Sport's Supplements: Cut the CRAP! - Part III, By: Andrew Natale
In Part I we examined certain Supplements we consider a Bodybuilder's best friend......Protein, creatine, glutamine and anti-oxidants.
Sport’s Supplements: Cut the CRAP! – Part I
Part II examined several groups of supplements that work, as in they are effective, but carry a cost and we are not talking about money.
Sport’s Supplements: Cut the CRAP! – Part II
Now, here in Part III, we look at "Pure Crap", save your money! These are only this author's opinions, I sell many of the supplements mentioned, always informing the customer, but often time losing to the "power of Advertising!" We have had many discussions with the companies themselves, their distributors, scientists, research departments, etc, only to conclude the consumers attention and dollar rule the marketing decision, not the quality of the product. The result is too much crap!
Liquid Creatine: After lengthy conversations with SKW Laboratories (Creapure), we were assured that creatine can only be stabilized in oil, and if there were a way to make a "liquid creatine", SKW would be leading the way. Creatine breaks down into it's component amino acids (arginine, glycine, methionine) within two hours of being placed in liquid. Next came the independent third party lab assays all saying there was NO CREATINE in the products. Finally we called the companies involved, they explained "We have changed the molecule, so you can not test for it." Unbelievable BS!
The recent "Class Action Suit" against this product hasn't detoured sales either. Please look at a bottle. The leading product claims 75 grams of creatine in their product. You can't even fit 75 grams in the little bottle, let alone find the residue of the so called semi-dissolved creatine. It kills me when I sell bottle after bottle of it and the person says, "I love this, I don't get any of the side effects I do when I use powdered Creatine". I reply, "That's because there is NO creatine in it!" They buy it anyway.
Growth Hormone, Sprays, Analogs, Prologues: More hype and advertising goes into these products than you can imagine. The only people getting any results from these products are the ones selling them. Strange how those buying them never get any results. The truth is, if it's not prescription GH, a certain combination of 191 amino acids, refrigerated immediately once it is reconstituted, then it is bunk! Exceptions would be that there is some weak scientific evidence that homeopathic GH preparations, and some amino acid combinations produce an "infinitesimal" release of GH within ones body. If you want more GH, sleep deeper (REM stage 3 and 4 sleep aid in the body's GH production)
5-methyl-7-methoxy-isoflavone, aka Methoxy-isoflavone, or Methoxy: Once thought of as both an anabolic and anti-catabolic isoflavone, it was recommended by a nationally renowned trainer that dosages be increased to well over a gram a day in order to experience results. We called the manufacturer on a leading product, named after the "key ingredient", when we traced that ingredient down on the contents list as occurring right between the 125 mgs of calcium and 100 mgs of sodium. What a joke.....you'd need 10 servings of the product to theoretically get anywhere...and their explanation...."Well our research shows......." Having sold quite a bit of this product, I can tell you my research shows "No Effects" even at 2 grams a day. Not to say that it doesn't work for some, just that it doesn't work for most!
Ecdysterone, Plant Sterols, Sasprilla, Frac, Dibencozide, Gamma-Oryzanol, Colostrum, Inosine, Ipriflavone, Wild Yam, and the list goes on and on!
It's not that all of the these products "don't work at all", some have other uses. It's that they are simply not worth investing in.
Day after day, trainees come to me looking for that "Magic Pill", there are no shortcuts to hard work, good nutrition, and proper recovery. With supplements, nobody has reinvented the wheel, they have simply repackaged it, hyped it up, and now charge an arm and a leg for it! Invest in supplements that are safe, and proven to work, and give you good return for your investment. Save the rest of your money, don't buy the highly advertised "crap"
