Supplements Indian Athletes Don't Need and Waste Money On
A 19-year-old cricketer showed me a photo of his supplement shelf last month. Mass gainer, BCAA powder, glutamine, a pre-workout, a fat burner his gym trainer sold him. Around ₹9,000 a month. His actual daily food intake, once we logged it, was roughly 1,900 calories against a training load that needed closer to 3,200.
Most supplements Indian athletes buy — mass gainers, BCAAs, glutamine, fat burners, collagen — have no meaningful evidence for performance in well-fed athletes. The money is better spent on food. The supplements worth taking are the ones that correct a confirmed deficiency: iron, B12, vitamin D, and in some cases creatine.
India's sports nutrition market was valued at around USD 1.9 billion in 2025 (IMARC Group, 2025), though estimates across research firms vary by a factor of five, which tells you how little anyone actually knows about where this money goes. What's clearer is where it doesn't go: food.
Quick Overview
Which supplements athletes don't need?
Any supplement that claims to improve performance in an athlete who is already eating enough. That covers most of the shelf. The pattern I see in assessments is an athlete under-fuelled by 800–1,200 calories a day, spending money on products designed to solve problems that under-fuelling created in the first place. Fatigue, poor recovery, stalled strength gains. All of those resolve with food before any powder gets a chance to work.
The category worth defending is narrow. Correct a confirmed deficiency, or take something with strong independent evidence behind it. Everything else is a purchase made on marketing.
Mass gainers are mostly sugar
A typical mass gainer serving delivers 1,200–1,500 calories, of which 200–250g is carbohydrate, usually maltodextrin, with 30–50g of protein attached. You can build the same thing from a litre (about a pint) of milk, oats, a banana, peanut butter and dates for a fraction of the cost, and get fibre, potassium and micronutrients with it.
The argument for gainers is convenience for athletes who genuinely struggle to eat enough. That's real for some, and shakes can be used that way with rugby and heavyweight combat athletes. But convenience is a different claim from efficacy, and the price gap between a homemade shake and a branded gainer isn't a convenience premium. It's a brand premium.
Do BCAAs do anything if your protein is adequate?
No. Branched-chain amino acids alone don't produce a meaningful increase in muscle protein synthesis in humans, because building muscle requires all nine essential amino acids and supplying only three limits the process rather than driving it (Wolfe, JISSN, 2017). Some human studies have found muscle protein synthesis fell after isolated BCAA intake.
If you eat 1.4–2.0g of protein per kg of bodyweight daily (Thomas et al., J Acad Nutr Diet, 2016), you're already getting several grams of leucine per meal from dal, eggs, paneer, chicken, fish, tofu, milk, yoghurt or soy. A BCAA drink adds nothing your lunch didn't already deliver. For a 70kg (154lb) athlete, that's roughly 100–140g of protein a day from food, which is achievable on a vegetarian diet with attention and easy without one.
Glutamine, fat burners and testosterone boosters
Glutamine sells on immunity and recovery. A meta-analysis of clinical trials found no effect on aerobic performance, body composition or immune markers in athletes (Ramezani Ahmadi et al., Clinical Nutrition, 2019). It's a conditionally essential amino acid, which matters in burns patients and clinical malnutrition, not in a marathoner in Bengaluru or Boston who eats three meals a day.
Fat burners are the worst value on the shelf and the highest risk. A systematic review of 315 randomised trials of weight-loss supplements found minimal high-quality evidence that any of them produce meaningful weight loss (Batsis et al., Obesity, 2021). Many contain stimulant doses that push resting heart rate up in athletes already carrying training stress, and some have been found spiked with undeclared pharmaceuticals.
Testosterone boosters fail on a simpler test. An analysis of the most-marketed products found published testosterone data for barely a third of them, with a quarter showing an increase, some showing a decrease, and no evidence for the majority (Balasubramanian et al., J Sex Med, 2019). In healthy young men training hard, sleeping badly and eating too little, the thing suppressing testosterone is usually the energy deficit, and no botanical blend fixes that. Only a structured increase in calories does.
Where collagen sits
Fueletics doesn't recommend collagen. The tendon and connective-tissue research is early, the performance claims run well ahead of it, and the products are priced as though the question is settled. If you eat enough protein and enough vitamin C, you have what collagen synthesis needs.
