Guide
What supplements should I take?
The right answer depends on you.
A generic “top 10” list cannot account for:
- Your health and symptoms
- Your diet and lifestyle
- How you train
- Your goals
- Any medication you take
Change one of these factors, and your supplement needs may change too.
Start with your personal profile — then match it to the research.
What actually decides it
It starts with You
Six things, in rough order of how much each one moves the answer.
01
Your lifestyle
Desk job or on your feet all day. Seven hours of sleep or five. Shift work, travel, a job that leaves you wired at 11pm, kids who decide when your night ends.
02
Your habits
What you actually eat, not what you mean to eat. Coffee, and when. Alcohol. Whether you are consistent or stop-start.
03
Your routine
When you train and how often. Morning or evening. Fasted or fed. For several supplements the timing is not a detail — it is the whole thing.
04
Your circumstances
Your age and body. Male or female — and if female, where you are in your cycle. Your budget. What you can actually buy in South Africa. Any medication.
05
Your training
How hard, how much, and how long you have been at it. Week eight of a first block is a different problem from year ten.
06
Your sport — last, not first
A Comrades build is not a strength block. It matters. It just matters after everything above it, which is the opposite of how this usually gets written.
No one is the exact same as you. So no one else’s list is your list.
The four-part test
What real advice has to tell you
What to take
Named. Not “a good electrolyte” — the actual thing.
How much
A real dose. “As directed” is the manufacturer answering a question about their own product.
When to take it
Before training, with food, at night. For some things this decides whether it works at all.
Which form to buy
Magnesium alone comes in a dozen forms. They do not do the same job.
Fewer than four, and the sentence is unfinished. You are still the one guessing.
Four questions to ask of any page
How to spot advice worth trusting
Can you check it?
No source means no way to tell research from opinion. The two look identical in confident paragraphs.
Does it commit to a number?
“May support recovery” is a sentence built so it cannot be wrong. Nobody is taking responsibility for it.
Does it know anything about you?
Identical advice for a 22-year-old rugby player and a 45-year-old marathoner is a catalogue, not advice.
Does whoever recommends it also sell it?
Most supplement quizzes end in a basket of that company's own products. The answer was set before you clicked.
We do not sell supplements. We never will. Where you buy it is your business — the only arrangement under which the recommendation can be trusted.
Why we exist
Every person is unique.
Their solution should be too.
- →The research already exists. Decades of it, on nearly everything people take.
- →It sits in journals written for other researchers. The only people translating it had something to sell.
- →So an athlete gets two options: read the studies yourself, or trust the brand. Most take a third — guess.
- →Bridge closes that gap. You tell us how you live and train. We search the research for your situation, not the average one, and cite every study so you can check it.
Not a list. Yours.
Common questions
The things people ask us first
What supplements should I take?
There is no single answer, and anyone who gives you one without knowing anything about you is guessing. It depends on how you live, what you already eat, how and when you train, your age and body, and what is actually holding you back. Two people the same age in the same sport can need completely different things.
How do I know which supplements are right for me?
Start with what is limiting you, not with a product. Work out whether the real problem is sleep, recovery, energy or a plateau — then look for what the research supports for that problem in someone with your training load and lifestyle.
Are supplements even worth taking?
Some are, most are not, and which is which depends on you. A handful have strong repeated evidence. Many have almost none and survive on marketing. And some that genuinely work will still do nothing for you, because they solve a problem you do not have.
Can I just take a multivitamin and be done with it?
A multivitamin is insurance against small gaps in a diet. It is not a performance plan and it will not fix what slows you down in the back half of a session. A reasonable floor for some people, a waste of money for others — depending on what you already eat.
How is Bridge Performance different from other supplement quizzes?
Most supplement quizzes recommend the products of the company that wrote the quiz. Bridge does not sell, ship or make supplements, and never will. We tell you what the peer-reviewed research supports for your situation and cite the studies so you can check them.
How much does Bridge Performance cost?
R349 once-off. No subscription. That covers your full personalised report — every recommendation, the dose, the timing, the form to buy, and the research behind each one.
Is this medical advice?
No. Bridge gives research-backed recommendations based on the profile you give us. It is not a diagnosis and does not replace your doctor or dietitian — particularly if you take medication, are pregnant, or have a medical condition.
Stop guessing what to take.
A few questions about how you live and train. Back comes what the research supports for you — dose, timing, form, and the studies behind every one.
R349 once-off. No subscription. Bridge Performance does not sell supplements.