Getting your recommended healthy dose of vitamins is essential for anyone, bodybuilder or not. But when you’re on a restricted diet and focusing hard on packing on the muscle, getting a balance of vitamins alongside your protein shake and steamed broccoli isn’t all that easy.
That’s why multivitamins for bodybuilding are a great thing.
And, as you’ll find out in our multivitamin buying guide, taking a multivitamin can push you closer towards your bodybuilding goals with some surprising performance advantages.
But let’s cut to the chase. Here are the 10 best multivitamins that you really should consider if you’re a bodybuilder!
Quick Summary – The Best Multivitamins for Bodybuilding
In a rush? Here are the top 3 multivitamins to check out first:
Best Overall – Animal Pak Multivitamin, for a huge range of nutrients and some of the best reviews from customers we’ve found online.
Best for Men – ASYSTEM Superhuman Supplements, for vitamins and hormonal support tailored specifically for men.
Best for Women – Performance Lab NutriGenesis Multi, for offering a multivitamin that takes your bodybuilding needs seriously and has vitamin/mineral concentrations tailored for women’s health.
How We Picked These Multivitamins
We aren’t easily sucked in by a celebratory athlete endorsement or shiny marketing campaign. When assessing multivitamins for bodybuilding, we looked at the facts. We considered:
Nutrient Variety
We’ve covered the types of nutrients that will benefit you specifically in our multivitamin guide below (scroll past the products and you’ll find it), so check those off against the label if you decide to find a multivitamin not on our list.
The multivitamins we selected all contain a variety of vitamins that will, in some way, contribute to your bodybuilding. Whether they keep you energized for longer to help you extend your workout or contribute directly to building muscle.
You want to look at multivitamins for bodybuilders as they provide you with a bit of everything, compared to specific supplements with only a handful of vitamins, which are typically more suitable for people with a vitamin deficiency.
We also considered secondary compounds. Proteins, minerals, and other non-vitamin but still essential nutrients are often packed into multivitamins designed especially for bodybuilders.
We’ve highlighted the bodybuilding-specific vitamins and compounds in each of the multivitamin products below.
Concentration
The concentration of vitamins in each pill or tablet is, obviously, something you should look at before you buy. Generally speaking, a high concentration of vitamins is good – but there is such a thing as too high. There’s only so much your body can absorb, so there’s no point paying an extra high price for a very highly concentrated multivitamin… that you essentially send down the toilet.
Another consideration is how the multivitamin is absorbed. Some of the premium multivitamins have a timed release, so you gradually absorb the vitamins over the day (which in theory prevents your body from flushing them all out immediately).
We’ve added some tips on how to ensure your vitamins are absorbed optimally in the multivitamin guide below.
Value
Finally, value. It always comes down to money, doesn’t it?
We carefully considered the price of the multivitamin against the concentration and variation of the vitamins it contains. However, this is a list of the best multivitamins for bodybuilding. Not the poor or mediocre multivitamins.
If you want the best of the best, sometimes you need to pay a little extra!
Top 10 Bodybuilder Multivitamins
All 10 multivitamins on our list are excellent – we’ve verified them ourselves where possible and consulted real (unsponsored) customers for their honest reviews. So, while there’s a clear best of the best, all 10 multivitamins we’ve shortlisted are excellent and worth checking out.
1. Animal Pak Multivitamin – Overall Best
- Type: Tablets or powder
- Designed for: Intense bodybuilding and rigorous dieting
- Vitamins: 24 main vitamins and minerals
- Other Ingredients: Whey protein, amino acids, liver detox complex, digestive enzymes, and energy and focus complex
- Dose: 2 packs (44 per container) OR 2 scoops of powder (approx. 44 scoops per container)
There’s a reason the Animal Pak Multivitamin is at the top of nearly all bodybuilding multivitamin lists online (including this one).
The Animal Pak Multivitamin is designed as your nutritional foundation, but honestly, we’re blown away with the number of nutrients they’ve packed in. It’s not just a foundation, it’s a full house complete with pool and picket fence.
Vitamins A through K plus minerals (potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc.) are the main bulk of this multivitamin. The most important of which have daily values over 5000%!
Protein, amino acids, a detox complex, and added nutrients for energy and focus are all ideal for boosting your performance too. What we love, however, is the digestive enzymes included to ensure that your body will absorb all the vitamins, minerals, and compounds that it needs.
Bodybuilding Tip: the % daily values listed by Animal are based on a 2000kcal diet, which is why some of them seem very high.
