Surge Workout Fuel Trial

Bigger Stronger Leaner Over 35 Lifter
1

I have been using Plazma as my primary peri-workout nutrition source for my morning workouts for the last few years. I am going to be trying Surge Workout Fuel for an extended run. Currently I am 5-8, 209.6 20.4% bodyfat. I am 51 years old. I have trained mostly like a powerlifter and totaled 1260 (470/355/435) with belt and knee wraps in my late 30s and 1175 in my late 40s (425/335/415) so nothing spectacular, just average joe trying to get close to my potential.

I am going to go with Surge Workout Fuel for the next 15 weeks and see how it goes. I am training with higher reps than in my powerlifting routine, and using more joint friendly exercises for this period, and also am working primarily to get down to floating in the 12-16% bodyfat range.

I also have genetically high Uric Acid levels which are inflammatory, but I am able to keep the levels low by eliminating sugar, alcohol, non-alcoholic beer, but during intense resistance training and calorie restriction U.A. is well known to rise as purines are released from body tissues at they are broken down and remodeled and rebuilt. U.A. can short circuit weight loss attempts because it causes inflammation, elevates cortisol, raises insulin resistance and can also cause hypothyroidism, so I am taking measures to keep my U.A. as low as possible during the calorie restriction. I have a home monitor. 4-6 mg/dl is considered great, and that’s where I am on my regular low U.A. diet, but during calorie deficits it can rise to 7-9 (moderate high U.A.) or even to 9-10 range even on a low U.A. diet.

If you have ever had a hard time losing weight over an extended period of time, you might want to get U.A. monitor. Not only does it resist fat loss, but it can result in more than normal muscle loss in a calorie deficit, and is a major factor in rebound fat gain after calorie restriction. Emerging research suggests that the mutant U.A. gene that elevated U.A. may be the underlying factor in metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance issues may be a side effect.

My normal low U.A. diet is no alcohol, low fructose and no non alcoholic beer (which is high in purines). During calorie restriction I also avoid liver and shellfish which are high in purines and am adding in some supplements that keep U.A. down, or reduce U.A. induced inflammation.

I may also try to moderate my caloric restriction to keep U.A. down, and use training methods that reduce muscular inflammation, perhaps using more slow (60s) continuous tension to preserve muscle and less controlled ballistic exercises.

Experiences with Surge Workout Fuel?
Experiences with U.A. management?
Over 50 recomp?

Let’s talk!

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2

I was given a few bags of Surge for my participation in multiple Surge Challenges. I don’t do pre-workout anymore and hardly supplement anything specific to training (not including TRT, protein powder and creatine), but I will continue to use Surge for my training - I’m sold on it.

I have way less shitty workouts when taking Surge, more consistent performance, and I’m able to bounce back faster. There is a noticeable difference when training with and without Surge in my experience.

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3

I’m a huge fan. I put a whole write-up somewhere, but I’ll echo @Andrewgen_Receptors:

  • More good (not even neutral) workouts
  • I can lift more frequently
  • I have greatly reduced my caffeine intake
  • Way more convenient than timing meals (I lift first thing)

For my test, I did a Meadows’ program I’d tried and quit before (because I felt like crap). I made it through the program, hitting all the progressions, with a family move in the middle - I am pretty sold.

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4

I bought a bag and returned it for a refund after using about half of it. I’ve been a Biotest customer for many years and as far as I can remember, this is the first time I’ve ever taken them up on their return policy. I returned it for two main reasons: 1) I liked Plazma better and 2) I found the wild berry taste unpalatable.

5

All my workouts have seemed better and with the same consistency.

Buy a bag and give it a try. Don’t count on getting much more than a week out of one bag.

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6

Yea, I actually drank Plazma and Mag-10 without any added flavoring for years. Some people claimed that was a sign of anti-social tendencies. I avoid sugar and I’d rather not have a sweet taste in my mouth during a workout, and I think the flavoring gives me a little reflux for some reason.

I DO understand why there is some sucrose in it. Sucrose has a little fructose which will preferentially go to the liver to restore liver glycogen after hard training, and it can keep the liver from competing with muscles for glucose.

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You might be on the opposite end of the spectrum from me then – I didn’t like the wild berry because it tasted chemically to me. If it were sweeter my guess is I would have liked it better.

8

If I were still competing in bodybuilding, I would probably avoid using Surge the last 6 weeks (about the same time I started Clenbuterol). But what would be the advantage to avoiding Surge the other “normal” training weeks?

9

oof. Did that once, never again lol.

10

Try “straight” leucine, though dissolving it is quite the challenge. Wet clumps is about the best I can get stirring it.

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11

Well, I plan to use Surge consistently for at least the next 15 weeks. My main concern is that if you wake up and train on Surge you may not have a large reservoir of EAAs available to benefit from the protein synthesis trigger. Muscle fiber and enzyme proteins are made of a a fairly balanced ratio of amino acids. Leucine is the trigger. Two servings of Plasma have 30 grams of a balance of amino acids from Di and Tripeptides and 3.5 grams of Leucine and about 76 grams of cyclic dextrin. Two servings of Surge have 10 grams of protein all from Leucine which should be super efficient at triggering protein synthesis as long as you get enough EAAs throughout the day, especially dinner the night before. I think Surge can work better if used right.

Also, it’s important to take Surge right before starting to train or to drink it during warmups. Leucine and Dextrin both stimulate insulin and if your insulin gets spikes and THEN you start to do a bunch of hard sets of 8-15 you can get a hypoglycemic crash, though I had that happen with Plazma. I could take 2 Plazma starting during my warmups, 76 grams dextrin, and my blood sugar would stay 90-100 the whole time and also not go low after but if you give your pancreas 30 minutes lead in to pump out insulin and then work your ass off you will go low. I suppose you can just drink more. I used Plazma today and it went well. This was the last week of a hard training block and I hit all of my target sets and reps.

