Pre-workout products are one of the best selling categories of products on the market.  This category includes, Arnge Krush, NO Xplode, Nano Vapor, Super Pump, Shock Therapy and more.  A pre-workout product consists of three main components.  The first is energy; these products use a combination of stimulants, adaptogenic herbs, focal enhancers, and vitamins to increase energy levels.  Pre-workouts also contain NO (nitric oxide) precursors namely arginine and citrulline.  These ingredients cause vasodilatation so the muscle is receiving more blood and more oxygen.  Most also provide a dose of creatine.  Creatine is involved in ATP production and allows users to handle a greater workload as a result of greater ATP synthesis.  Depending on the product you may see some other features like insulin mimickers and amino acids but the nuts and bolts of these products are energy, NO, and creatine.

Now that we no what is then them lets take a look at what we can expect.  First let’s get a big picture understanding of muscle growth and strength.  Strength and muscle growth are adaptations to stress placed on a muscle.  This means that when you push more reps and more weight you are effectively putting stress on the muscle.  The muscle will respond to stress by growing and getting stronger.

Back to our pre-workout products.  By increasing overall energy levels you will be able to tolerate greater workloads.  Increased blood and oxygen clears lactic acid more quickly and provides the muscles with nutrient rich blood.  Greater ATP synthesis provides the fuel for more reps and greater weights.  Pre-workouts can provide an edge that will allow you to handle more work but you still have to pick up heavy weights and move them for more reps.

In order to maximize any exercise program you should know how many calories you are burning at rest.  You then can account for extra calories burned as a result of exercise which will help you adjust your diet to achieve your fitness goals.  The Harris Benedict equation which is listed below for men and women can be used to help you determine your base metabolic rate.

Women

BMR=

655 +  (4.35 x weight in pounds)

+  (12.7 x height in inches)

-  (4.7 x age in years)

Men

BMR=

66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds)

+  (12.7 x  height in inches)

-  (6.8 x age in years)

When introducing a customer to a small lesser known brand we often hear the comment “I haven’t heard of this company”.  People like to buy products from brands they have heard of.  Most people feel they can trust a larger brand based on quality and reputation.

Consider the following before you pick up your next big brand name product.  If you where to enter a grocery store and look around for brands you recognize you would find several including Kellogs, General Mills, Kraft, and Pillsbury.  Now stop and think about the foods they make and compare them to the organic produce, organic meats, and other farm raised products.  You would be hard pressed to name even one farm from which the healthier organic farm raised products come from.  Keep this in mind before placing too much faith in a large company who is often more interested in profits than they are the end consumer.   

Detox and Cleanse

Almost everyone cheats on their diet occasionally.  Consuming excess calories, carbs and bad fats can derail weight loss and make you feel ill.  After getting in a habit of eating clean most people will feel lethargic and even ill when they consume large amounts of the wrong types of foods.  Although we recommend eating healthy all the time when you don’t, try using Optimum Health’s Detox and Cleanse.  The herbal blend in this product will help your body cleanse itself within a matter of days.  You will notice a reduction in bloating in as little as 24 hours.  The gentle blend of fiber in Detox and Cleanse act almost like a broom on a floor sweeping out particles in the digestive tract to help the body cleanse itself of unwanted waste and toxins. 

Combine the Detox with essential fats like those in Olio and you can minimize the amount of fat that your body will store.  Supplementing with as little as 1100 milligrams of essential fats can increase fat burning by as much as 35% even after a carbohydrate rich meal.  There is mounting scientific evidence that essential fats exert an anti-obesity effect by shifting fat metabolism away from storage as body fat and toward fat burning.

Think how much easier it would be to stay healthy if fast food where good for you; quick, convenient on the go nutrition that wouldn’t sabotage our health and fitness goals.  Try making healthier eating convenient with a meal replacement product such as Whole Gains Meal Replacement.  Whole Gains combine’s whole grain carbohydrates from oats and brown rice with healthy fats and a blend of fast and slow digesting proteins.  This product mixes up easily and tastes great even in water and is available in 2.5 pound tubs or in single serving containers. 

If you are looking to decrease your carbs or would like a lighter protein drink try using Pro Complete 40 from Optimum Health.  A one scoop serving provides 20 grams of protein with only 2 grams of carbohydrates and 1.5 grams of fats.  If you are looking for more protein try mixing two scoops to bump the protein up to 40 grams per serving.

Increasing protein intake will allow you to maintain muscle tone, speed muscle recovery, and maintain energy levels.  Protein is an ideal nutrient as it promotes muscle tone but does not store easily as body fat.  Frequent small feedings including some protein are the ideal way to keep your metabolism going and your energy levels high.  

