat, but if you up your levels through supplementation, there are some incredible muscle-building benefits. It’s been shown to significantly improve power output in lifts, which helps to work muscles harder and build more strength and size. 

Furthermore, creatine use has been linked to improved endurance and stamina in workouts too, so it’ll even support you through those grueling training sessions, so you can get more out of them. 

Take: 3g of Creatine a day, every day and you’ll start to feel the benefits after a few days. Some people like to front load with up to 5g a day to quickly and effectively up their creatine levels, however consistency is the real key with creatine. 

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3. Caffeine 

Now, we know a whole lot of pre-workouts overfill their formulas with caffeine and trust us, we’re not going to tell you to start taking on so much caffeine you get the jitters and headaches – definitely not! 

But, having about 180mg of caffeine (just more than a cup of coffee) before a workout has been linked to increased power outputs on lifts and improved stamina too. So, if you want to give your body the energy boost it needs to improve your performance in your workout and increase your chance at building muscle, then consider a well-dosed pre-workout your best friend. 

Related Article: Best Pre-Workouts for Women

Take: As we said, caffeine can have some nasty side effects if you have too much, so stick to about 180-200mg at the most and you’ll be alright to perform a good workout, without the annoying side effects. 

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4. BCAAs

BCAAs, or Branched Chain Amino Acids, are three amino acids called isoleucine, leucine and valine which can’t be produced by the body, so you need to supplement with them. Out of these three, leucine is the one you want for muscle building! It acts to increase your production of insulin, an anabolic hormone that helps to increase your rate of protein synthesis. 

This basically means that supplementing with BCAAs increases the rate at which your body can utilize the protein you have in your body to rebuild muscles stronger and better than before.

So, if you’re serious about growing muscle, BCAAs are one of the best muscle building supplements for women to pair with protein powders. 

Take: your average BCAAs supplement gives you about 2-3g. Start with one of these a day and as you get used to it, you can consider going up to 4-5g a day. 

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5. Zinc Magnesium Aspartate 

ZMA is the something you’ll find in your multivitamin. However, a lot of female focussed multivits don’t really offer up enough of this to give you what you need in terms of muscle building. 

That’s because this mineral is something that men usually focus on to help improve their testosterone levels. So companies that produce these types of multivitamins for women dose them at quite low levels.  

Now, while this will help to produce more testosterone in women (which is absolutely key to building muscle!) it’s worth noting you’re not going to suddenly start producing absolutely loads of testosterone and develop a super deep voice! All women produce testosterone in small amounts, which is important to achieving a healthy hormonal balance. 

Instead, supplementing with ZMA will help you to produce testosterone at your optimal levels, which is great for a healthy balance of hormones in your body and will help you to build muscle more quickly and efficiently. 

Take: first up, check how much Zinc and Magnesium you’re getting from your multivitamin, as the upper limits are 40mg and 350mg respectively. And, if you want to up your levels, you should consider taking 20mg and around 300mg respectively. This should help to provide a good level for your goals.