Adaptogens 101

Diet and Nutrition
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Hey everyone. I thought I would start a new thread that we can all pool our knowledge and experiences with adaptogens. I have never supplemented with any other than an occasional ginseng dose here or there. But I am interested in learning about them and eventually incorporating them into my supplement stack. From what I have read, they have systemic affects on your body, making you handle stress better in many ways.

Something to the effect of boosting your natural resistance to stress, which by itself seems to be a very potent thing. I mean stress basically can make different systems of your body malfunction or even shut down. So if there is some simple herbs we can take to protect against stress, I say it sounds like a very good staple supplement.

Heck in the next 4-5 years, I fully expect to never get sick, have a 10 inch wanker, have smooth clear tanned skin, flowing golden locks of hair, My brown eyes will turn green, I’ll look 20 instead of 35, I’ll grow 2 inches, etc… But seriously, I think we as a group are really starting to get past scratching the surface with regard to optimal human health and performance.

There are things I do now which I would never have done 10 years ago, like supplementing with 4000 Iu of D3, or taking a liquid gel Multi, or taking fish oil. I mean just doing the base stuff which will keep us healthy, and possibly add many healthy years to our lives. Adaptogens seem to be another important peice to that puzzle.

Please share your experiences, profound research papers, even hypothetical stacks or effects are welcomed to the discussion. I know Biotest Has the Rhodiola Supplement, so I’m sure we can get a lot of personal feedback right off the bat from that herb alone.

I personally have known about them for a little while now, but for some reason, today, I got the urge to dive into them and see what they are inside and out. I’ll be reading as many studies and articles about them as I can and posting anything interesting I find.

V

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Last year I purchased a bottle of Biotest Rhodiola to help deal with psychological stress. I felt the results instantly and it let me deal with the underlying problem. But this is the key. If you are just using to combat constant stress, eventually you will still wear yourself out and have adrenal issues. For training purposes, it works well during periods of over-reaching, but you need to have a longer term plan in place as constant use is counter-indicated.

Stress fighting products like this should be used more as a tonic and perhaps it may be worthwhile to look into some other stress/cortisol modulating supplements like phosphatidylserine, holy basil, astralagus, glycine, and licorice root. I also like 20-hydroxyecdysone which some Biotest researchers (Dr.Z) have discussed.

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Thanks for the info peter. One thing i’m curious about is is cycling off going to be for all adaptogens, or just the one you are using? I mean say I do a month of Rhodiola and then do a month of cordyceps or something like that. Or even setting up a couple different stacks and cycling through them so you are constantly going off one and onto another.

As a starter I think I’m going to order a bottle of the Biotest product and use it as my baseline. Don’t be alarmed that was just TC’s woodrow wilson hitting the underside of his desk.

V

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potentially an interesting thread vegita.

are the adaptogens useful to take during short periods of stress? like only a couple days? i’ve been taking rhodiola on days where i don’t get much sleep (consistently the beginning of the week) and still have to squat/bench in the evening. it seems to be working well enough - haven’t actually gotten sick yet even though most sundays/mondays are 4hrs of sleep nights. who knows if that’s placebo, but i mean if in the end it works, who cares?

tl,dnr: am i wasting the rhodiola by just taking it for a couple days at a time?

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ah, and a follow-up: the original intent was to use the rhodiola during “blast” weeks, i.e. going heavy on the main lifts and pushing the assistance work HARD. in anyone’s experience, has supplementing with an adaptogen with that sort of plan helped? waste of herb, or a good use?

still haven’t carried out the plan yet… it’s hard to tell in advance when your body is ready to really push it, especially when life holds you back a little.

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I’ve used Rhodiola, during a pretty stressful time, and noticed no significant effects. Actually, it seems to make breathing through my nose more difficult.

Maybe I’m allergic.

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Hell yeah, winter quarter starts today so I’m interested to hear about this.

Thank you V.

Oce

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@getiron:

Your description of use is consistent with expectations. Only you will be able to do the experiment and see how it works for you, although it is a cheap one.

for all else:

I would not expect this product or any other stress product to ‘cure’, ‘alter’, or ‘help relieve stress’ if that stress is constantly overwhelming the body’s ability to deal with it. One may adapt to training volume increases using such a supplement as part of a protocol, but psychological stress is unrelated to your physical stress (for the most part, I’m talking about causes here) so for a vast majority of people, dealing with this will actually lead to more improvement.

Certainly in less severe cases, using a supplement like this as a tonic is very useful, not unlike having a cup of coffee in the morning after little sleep, however, if you do this everyday, the coffee becomes less effective or you require a dose which causes other side effects and questionably delivers the benefits you would receive if it was a once a week occurrence.