I created this thread for people here to post their RESULTS with supplements, nothing but anecdotal evidence. We all can read studies and ads, but what really matters are the results.
So, please help by saying what you used and was a waste of money, and what you used and saw a good results.
I react very well to Carbolin-19 (either the stand-alone or with HOT-ROX). I put on muscle mass with it easily, and I don’t see excessive fat gains.
Creatine also works for me. I take it during and post-workout, and I feel a lot stronger.
Fish oil definitely helps with joint soreness. I went through a week’s time when I finished my last bottle of Flameout and was waiting for a liquid fish oil order to arrive, and I had shoulder pain that I didn’t have before.
When I started with the higher doses of fish oil again, the pain went away. I have not noticed any fat loss benefits to a large fish oil intake, however.
I use the NOW brand Rhodiola Rosea when I’m feeling stressed out, and it calms me down and helps me focus.
Beta-7: I think it is the best thing ever and when I stacked it with Carbolin 19, it worked better than creatine, with no bloating. When I was doing OL, the Beta-7 helped me to get out those extra reps without dying on the floor. The stack worked really well for about 3 months. Then It started to make me hold water, so I cut it out. I think this is a great stack for bulking, particularly if you don’t have female hormones getting in the way.
Fish Oil: I rotate the brand every time I need a new bottle, and found that my nails are way stronger and it helps with redness/inflammation of the skin a lot. I’ve had a few injuries in the past year (torn ligaments in elbow, torn rotator cuff) but have no evidence that fish oil helped with either one, since I’ve taken it consistently for 2 years, before during and after the injuries.
BCAAs: The brand I buy (OAC) has 2500 mg L-Leucine, 1250 mg L-Isoleucine and 1250mg L-Valine (5g scoop). It’s a powder and it’s nasty but I have found that 20g during training and 10g after in my shake has helped me to get through the last 12 weeks of a pretty grueling Sheiko program, recovery wise. It also helped to make lean gains, I ate like a pig for 12 weeks and now one week out from my meet, I have only 2lbs to cut to make weight I’ve put on a good amount of mass on my legs and back. This is the one supplement I won’t train without.
Protein Powder: meh. If Surge was available in stores, I’d buy it but I can live without. I get a regular whey isolate and have a shake PWO with a banana. People say not to do this but I didn’t find any difference between doing this and taking Surge. The shipping and brokerage fees are too expensive to Canada for Biotest to order the stuff on a regular basis.
Next time a bunch of cash falls into my lap, I’m getting some waxy maize to try for PWO and I’ll order some more Beta-7.
Fish Oil: I’ve had the same experiences with fish oil and joint pain. Usually my knees feel like crap, but after I started taking fish oil (12g/day generic) the pain magically went away. I didn’t change anything else.
Creatine: I’m not sure if it works. I take in my pre and post work out nutrition. It’s cheap enough and lasts forever, so…I’ll just stick with it.
HOT-ROX: definitely makes me feel something. I did loose fat quicker when I was in that mode, but I don’t have a great way of measuring just scale weight/mirror/pictures, which are all pretty poor indicators.
EDIT:
And then there’s Spike. If I could afford to take this stuff before every training session, I would. Extreme energy is an understatement. Super intense focus. I took the pill version.
Anabolic Pump by USP Labs works. I can only imagine how much better my results would be if I was bulking instead of leaning out.
Other stuff I like:
VPX Meltdown
Biotest Spike
Scivation Xtend
[quote]esk221 wrote:
Anabolic Pump by USP Labs works. I can only imagine how much better my results would be if I was bulking instead of leaning out.
Other stuff I like:
VPX Meltdown
Biotest Spike
Scivation Xtend[/quote]
I’ve heard good stuff about USP products.
Have you tried other stuff from them?
Imo all of the “food” supplements will give you better results than the fancy crap out there.
Protein, Aminos, carbs, weight gainers, vitamins, fish oils, etc take top priority.
Glutamine, creatine, etc are second to this.
Fat burners are great if utilized after your diet has hit a plateu. Don’t rely on the fat burner to do the work you are supposed to be doing with your diet.
Your test boosters are kind of a “whatever floats your boat” supplement imo. (depends on age and situation)
Now all the NO boosters and some of the preworkout crack pills are not worth it unless you have a lot of money and feel the need to mess around with supplements and your body. lol
DG
[quote]dianab wrote:
esk221 wrote:
Anabolic Pump by USP Labs works. I can only imagine how much better my results would be if I was bulking instead of leaning out.
Other stuff I like:
VPX Meltdown
Biotest Spike
Scivation Xtend
I’ve heard good stuff about USP products.
Have you tried other stuff from them?[/quote]
I tried Cissus, didn’t notice shit. Thumbs down. I’m giving Recreate and PowerFULL a shot now. Recreate seems to help with my appetite, which is what hurts me while I’m dieting. Haven’t noticed anything with PowerFULL yet. P-Slin seems interesting as well.
[quote]Dirty Gerdy wrote:
Imo all of the “food” supplements will give you better results than the fancy crap out there.
Protein, Aminos, carbs, weight gainers, vitamins, fish oils, etc take top priority.
Glutamine, creatine, etc are second to this.
Fat burners are great if utilized after your diet has hit a plateu. Don’t rely on the fat burner to do the work you are supposed to be doing with your diet.