What's actually worth taking
Supplement to correct something you've measured. Iron matters most for female athletes and vegetarians, and it absorbs far better when taken with vitamin C, which is why an iron tablet with citrus or amla does more than the same tablet with tea. B12 is non-negotiable for vegans and worth checking in long-term vegetarians. Vitamin D is worth supplementing when a test says it's low, which in indoor-sport athletes and athletes in polluted cities it very often is. None of these are performance supplements. They're deficiency corrections, and the difference matters. Get the blood work read properly before you buy anything.
Creatine monohydrate is the exception that earns its place. The IOC names it as one of only four supplements with good evidence for performance, with gains in high-intensity capacity, strength and lean mass, and no negative health effects recorded over long-term use of up to four years (Maughan et al., BJSM, 2018). The case for creatine, and who it doesn't help, is worth reading before starting.
How safe are protein supplements sold in India?
Less safe than the label suggests. Independent analysis of 36 popular protein supplements sold in India found nearly 70% delivered less protein than claimed, with some at roughly half, while 14% contained fungal aflatoxins and 8% carried pesticide residues (Citizens Protein Project, Medicine, 2024). The ICMR-NIN 2024 dietary guidelines advise against routine protein supplement use on the back of quality and safety concerns of this kind.
For a 16-year-old buying whey from a gym counter, that's not a theoretical risk. It's an unregulated product with an inaccurate label going into a growing body, funded out of money that would buy a lot of eggs, milk and dal.
The Fueletics Perspective
I've never written a supplement into a client plan as a first move. Not once. The reason is that in the assessments I run, the problem is almost always energy availability and carbohydrate, not a missing molecule. Fix the under-fuelling first and most of what the shelf promises arrives on its own.
The honest version of this is unglamorous. Eat enough. Distribute protein across meals. Test before you supplement, and supplement only what the test found. If you want to know what "enough" means in your numbers, rather than in a general article's numbers, start with a Fueletics assessment — the calorie, carbohydrate and protein targets are the things a supplement can't substitute for.
That cricketer stopped everything except a vitamin D tablet. Three months later he'd added 4kg (9lb) and his gym numbers had moved for the first time in a year. He ate more. That was the intervention.
FAQ
Do athletes need protein powder?
No. Protein powder is a convenience, not a requirement. If you hit 1.4–2.0g/kg from food, powder adds nothing except calories and cost.
Are BCAAs a waste of money?
For anyone eating adequate protein, yes. Isolated BCAAs don't meaningfully raise muscle protein synthesis (Wolfe, JISSN, 2017), and w
hole protein foods already contain them.
Which supplements actually work for athletes?
Creatine monohydrate has the strongest evidence for high-intensity performance. Iron, B12 and vitamin D work when a blood test confirms a deficiency, not otherwise.
Are Indian protein supplements safe?
Many aren't as labelled. Independent testing found 70% of sampled products missed their protein claim and 14% contained aflatoxins (Citizens Protein Project, Medicine, 2024).
Research References
Wolfe RR. Branched-chain amino acids and muscle protein synthesis in humans: myth or reality? J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017;14:30. doi:10.1186/s12970-017-0184-9
Ramezani Ahmadi A, Rayyani E, Bahreini M, Mansoori A. The effect of glutamine supplementation on athletic performance, body composition, and immune function: a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials. Clin Nutr. 2019;38(3):1076–1091. doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2018.05.001
Batsis JA, Apolzan JW, Bagley PJ, et al. A Systematic Review of Dietary Supplements and Alternative Therapies for Weight Loss. Obesity. 2021;29(7):1102–1113. doi:10.1002/oby.23110
Balasubramanian A, Thirumavalavan N, Srivatsav A, et al. Testosterone Imposters: An Analysis of Popular Online Testosterone Boosting Supplements. J Sex Med. 2019;16(2):203–212. doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2018.12.008
Maughan RJ, Burke LM, Dvorak J, et al. IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete. Br J Sports Med. 2018;52(7):439–455. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2018-099027
Thomas DT, Erdman KA, Burke LM. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the ACSM: Nutrition and Athletic Performance. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2016;116(3):501–528. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2015.12.006
Citizens protein project: a self-funded, transparent, and concerning report on analysis of popular protein supplements sold in the Indian market. Medicine (Baltimore). 2024;103(14):e37724. doi:10.1097/MD.0000000000037724
ICMR-NIN. Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024.