SSL Estro Xtreme - Formestane (4-hydroxyandrostenedione)

Estro Xtreme is a suicide aromatase inhibitor as it works by attaching to the active binding site of the aromatase enzyme, preventing it from interacting with other steroids (such as testosterone) that are capable of being converted to estrogen. With the enzyme binding site occupied, it is for all intents and purposes inactive. If the inhibitor is present in a high enough level it will dramatically suppress estrogen concentrations in the blood. The difference between a competitive inhibitor and Estro Xtreme, is that the former will detach after some time, rendering the enzyme active again. Estro Xtreme on the other hand binds permanently with the aromatase enzyme, making it useless until the body actually replaces it through the normal metabolic attrition of enzymes. This type of compound is called a suicide or irreversible aromatase inhibitor, and has the benefit of being both highly selective in its action on estrogen and long-lasting in effect.

Because of its potent estrogen-suppressing action, 4-hydroxyandrostenedione has been successfully used on breast cancer patients in many other countries including England, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand.  It has been shown to be an effective option as a second line of defense after tamoxifen, an estrogen receptor antagonist, has failed to elicit a positive response with patients, and to produce an overall response statistically similar to tamoxifen when administered as the first-line therapy . Those of us in the athletic world looking to mitigate the physiological effects of estrogen for other purposes now have a legal supplement that has all the actions and potency of a pharmaceutical agent, which would normally be obtained only with a doctor’s prescription.

After oral administration peak levels of 4-hydroxyandrostenedione are reached in the blood at approximately 1.5 hours, and the drug is cleared from the body with a half-life of approximately 3 hours. Due to its nature as an irreversible inhibitor, its estrogen-suppressing activity outlives it actual active lifespan in the bloodstream. Studies have demonstrated that maximum estrogen suppression is achieved with an oral dose of only 250mg per day. Doubling this dose to 500mg, or even quadrupling it to 1000mg, was shown to have no effect on aromatase inhibition or estrogen levels appreciably different from the 250mg dose.  

Estrogen has both positive and negative effects that you should be aware of. On the positive it supports good high density cholesterol, increases muscle glucose utilization for tissue growth and repair, and even increases androgen receptor concentrations in various tissues. It is now understood that estrogen serves many useful purposes in men, particularly if we are looking for rapid muscle mass gain. If bulk is the goal it is therefore usually advised to hold off on estrogen maintenance compounds until there is a clear need for them. This brings us to the negative side of estrogen, namely that it can work to hide muscle definition by increasing water retention and fat buildup. It can also promote gynecomastia (the development of female breast tissue) in men if levels get too high. Since androgens and estrogens playing opposing roles on the disposition of body fat and the growth of mammary tissues, maximizing the ratio between these two hormones is often an important objective, particularly at times when dieting and cutting are key goals or gynecomastia is a worry because strongly aromatized hormones such as testosterone are being supplemented.

Estro Xtreme or 4-hydroxyandrostenedione is also a weak prohormone to the anabolic steroid 4-hydroxytestosterone, as an aromatase inhibitor it also possesses notable testosterone stimulating properties. Whatever weak androgenic activity it may have is more than compensated for by its strong ability to lower estrogen levels. This action of course reduces the suppressive signal estrogen sends to your brain (estrogen is a main feedback signal to control the release of testosterone), increasing the testicular output of testosterone. In-vivo human studies show clearly that 4-hydroxyandrostenedione will suppress estrogen concentrations at levels that were not high enough to suppress gonadotropins. Even studies using 250mg to 500mg of 4-hydroxyandrostenedione injected every 2 weeks, or oral doses as high as 1000mg daily, have failed to show any notable suppressive effect towards testosterone concentrations.  Due to the theoretical potential for androgenic feedback inhibition at high doses we do recommend, however, keeping within the recommended dosage range, and perhaps even limiting the dose to 2-3 caps per day, at times when increasing testosterone levels is a primary focus of use.

When used during the recovery window after a cycle of prohormones, or even steroids for that matter, Estro Xtreme can offer a very unique additional benefit. The main focus at this time is of course minimizing the post-cycle hypoandrogenic (low androgen) state, mainly by trying to restore the natural production of testosterone, which in many cases has been suppressed by the cycle of hormones.  In most cases some type of anti-estrogen is incorporated into an athlete’s recovery program, due to the effect they can have on testosterone release (discussed above). Because Estro Extreme is also a prohormone to 4-hydroxytestosterone, however, it allows for some small level of continued supplementation of exogenous androgen during this window. Normally this would be considered a very bad idea, as androgens are usually suppressive towards testosterone release. But with this product its weak androgenic activity is compensated for by its estrogen suppressing action, so provided reasonable doses are used it can essentially serve as a small bridge to full testosterone recovery. Regular aromatase-inhibitors, of course, cannot offer this benefit.