Jeff Anderson’s new ebook, Homemade Supplement Secrets, couldn’t have come at a better time. As bodybuilding supplement prices rise (the demand for whey protein and other factors are behind the recent increases), trainers are finding their budgets stretched thin. Anderson introduces a way to save serious money, an easy way to sever your relationship with the big supplement companies.
This is an option any serious trainer should explore. Because, whether you realize it or not, your relationship with your favorite supplement company is pretty one-sided. You’re getting it stuck to you pretty well. By following Anderson’s instructions, you can actually cut those big supplement companies right out of the picture.
Jeff tells you step-by-step how you can become your own bodybuilding supplement manufacturing company. All you need is a kitchen table and a few mixing tools. You can buy the exact same ingredients and produce “knock-off” supplements that are the same quality or, most often, higher quality powders and capsules. You can do it at a fraction of the cost.
Sounds like a fantasy? It really isn’t. Serious trainers have been doing this for a long time. In fact, as Jeff details in the book, some of those small supplement companies advertising on the web or in bodybuilding magazines are nothing more than some guy mixing up powders in his basement. This guy then packages his mixtures up and does exactly what the big companies do: he puts a ridiculous price tag on them, makes ridiculous claims about their abilities, and sits back and lets the money flow in from those desperate for anything to help them achieve their muscle gain and fat loss goals.
It is that easy to be a supplement company. The entire industry is built not on helping people reach their goals but rather on fooling people into believing supplements are a lot more valuable than they really are (and therefore worth taking out that second mortgage). It isn’t that supplements are worthless. An intelligent supplement strategy can give a trainer an edge. Supplements can make dieting doable and help provide the body with the nutrition it needs to achieve maximum muscle gain and fat loss.
Used intelligently, bodybuilding supplements do have value. One thing I like about this ebook is that Jeff is completely honest about that value. He isn’t out to convince you that supplements are all-important, he explains in no uncertain terms, adding that the bulk of your results will be dependent on your dieting and training practices.
Once you lose sight of that fact, you are lost. And a good many trainers get lost in the maze of supplements B.S. never to return. So even though the buying power of your bodybuilding budget may get considerably greater with the help of this information, don’t lose sight of the big picture of bodybuilding.
How Do Supplement Companies Get Away with Big Mark-Ups?
It isn’t news to state that supplement companies are less than honest with their marketing efforts, and that their prices are often outrageous when you actually look at the active ingredients in their powder concoctions. The exact tactics the supplement companies use to separate you from your money is something Jeff goes into deep detail on. If you’ve never taken a serious look at the marketing of bodybuilding supplements, this will be eye-opening. It will make you angry.
Everything from fake testimonials to distorted research to their pricing strategy (making you believe that the more expensive a product is, the better it must work. In reality, the most effective supplements are often the cheapest). Even for someone such as myself who long ago became disenchanted with the bodybuilding supplement industry’s general lack of ethics (after wasting thousands of dollars), I learned things that I hadn’t even considered. It made me even angrier.
The truth is, we should be angry. While it should be said that there are supplement companies that are less scummy (Optimum Nutrition and ProLabs as a couple of examples) and then those that exhibit no restraints in what they will say and do to sell less-than-stellar products at exaggerated prices (I’ll hold my tongue and not mention Muscletech, BSN and InStone here), the industry as a whole is not one to be trusted.
What Can You Do?
This ebook will, at the very least, make you a much more educated consumer. You’ll never again salivate at the unrealistic claims presented in that supplement ad. You’ll be able to confidently discern fact from fiction. If you do find a product that works for you, STOP paying way too much for it. Instead, make it yourself.
Jeff lays out the tools you’ll need. You can make do with things you’ll find in your kitchen or you can cheaply pick up some stuff at the grocery store. Jeff tells you exactly where to buy any tools and all the ingredients you need.
Supplement Recipes from Homemade Supplement Secrets
And then he provides you 24 knock-off recipes for 24 of the best-selling supplements. He has the top 3 selling supplements in each of the following 8 categories: Energy/Pre-Workout Aids, Mass Gainers, Muscle Builders, Fat-Burners, Sports Performance, Post-Workout Recovery, Nitric-Oxide and Hormone Boosters. Jeff’s knock-off recipes aren’t exactly duplicates of the actual brand-name supplements. Instead, they take the best of those supplements (the active ingredients) and subtract the fluff.
The fluff comes from the “ingredient sprinkle,” a deceptive tactic of the supplement companies where they add ingredients to make the supplement seem more than it is. However, they add those extra ingredients in such tiny amounts that they couldn’t possibly have an effect – like adding whey so they can say “With Whey Protein” even though they haven’t added any more whey than what you would get from licking up your next milk mustache.
Jeff will work you through all of the ingredients the supplement companies are putting into their mixtures. He tells you which ones actually have value and in what quantity they have value. He will give you a fair appraisal of the research on each of those ingredients. Note: Just because you can now afford all those supplements, it doesn’t follow that you should take them all. There remain “top selling” supplements that simply don’t have any potential. They sell only due to the marketing BS.
There is even one that Jeff identifies that will probably do more harm than good (and it costs $90 a month!). The end result is that from these knock-off recipes you get a supplement that is just as effective or more effective for your specific goals. You get an intelligent supplement strategy that isn’t going to require you to take a second job.
Notable Bonuses
Included is Jeff’s recommended list of ingredient suppliers. Like everything else in the package, this list is complete. Suppliers of every ingredient you will need, from whey to creatine to maltodextrin to taurine. Even some specific help for those outside of the US where getting these ingredients can sometimes be a little more troublesome. He also provides free updates to the ebook. This is a valuable bonus as there are always new supplements being introduced.
If I Had To Complain
My first thought was to complain about the fact that Jeff only covers the top-selling supplements. At first glance, this seems problematic to me because the top-selling supplements aren’t necessarily a representation of the most effective supplements. In reality, they are only a representation of the supplements that are the most heavily advertised (and if they are the most heavily advertised it is because they have the highest profit margins. This in turn means that they are also “high fluff” supplements whose main purchasers are usually inexperienced beginners).
I was going to complain about this but when you do remove the fluff, the ridiculously high price and all the marketing hype, they aren’t much different than the stuff that more experienced trainers gravitate towards. In addition, there is an unadvertised bonus that would make my complaint silly. Jeff also provides the recipes of the supplements he has personally found to be the most effective (more effective than what he’s found at the supplement store). Good stuff.
Conclusion
At just $27, this is one of the very few bodybuilding products that I truly consider a bargain. Jeff has simply done a masterful job of not only exposing the dirty world of supplement marketing but of providing a viable alternative to its consistent B.S. For those willing to invest a little brain power and a little mixing time, the savings can truly add up. The only potential losers in this deal are the supplement companies. If enough of us start bypassing them in our bodybuilding quests, they will have to start laying off all those copywriters who specialize in distorting the truth, their executives might have to cut back on their island vacations…
Oh, what an awful shame that would be. Seriously, it isn’t a great surprise to me that Jeff has produced such a valuable manual. Some of the best advice on supplements and supplementing I have ever gotten has come from listening into the monthly chats Jeff holds for his Optimum Anabolics training program. Jeff knows his stuff.
This is a very well-presented ebook and Jeff is an engaging and entertaining writer who never fails to remember the details. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to the casual trainer, I would whole-heartedly recommend it to any trainer who is serious about getting that edge that intelligent supplementation can provide and doing so in an economical way.
