Cheap Bodybuilding Supplements: Are You Paying Too Much?

When you see an impressively muscular person in the gym or on the street do you wonder how much money they spend on nutritional supplements?

Most muscle enthusiasts are in a constant state of physique analysis, either scrutinizing their own body or admiring the physiques of others.

It is no wonder that the nutritional supplement industry costs athletes and fitness enthusiasts billions of dollars per year in their quest for the ideal body or unmatched athletic ability. 

But are the supplements that so many of us cram down our throats worth the financial investment?

The short answer is this: It depends. The goal of this article is not to recommend which supplements are the best for muscle building, fat loss or improvements in strength or athleticism.

Instead, I would like to demonstrate the necessity of price-comparison shopping when purchasing nutritional supplements, or any other product for that matter. 

It does not take a mathematician to realize that a 2 Lb. container of whey protein that costs $40 is more expensive than one that costs $30. What does take a little extra calculation, however, is when the prices, serving sizes and total volume of a product become more complex.

Calculate Price per Serving

Whether the supplement being researched is creatine powder, branched-chain amino acids, whey protein or glutamine, the methodology should remain the same when searching for the best prices on nutritional supplements. 

It is best to determine the actual price per serving, or better yet, price per gram.

Many dietary supplements include fillers in addition to the primary ingredient that is packaged within the container. In some cases, these additives will provide a beneficial, synergistic effect that can add value to the primary supplement.

For example, it is not uncommon to find workout recovery products that consist of whey protein with added glutamine, branched-chain amino acids and casein. Generally, it is acceptable to purchase and use these products as long as price-comparison shopping has been conducted to ensure that each individual ingredient can’t be purchased separately at a lesser cost.

Every legitimate supplement manufacturer states the precise quantities of each ingredient found in a product on the supplement container. 

The consumer must scrutinize these numbers to determine if the additional ingredients are necessary; if the quality and quantity of ingredients justifies its total price; and if the individual supplements can be purchased less expensively by themselves.

Are the Additional Ingredients Necessary?

Supplement manufacturers sometimes add extra compounds to a product to entice a consumer to purchase it with the belief that the additives somehow make it superior. 

In many cases, the extras are not necessary. For example, glutamine and branched-chain amino acids are naturally occurring in whey protein, therefore it is unnecessary to use a whey protein product that has these added compounds.

Sometimes the extra additives come in the form of sugar for flavoring. Sugar is extremely inexpensive for manufacturers to add to products, such as creatine, but gives them the ability to inflate the supplement’s price based on the increased total volume of ingredients.

The fact is, most supplements are best if ingested by themselves, without flavors or added sugar. The extras tend to increase the cost of the product and make many otherwise beneficial supplements cost-prohibitive for many people. 


Purchase Individual Supplements Separately

Though sometimes inconvenient to store and prepare for consumption, frequently the most cost-effective way to purchase supplements is in larger quantities and separate from other products.

For example, purchasing creatine monohydrate, glutamine powder, branched-chain amino acids and whey protein separately is almost always less expensive, by quantity, than purchasing a product that includes all four additives.

Easy Math = Big Savings

To determine the cost per gram of each nutritional supplement, simply divide the total cost of the supplement product by the number of grams of the primary ingredient. For example:

$120 / 4,000 grams of whey protein = $0.03 per gram

This formula can be applied to just about any unit of measure when calculating the cost associated with the purchase of nutritional supplements.

Not only was I able to determine which products contained the most beneficial supplements in the most appropriate quantities, but I realized that many supplement products are overpriced. 

I found that I was able to purchase the highest quality, most effective supplements as a fraction of the price that most of my fellow muscle enthusiasts were paying.

There is no doubt that the right nutritional supplements can give you an edge on the development of your physique and enhancement of your strength and athletic performance.

By using the simple strategy of price comparison shopping, it does not have to break the bank.  Better yet, some of the best bodybuilding supplement websites offer bodybuilding coupons and bodybuilding coupon codes for supplements. 

These offers coupled with price comparison shopping can make your supplement shopping incredibly cost efficient.

Once the realization has been made that nutritional supplements can be purchased at reasonable prices with a little research, the true quest can begin for a leaner physique and a fatter wallet.

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