Your test boosters are kind of a “whatever floats your boat” supplement imo. (depends on age and situation)
Now all the NO boosters and some of the preworkout crack pills are not worth it unless you have a lot of money and feel the need to mess around with supplements and your body. lol
DG[/quote]
I agree. I like BETA-7, Carbolin 19, and HRX. But other than that I just stick with nutritional and health and wellness supplements these days. Although I am taking Icon by StarChem labs now while leaning out and it’s awesome. It’s like an oral version of 11-T. Can’t wait to try 11-T itself when it comes back in stock.
I am definetly using Beta-Alanine, Whey Protein, BCAAs. I wanna know if Leucine taken with meals is really that good. Oh and if anyone knows what the doses are for these supplements I would appreciate it. Thnxs.
Uhm, and what about glycerol and creatine?
Like many others I’ve found the unsexy basic supplements to bring about the most notable contribution.
Protein: Obvious.
Fish Oil: Reduced inflammation in my right shoulder and knees. 5-6g daily.
Creatine Monohydrate: Hardly groundbreaking, but provides slight (and I mean slight) strength and size gains. Of course every bit is important. 5g post-workout.
Vitamin D: I believe it helps my mood in winter when the days are shorter and I’m not getting enough sun. I’m only taking conservative amounts though. 1000ui 1-2x daily.
As for supplements that didn’t work I’ve found no noticeable positive effects from ZMA. Although I’ve had stranger dreams I’m rarely well rested when I take it and my general health is about the same. Also, Spike did have a noticeable stimulant-like affect on me, but I found it slightly distracting and it began to interfere with my lifts. It should be noted however that different people will react differently to Spike.
Do you mind talking a little more about ICON? I’ve been having trouble finding reviews and logs on this particular supplement.
[quote]varouet wrote:
jsbrook wrote:I agree. I like BETA-7, Carbolin 19, and HOT-ROX. But other than that I just stick with nutritional and health and wellness supplements these days. Although I am taking Icon by StarChem labs now while leaning out and it’s awesome. It’s like an oral version of 11-T. Can’t wait to try 11-T itself when it comes back in stock.
Do you mind talking a little more about ICON? I’ve been having trouble finding reviews and logs on this particular supplement.[/quote]
Well, it’s hard to exactly quantify results. They are confounded by a bit of a layoff. Not a true layoff. But bad diet and sloppy training for 5 weeks following the Bar exam.
My bar trip. But in about 2 weeks of getting back in the gym and hitting it hard, I’ve put 15 lbs on my bench. Improved my squat. All of lifts have basically gone up. It wouldn’t be that amazing considering the last several weeks of crappy diet and half-assed inconsistent training, but I’m on a strict diet to drop some fat I’ve gained.
Normally, I maintain strength fine but won’t gain strength on a diet even after a layoff. I’ve been pretty damn happy with the results. The fat’s coming off very well too. Especially abdominal fat. I am also following the insulin protocol with Poliquin’s supplements and using ACV and cinnamon before meals.
[quote]varouet wrote:
Vitamin D: I believe it helps my mood in winter when the days are shorter and I’m not getting enough sun. I’m only taking conservative amounts though. 1000ui 1-2x daily.
[/quote]
A+ for the Vitamin D. As soon as we switch back to standard time and it gets dark at 4:30 pm, I’ll start up with this again. Helped a lot last winter.
way back early last year i started megadosing fish oil, over 10 grams of EPA+DHA total = around 18 extra strength pills (400mg+200mg) or 30 regular strength pills (180mg+120mg)
within 2-3 months of doing this
Fish oil - would not go a day without it. My bad knee has not bothered me once since I started taking it. Prefer the liquid ones to pills. Its easier to take a spoonful of liquid than it is to swallow 6 pills. I use pills when travelling
Protein powder - ofcourse! both Whey and Casein blends. Its a convenient way to squeeze in a meal in a jiffy or to reach the daily protein intake target.
Creatine - It absolutely works on me and I will continue to take it. I take a week or two off every two months or so
BCAA - I tried two different blends (that also contain stuff like citrus mallate) and pills and they all dramatically reduce DOMS. Will most certainly continue taking BCAA. I prefer the flavoured blends that can be mixed with water as the BCAA pill burbs are matched only by fish burps in awfulness.
ZMA - I use it when I’m low carb dieting as I have problems sleeping on low carb diets. ZMA helps and gives you some pretty interesting dreams to boot (in my experience atleast!)
Glutamine - I add it in PWO shake when I’m low carb dieting
Thats about it. All pretty basic and nothing that will ruin you except for BCAA’s which can be pretty expensive.
Protein: I find utilized to its full-potential when you blend the whey and casein when applicable. Ill use a scoop of casein and a schoop of whey in the morning for breakfast, and the same blend before I go to bed. Nice THICK shake to curb hunger for a while when dieting.
Creatine: tastes terrible, but price and quantity make it amazing. When im close to a competition ill incorporate it as I cut some cals to make weight annd need the rubber feeling to leave my legs. Also helps keep ALL my gains when i ate like a pig.
Glutamine: Great PWO supp no problems in knees after all my heavy deads and squats.
BCAA’s hard to say I dont take them independtly as they in my proteins. I figured the amount of protein I take will have plenty of BCAA’s in it
NO-Xplode- i know i know, dont kill me, but it works! I actually was AGAINST it, but my friend forced me to have a 2 scoop serving. amazing workouts I rocked out like a champ.