2. ASYSTEM Superhuman Supplements – Best for Men
- Type: Capsules
- Designed for: Natural energy and immunity for men
- Vitamins: 21 main vitamins and minerals
- Other Ingredients: Omega 3 fish oil, ashwagandha root extract, DHEA
- Dose: 5 capsules per day (30 days per box)
The ASYSTEM Superhuman multivitamins are designed especially for men, with all the vitamins and minerals you need plus male hormone boosting ingredients.
This is a great multivitamin to boost all-round health and help you be your best 24/7. It’s perfect for athletes and serious trainers that need to keep their natural energy up and their immunity strong so they can work hard without worry.
You take 3 different capsules every day. The Multiman is your main source of essential vitamins, minerals, and co-enzyme Q-10. White Lightning boosts your physical, mental, and even sexual health with hormone-related substances. And finally, the Brainiac provides omega 3 fish oil for heart health, cognitive health, and eye health – it also helps your brain’s response to stress, so you can power through tougher sessions.
Bodybuilder’s Tip: be careful with the DHEA and pregnenolone in the White Lightning supplement – these substances are prohibited by some sports organizations.
3. Performance Lab NutriGenesis Multi for Women – Best for Women
- Type: Capsules
- Designed for: Female health and peak human performance
- Vitamins: 17+ essential vitamins
- Other Ingredients: Natural cofactors to aid absorption
- Dose: 4 NutriCaps (30 servings per container)
This is the best multivitamin for female bodybuilders as it provides everything you need in a dose that’s suited for you. While there’s no difference between the vitamins women and men need to build muscle, support their immune system, etc. (we’re all human, regardless of gender), there is a difference in dose sizes. Women typically need higher doses of iron in their multivitamins, for example. There are also hormonal differences between men and women to consider. According to Performance Lab, the NutriGenesis Multi for women is customized for female hormonal support.
These capsules contain 17 essential nutrients, plus 10 more alongside minerals to enhance your performance and fill in any vitamin gaps in your diet. We particularly like the cofactors added – these probiotics, enzymes, fiber, and antioxidants are derived from vegan wholefoods and help your body absorb all the nutrition these capsules provide.
Bodybuilding Tip: while this is a great product with all the vitamins you need, as a female bodybuilder, you are not limited to “women’s only” vitamin pills. We recommend you consider all the unisex (and even male) options on this list as well.
4. Legal Limit Labs SHRED STACK
- Type: Capsules/softgels
- Designed for: Shedding fat and improving overall body composition
- Vitamins: B1 and B3
- Other Ingredients: MCT oil, CLA, omega-3s, caffeine
- Dose: 60x capsules and 120x softgels over 30 days
The Shred Stack contains 2 products from Legal Limit Labs: Adrenalize and Omega Shred. Both focus more on natural extracts, antioxidants, and stimulants (nothing crazy, just caffeine!) rather than vitamins.
Adrenalize capsules are the main source of your vitamins, providing over 2000% of your daily value for B1 and 160% for B3. Its main purpose is to fire up your metabolic rate, burning more calories and more fat. It also provides a lot of natural caffeine through green tea leaf extract and other natural sources to boost your bodybuilding workout performance.
Omega Shred is the other supplement in this pack. The softgels support a lean body composition with healthy fatty oils.
This is a good option for bodybuilders who already get the majority of their vitamins in their diet, and just need a little extra help shredding!
Bodybuilding Tip: this is a good product for boosting energy and motivation (caffeine and antioxidants) and sticking to your diet (the 5-HTP formula suppresses your appetite).
5. Controlled Labs Orange TRIad
- Type: Tablets
- Designed for: Immune system and joint health, optimal digestion
- Vitamins: 7+ vitamins
- Other Ingredients: Joint complex, flex complex, digestion/immune complex
- Dose: 6 tablets (46 servings per container)
The Orange TRIad multivitamin by Controlled Labs might not have the largest variety of vitamins and minerals, but it does have some unique complexes that set it apart.
This multivitamin for bodybuilding doesn’t work so much on your performance. Instead, it supports your immune system and strengthens your body to reduce recovery times.
The Joint and Flex complexes contain extracts to lubricate your joints, support cartilage, and improve the resilience of connective tissue. Often with vitamin deficiencies, the body takes longer to recover between training sessions. That’s what this multivitamin is all about resolving. It prevents serious damage and helps your body bounce back faster so you can work harder and build your body at a faster pace.
Bodybuilding Tip: not all multivitamins and vegan or even vegetarian. The Orange TRIad contains nutrients sourced from shrimp, crab, and/or lobster!
