FJ's Verdict:

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Product Name: Black Powder
Company: MRI
MSRP: $33.99 [Click Here To Find Lower Prices For: MRI Black Powder, 20 Servings, Fruit Explosion]

Availability: High (Online & Stores)
Servings: 20 Serving Sticks

Today we’ll be trying out another pre-workout supplement that instantly makes you think about gun powder. It’s supposed to “increase pumps” and give you energy, focus & blah blah blah – Basically get you through your workout with maximum intensity. I think the IDEA of a pre-workout supplement is great, but the execution of such supplements have been lack-luster at BEST. Let’s see if this stuff can live up to the explosive mental images I have popping up in my head…

–First Impressions–

Let me just say that the idea of having these “serving sticks” is brilliant. Simple, but brilliant. This allows you to slip a few sticks into your gym bag and either mix it when you get to the gym or have a few piled up for times when you can’t go home and make your supplement. Convenience at it’s best.

Making my way over to the ingredient list, their first blend is “Blend for size & recovery”. Basically 3g of L-Arginine… Which by now you should know (if you’re an avid reader here) is basically a BUST of a supplement. You need extremely high doses for L-arginine to do anything and at those doses your stomach will implode. Even more so, I think this is the first time I’ve seen L-arginine marketed as a supplement that promotes “size”. Hmm..

Next blend is their strength an power blend (2g total). This 2g is divided by 5 ingredients. Disodium Phosphate (basically salt), Potassium Aspartate (supports nerve & heart function), Dicalcium Phosphate (basically calcium supplement as far as I know), Creatine Anhydrous (creatine without water molecule) & Creatine Ethyl Ester (thumbs up for creatine but CEE is just stupid… Its more expensive and doesn’t even absorb as well as good ol’ monohydrate! Bad decision here)

Then we have the Stamina & Endurance Blend (1.1g). Includes Potassium Bicarbonate (regulates pH & causes foaming in drinks), Sodium Bicarbonate (just baking soda. Meant to buffer the pH of blood during exercise… But it’s not THAT promising) & Beta-Alanine (increases concentration of carnosine in the muscle tissue resulting in less fatigue and greater muscular work done. But I doubt there’s enough in this blend to make a huge difference. We’ll see)

The Muscle Energy Metabolism Blend (972mg) has: Magnesium Oxide (magnesium is good stuff, helps in the absorption of proteins), Potassium (ok), Vitamin B complex (vit B blends are awesome, too bad I don’t know exactly the amounts in this blend),

Their Neuro-Modulator and Focus Blend has: Caffeine (We all know it’s well good shit!), Green Tea Extract (Shown promise for fat loss) & Betaine Anhydrous (not too familiar with this. Supposed to be lipotropic but I’ll need to do more research)

The Insulin Sensitizer Blend is basically 500mg of Taurine (supposed to give you energy, but it hasn’t been proven. You’ll find this stuff in energy drinks)

Ok, so the ingredient list is a mix of good, ok and down right useless. Before I ingest some of this, let’s see what MRI has to say about it…

Product Claims:

Black Powder^TM is the first and only pre-training formula to employ the powerful Nos up-regulating whey “peptide fraction” Actinos2^TM, delivered with MRI’s “Instant Release” (IR) technology. You get the over-whelming advantage of an instant surge of more nitric oxide (N.O.’s upper limit), combined with potent pre-workout compounds – delivered in ratios measured to precise gram-molecular specification.

• Strength
• Intensity
• Stamina
• Energy
• Size
• Recovery
• Focus
• Pumps
• Power

The Science: Driving Performance and Size to New Levels!

Nitric oxide forms the basis for both performance and size. Nitric oxide dilates the blood channels that deliver vital training and recovery nutrients to your muscle cells. In addition, nitric oxide is the molecule that “signals” and regulates muscle growth, muscle contraction, and metabolic adaptation to training. Until now, nitric oxide had a “pre-set” limit. Not any longer. Thanks to MRI’s innovative Actinos2 IR^TM (Instant Release) technology, Black Powder creates an immediate surge in nitric oxide levels. In an instant, Black Powder’s performance/size nutrient complex, measured with gram-molecular precision, floods your muscle cells in volumes never believed possible.

Your body’s performance and growth signals amplify in both frequency, and duration. Suddenly, size and training target sites light up! Your strength, intensity, and focus hit levels they’ve never known. Your recovery, now at an entirely new level, starts before you even leave the gym. Growth “signals” bombard your muscle cells with greater intensity, starting at your first set! That’s why with Black Powder, you’ll get the most outrageously intense workout, and you’ll have the super-dilated skin-ripping pumps to prove it!

Real World Results:

So, I grabbed my shaker, poured in the required amount of water along with Black Powder and gave it a good shake. Mixed really well, no clumps to report. The mixture had sort of a “fizzy” sound to it, almost as if you put your ear next to a glass of pop that’s been freshly poured.

The taste wasn’t out of this world, but it was GOOD. It was more than drinkable and I was quite surprised. I think it would be pretty ballin’ if instead of having “flavours” they had this supplement in “grape” or “licorice” flavours so they could use some DARK purple colour. Now THAT would give “black powder” a whole new meaning.

So moving on, after drinking it… I set off to the gym. After 20 minutes it hit… And boy did it hit hard. Focus was good, intensity was good, I was ready to do it up… Until everything went SOUTH. The rush  you get from Black Powder isn’t the “alert” feeling that you’re looking for, its more of a “jittery” feeling and that is un-acceptable! Instead of trying to focus on one workout, my mind was racing at a million miles an hour.

Anyways, after barrelling through my first 3 sets, I decided to see if I had those “skin-ripping” pumps. Nope. I mean I had a very nice pump, but I know my body well enough to conclude that these pumps were the natural ones I usually get from a workout, NOT because of the supplement. If a supplement were to give me an “extra” pumps I’d be able to tell easily. At 6% body fat you can pick out even the tiniest details in vasodilatation.

After about 30 minutes it all went away. No jitters, no energy, no focus & definitely no pumps. “Typical”… I grunted. “A quick 30min caffeine rush and then it pussies away like a little b*tch”. Little did I know that this was the “calm before the storm”.

After about 35 minutes, I experienced the WORST crash of my life. I mean, some energy drinks give you a crash where you’re like ahhh man, it ran out, I feel sleepy now. This thing though… I wanted to drop dead. BRUTAL. This blew serious projectile chunks! And you know when FJ can’t finish his workout, he gets PISSED. Nothing more to be said here… Thumbs down.

Conclusion:

The convenience is good, the mixability is good, and even the taste is good! But, DO-NOT be fooled by the initial “rush” feeling that you get from Black-Powder. The first minute that it hits, it seems very promising, but then it just drops the 20lbs medicine ball on your foot. I’ve looked around the web, and for some f*cked up reason, Black-Powder has some pretty “good” ratings from sites that are all about user reviews. I can’t help but think that MRI paid off a lot of people to go and give it’s product a nice little bump. I even saw this video of some douchebag kid who’s supposedly “reviewing” the product.

Here was his conclusion: “…in my opinion the single greatest thing, pre-workout supplement… It’ll get you SO jacked! Uhm, uh… what it is, is, nitric oxide, mixed with creatine, mixed with uh buch of other amino acids…”

In my opinion he’s the single greatest MORON! Anyways, I’m not bitter, just grossly disappointed (surprise – surprise).

-FitJerk

Also, be sure to check out the brand new Social Fitness Site called Fitmarker!