12

I see a paradox when your weight training session is upon waking. (My solution is that I would NEVER attempt to weight train as soon as I woke in the morning after an 8 hour fast.)

I don’t know how I would approach Surge if I trained first thing in the morning. As it is now I get in two good meals in, and two hours after the second meal I take the first Surge dose just before walking out the door to the gym, taking the second dose during the workout, and finishing it all at the end of my workout. About 30 to 45 minutes later I take a Plazma dose. Then an hour later, or so, eat the next meal.

13

I mixed up 36 grams casein hydrolysate last night in thermos and put it on my bathroom sink, and sure enough, I woke up around 5:00 am to take a piss, so I downed that, then had my coffee around 6:00 and workout out from 8:00-9:00 with 2 servings of surge. Seemed to work well.

Peri-workout nutrition (Plazma and Surge) have worked very well to let me drop fat weight while actually gaining some muscle so far. I used to try to minimize carbs, but I burn more fat and retain more muscle with Plazma and Surge. I had tried Surge before, but also liked Plazma a lot, but I am sticking with Surge at least through the next 15 weeks and if I can get to my typical stall point in bodyfat while retaining more muscle it would be fantastic. I typically would drop from about 22% to about 14% and lose about 15 pounds of lean bodyweight along the way which made it hard to get much lower than 14%, but I have dropped 11 pounds of fat and gained 3 pounds of muscle over the last month. I haven’t dropped fat and gotten stronger and gained lean bodyweight at the same time since my late 20s.

I have 5 three week training meso-cycles planned through December. In the past I have been at best 205 and 16% bodyfat and 185 and 13.5%. Getting under 16 really starts to strip the muscle but again most likely due to typically using a low carb approach in the past. On 2 Surge (68 grams carbs) and a hard 1 hour workout my blood sugar never went over 100, but I am in a pretty substantial daily calorie deficit.

14

I guess I’m in the minority here, but I’ve not really noticed any difference in using Surge for the past month or two. That being said, I’m not really sensitive to noticing these things, I guess. If everybody on the boards says it works, though, I’ll keep using it. Maybe it’s helping me without me noticing. Also, I don’t think it tastes very good; but that’s supplements across the board.

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15

Have you tried increasing volume or frequency or anything to test its ability to improve your recovery? That’s where it shines for me.

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16

No. That might be the problem, I guess. Maybe I should just stop taking it. I’m not going to change my training to accommodate a supplement, probably. That seems backwards to me.

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17

Something I keep meaning to throw into my own training log that I forget is that introducing Surge has really jacked up my insulin sensitivity. I’m a low carb guy to begin with, and using 1 serving of Surge before my hardest workouts of the week (squats and deads respectively) have made it to the point that I am POURING sweat after big meals. It’s wild the metabolic effects.

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18

I think that’s backwards thinking. I’m not trying to sell you on a supplement, but that’s like lifting less because you might need food to recover. If something enables you to do more work that would help you progress more, why would that not be a positive?

If you’re completely happy with what you’re doing and don’t want to change anything and aren’t getting anything out of Surge, that is totally valid.

19

Usually when I try to lose bodyfat, by the time I’ve lost 8 pounds of fat, I’ve also lost about 8 pounds of fluid/glycogen from my muscles as well, maybe after about 1 month. Then I will lose mostly fat, but just run out of steam because my workout intensity and metabolism tend to drop.

I decided initially to use 2xPlazma for my 3 big workouts per week, and the difference was that I was losing fat (confirmed by a very experienced skinfold technician) but I was gaining muscle volume/mass, and certainly not losing it. A lot of that I think was just due to deciding that it was OK to get 75 grams of glucose polymers peri-workout. I believe that it helps reduce my overall cortisol levels too as measured by another test, and when you burn a lot of carbs in training, your body tends to prefer to burn fat during the balance of the day and night. My blood pressure has also gone from 130/95 to 110/75 which is due partially to lower bodyfat and lower cortisol and also from the citrulline.

My concerns with Surge were 1) I train early after coffee and will drink peri-workout drink, but I am not going to eat breakfast 2 hours before that and Plazma had more EAAs to participate in the protein synthesis stimulated by training etc. Surge is a better protein synthesis stimulator IMO but doesn’t have the building blocks of EAAs and I eat dinner early, around 7:00 pm, but I just decided I would get down 24-36 grams of hydrolyzed casein when I get up to start my coffee pot, and then get in the Surge after my warmup sets of my first exercise, and then finish it about half way through. I train for about 1 hour after warmups, but sometimes have to take longer in the hardest weeks.

So I have been losing fat of Plazma and now trying Surge on a hypocaloric diet but my hydrated muscle mass is actually rising slightly and I’m beating my programming goals. Usually I like to ramp up all sets by about 2 reps of 5% weight over a 3 week block, but I ended up adding about 4 reps or 10% weight (depending on the exercise) so I may need to be a little careful with the intensity. I’m hitting recent 8 rep MAXES for 4 x 8 for example at the end of this block on several exercises. So my hope is that I’ll be able to maintain my muscle and my workout intensity and can avoid stalling out as my bodyfat starts to work its way under 15%.

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20

So are you saying that you basically are just doing the same workout that you did before, and eating the same, and with the hope of either adding muscle or losing fat or both? For that to happen, you probably have to get stronger, and if that happens you are going to have to use progressive overload of some sort. What is your end goal? One thing, on Surge, I had to stop myself from adding in too many extra sets today because I felt like I could do another round of everything.