6. Bodybuilding.com Signature Multivitamin
- Type: Tablets
- Designed for: Boost immunity and overall health
- Vitamins: B and C vitamins, plus a range of others
- Other Ingredients: Zinc and magnesium
- Dose: 1 tablet (90 servings per container)
This is one of the most affordable and comprehensive multivitamins. It doesn’t have the unique complexes for joints, performance, or recovery like you’ll find on other multivitamins. What it does have is simplicity.
The Signature Multivitamin by Bodybuilding.com is an excellent choice if you just want to ensure you catch any vitamin shortages in your diet. It’s particularly high in B vitamins to help convert as much food as you consume into energy as possible, and vitamin C for general immunity.
You’ll find several minerals included as well such as zinc for testosterone support and magnesium for metabolic processes (on an unrelated note, magnesium can be excellent for your sleep patterns too).
Bodybuilding Tip: when buying multivitamins, you should always stick to well-known brands with good reputations. Bodybuilding.com is trusted by thousands and we’re happy to report that their own-brand multivitamin is a big hit.
7. Care/of Personalized Multivitamin
- Type: Tablet or Powder
- Designed for: Whatever you need!
- Vitamins: Select from a wide range
- Other Ingredients: Proteins, oils, and other supplements available
- Dose: Depends on your choice
Care/of have a wide range of vitamins, minerals, and supplements. You can buy single vitamin pills for deficiency or check out their range of plant-based protein powders, which are excellent for bodybuilders.
But the star product from Care/of is their personalized recommendation quiz. You take the quiz and Care/of will create a package of vitamins, minerals, and supplements to help you with your goals.
If you want to focus on supporting your joints and building muscle, Care/of might recommend their turmeric supplement alongside the protein powder, for example.
This approach is excellent for bodybuilders with very specific goals or vitamin deficiencies that need more than what a standard multivitamin can provide.
Bodybuilding Tip: not every personalized/make-your-own style product is a gimmick. Care/of vitamins can be just as (if not more) effective as a standard multivitamin when you find the right combination.
8. EVL Nutrition VitaMode Multivitamin
- Type: Tablets
- Designed for: All-round health while training
- Vitamins: A, B, C, D, and E
- Other Ingredients: Minerals, Phyto Nutrient Complex, Enzyme Complex
- Dose: 2 tablets (30 servings per container)
The VitaMode Multivitamin is a general, all-round multivitamin to keep you healthy while you train. It features all essential vitamins, plus some excellent minerals, compounds, and complexes. The Phyto Nutrient Complex is full of green tea and other natural extracts to boost your energy, and there are also some key enzymes within each tablet to ensure it’s absorbed by your body. This is one of the few multivitamins that are suitable for vegetarians.
Compared to the best multivitamins on this list, the VitaMode contains lower concentrations – but most vitamins are still over the 100% recommended daily intake, which is plenty.
Besides muscle performance and immune system health, this multivitamin is also great for your hair, skin, and nails. If you’re entering a bodybuilding competition, that’s something you might be interested in!
Bodybuilding Tip: Don’t underestimate the minerals in your multivitamin. This one contains chromium to support your metabolism and selenium for cognitive function and cell support.
9. MuscleTech Platinum Multivitamin
- Type: Tablets
- Designed for: Muscle building and athletes
- Vitamins: 18+ vitamins and minerals
- Other Ingredients: Antioxidants
- Dose: 3 tablets (30 servings per container)
Designed as an essential daily multivitamin, the Platinum multivitamin by MuscleTech has all the vitamins and minerals you need. It’s primarily designed for all-round health, to keep your immune system up and have your body working at optimum. The concentrations and extra complexes added are what make it more suitable for muscle building and athlete-level exercises.
With 865mg amino support and plenty of antioxidants, this is a good tablet to take for building strength and preventing free-radical damage on a cellular level.
It also contains a fantastic herbal matrix, with green tea and green coffee bean extracts for energy, plus ginseng, turmeric, and ginkgo leaf extracts for fighting inflammation and improving blood circulation.
Bodybuilding Tip: never underestimate the natural and herbal extracts in a multivitamin. This one contains turmeric, which has shown to improve heart health during workouts and may even prevent the growth of new fat cells.
10. GNC Mega Men Sport Multivitamin
- Type: Caplets
- Designed for: Performance, muscle function, general health
- Vitamins: 9+ in a range of 43 total nutrients
- Other Ingredients: Branched-chain amino acids and antioxidants
- Dose: 2 caplets (45 servings per container)
GNC Mega Men is a multivitamin designed especially for male bodybuilders and athletes. It contains all the vitamins and minerals as standard, plus a few extra compounds that are designed to enhance your performance and achieve your bodybuilding goals.
