I am not a fan of supplements myself, outside of protein that is. I suspect a lot of them are garbage science and reading articles on the effectiveness on this or that trendy supplement tends to confirm my suspicions. I try and stick with whole foods when possible.

But as I've been dealing with extreme soreness and generally problems with recovery from heavy lifting sessions, I'm going to give a new one a try: BCAA+G ("G" being glutamine). The one I selected was the only one I could find online that the company confirms is derived from botanical sources and is gluten free. Most BCAA producers don't state where the amino acids originate which goes against my philosophy of not putting junk into my body that I don't truly understand or know the origin of. Online one finds a lot of talk about Chinese manufacturers of BCAA using human hair and duck feathers... uh, no thanks to that.

Besides extreme soreness and I also experience cramping in my fingers. This seems to be a result of gripping heavy dumbbells but it could be due to barbell gripping as well. In any case, I'm hoping the new supp will assist with both issues. As I make progress this year I need to make sure it's not counterproductive, and reading up on BCAA seems to indicate that it can possibly help not only on these fronts but to help avoid heavy workouts begin eating away at muscle because there are not sufficient BCAAs present. Soreness is also keeping me up at night, and again, this is counterproductive when I need quality to sleep to recover and grow.