Key features in this multivitamin include beta-alanine for a muscle pH buffer, carnitine for burning fatty acids as energy, and branded chain amino acids for fueling and supporting muscles during intense exercise.
This is one of the most expensive multivitamins on our list, so take a closer look at the ingredients before you decide if it’s worth it!
Bodybuilding Tip: Look for the studies behind the facts. GNC used a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study to prove that this multivitamin is genuinely better than standard ones. They recorded statistically significant improvements in vitality and mental health too.
Multivitamin Buying Guide
We’ve compiled a few basic tips to help you make sense of a very busy market! Read this before you search for multivitamins online.
The Vitamins Bodybuilders Need
The one thing that all multivitamins for bodybuilding have in common is that they contain all the essential vitamins and minerals. There’s no one vitamin, mineral, compound, or extract that is the key to suddenly building muscles in any of these multivitamins.
A balanced intake of vitamins from your diet is key for keeping you alive, healthy, and strong – a multivitamin makes this much easier when you are on a limited diet for shredding.
Performing at your best, recovering quickly, burning fat, and boosting energy are all benefits you can get from taking a multivitamin that supports your entire system. From strengthening your immune system to keeping your cardiac health up, it’s all linked.
To absorb as much as you can from your multivitamins, you should:
- Follow the instructions, first of all. If the label indicates you should take it with food, at a specific time before you work out or during the day, then that’s usually the key.
- Take a drink of water with them. Many vitamins including C, all the Bs, and folic acid need to be dissolved in water (in your stomach) so your body can absorb them.
- Some vitamins (A, D, and K, for example) are fat-soluble so eating them with or after a meal can be beneficial too.
With the multivitamins on our list, you don’t need to worry about this too much. Many contain enzyme complexes or timed-release formulas to ensure the multivitamins break down correctly in your stomach and are absorbed by your body throughout the day.
Making Sense of the Label
There should always be a label on the side of the container that lists all of the vitamins, minerals, and other ingredients. If you come across a multivitamin that doesn’t have this label (or doesn’t show it online before you buy it) then avoid it at all costs.
Look not just at the variety of vitamins included, but also the DV column. This indicates whether the multivitamin provides 100% (or less, or more) of the recommended daily value for each specific vitamin and mineral. The value is based on a 2000 calorie per day diet.
Unless you have a deficiency, you’ll usually get the vast majority of your daily value from your diet, so it’s not a major concern if a vitamin or mineral has less than 100%.
You might want to be concerned if the values are too high, however. As WebMD highlights, large doses of vitamin E above 600-800 IU daily can be dangerous, and taking too much iron from multivitamins when you already get your daily intake from your diet can be dangerous too. A build-up of iron in your body can cause serious damage to your organs.
FAQs
Do you have some questions that weren’t answered in our mini-guide? Perhaps you’ll find the answers here. If not, leave a comment at the end of this article!
Are vitamins important for bodybuilding?
Yes! Multivitamins are great for all-round health. Specific vitamins can contribute to building muscle, while others strengthen your immunity in general. Keeping your body healthy and supplied with all the vitamins and minerals it needs will ensure you can work out to the best of your ability and your recovery times will be as quick as possible.
When should I take multivitamins?
While there are specific times you should take specific vitamins (for example, vitamin K should be taken with a meal as fats help your body absorb it), with a multivitamin it’s not possible to find a time that’s optimal for every vitamin inside it.
Furthermore, many multivitamins contain enzymes and probiotics to help the tablet break down and be fully absorbed. Others have timed-release formulas that will release nutrients slowly over the day.
What’s more important is that you follow the recommended dose and take it at the same time every day for maximum effects.
Do female bodybuilders need different multivitamins?
The vitamins and minerals you need to build muscle are the same for both men and women. The difference comes down to dose sizes and other compounds relevant to general health. Many of the multivitamins on our list contain compounds for hormonal support, for example, which is different for men and women’s health. While there are some multivitamins just for men and others just for women, there are many more that are suitable for both.
Which multivitamins are vegan?
Very few. On our list, the Performance Lab multivitamin for women is 100% vegan (as is the male version of their multivitamin). Many multivitamins contain milk, soy, and weirdly, fish and shellfish products. Always check the label!
More to know: 6 Best Energy Pills 2020: Is The Supplement I Want To Buy Safe?
Leave a Reply