Product Name: SuperPump 250
Company: Gaspari Nutrition
MSRP: $49.00
Availability: High (Stores & Online)
Servings: 40

Ah the “pump”… The single best feeling that drives most men into the gym so they can work their ass off and pound the weights like no man has pounded them before. Truth be told, we would not go around pounding this way if it wasn’t for that awesome feeling. If at this point you are confused whether I’m talking about working out or making sweet love then its ok… So was Arnold. If you recall his famous quote “It’s [the pump] as satisfying to me as cumming is…”

So today we have another pre-workout supplement that not only promises a pump… Oh no… But a SUPERPUMP, and not just one, 250 of them! Ok so maybe I’m picking on the marketing name a little, but with a name like that, it’s got some serious hype to live up to. On top of that SuperPump 250 is becoming just as popular as BSN’s N.O Xplode… And so naturally, FJ had to investigate.

Was this purely because of awesome marketing or does this stuff actually have some merit? That’s what I wanted to find out. On a side note I will say this… I’ve heard that quite a few people had problems stomaching this stuff. Because of this it earned itself the following nick-name: SuperDump 250. lol

So… If you’re considering this stuff, just be forewarned that you might want to go through a couple sample packs to see how your tummy handles it. In my personal experience, there were no super dumps that took place. Those only used to occur when I was in love with Taco Bell many many moons ago.

First Impressions:

Packaging seems adequate, and the fact that you get 40 servings out of one jar equates to about $1.22 per serving. This isn’t bad, but could be better. Were living in a recession and this means budgets are tighter and smart consumers know that pre-workout supplements should be a commodity… Not a necessity. It’s the POST workout supplement which should get priority. But whatever, let’s move on and dissect it’s guts.

First up is the Anabolic Signalling Complex^TM (unknown amount). It contains: A Glucose Polymer (sugar), Creatine Monohydrate (YES! Good stuff… But we don’t know exactly HOW much… Which is a major bummer and a down side if its 3g or less), NO2 complex (basically a bunch of different forms of Arginine… Which is basically CRAP as far as helping with nitric oxide goes), Guanidinopropionic Acid (Meant to spike insulin levels without having to ingest simple carbohydrates and is supposed to help the body absorb more creatine… Sounds good but couldn’t find hard evidence to backup those claims. Needs to be studied more IMO), Salicyclic Acid (basically aspirin… Guessing its used to reduce pain but truthfully, it’s not needed here)

Next is the Xtreme Focus Agent^TM (unknown amount). It contains: L-Tyrosine ( A non-essential amino acid that is a pre-cursor to neurotransmitters. Basically it’s supposed to drive up mental alertness and stimulation.  May decrease appetite but there needs to be more research done on this), Caffeine (A proven stimulant that drives up focus, energy and also overall power output & strength. Always a good addition), NAC ( NAC is a natural sulfur-containing amino acid derivative found naturally in foods and is a powerful antioxidant), Rhodiola Rosea Root Extract ( Supposed to increase mental performance and reduce fatigue by optimizing serotonin and dopamine levels… Hard evidence on this is fuzzy but looks promising), Ginko Biloba (Supposed to be a nootropic and a concentration enhancer but studies have found it to be ineffective so far… therefore as of now, I’d say its a bust and a waste of space in the 20g scoop).

Then we have the Myogenic Transcription Factor^TM (unknown amount). It contains: Taurine (supposed to give you energy, but it hasn’t been proven. You’ll find this stuff in energy drinks), L-Leucine (Good stuff, shown to be THE branched chain amino acid responsible for the majority of protein synthesis that takes place in your body. Without it you are limiting your success factors so glad to see it in here but its more of a post workout ingredient IMO), L-Glutamine ( Some people say it’s useless depending on which studies they have read but I’m all for it since I use it and have noticed that I recover faster. Bottom line is that I’m glad to see it in this mixture), L-Valine & L-Isoleucine (BCAA’s… Enough said), L-Citruline (Is transformed in the kidneys to L-Arginine which in turn is supposed to help up regulate your nitric oxide levels… Right? WRONG. This is a waste), Choline Bitartrate (Supposed to increase neurotransmitter levels. In rats it showed an increase in mental performance but this same effect could NOT be duplicated in humans… Therefore it’s useless ingredient in a workout supplement)

Finally we have the Insulin Secretagogue Complex^TM… And instead of boring you with details on this one I’m going to tell you the OBVIOUS reason it exists. To SPIKE your insulin levels in order to shuttle the compounds into your muscles. Plain and simple.

Real World Results:

Alright so I cracked open the Raspberry Lemonade packet and give it a slight wiff… Not bad. Threw it in the shaker cup along with some cold water, gave it a vigorous shake for about 10 seconds and what do you know, it mixed! Not only did it mix, it left zero clumps behind.

Then came the taste… Holy FUCK. It tastes SO damn good. I’m not exaggerating here, this stuff was as close to fruit punch as you can possibly get from a supplement. I’m not sure if its because I’ve tried a SHIT load of supplements in my time and I finally found one that tastes good, but this stuff was exceptional. On that same note, the grape flavour is something you might want to avoid though. It’s not bad, but it’s no raspberry lemonade.

Ok so it mixes like a dream and tastes like heaven, so what happens AFTER you take it? Well this is when the happy moonshines, unicorn rainbows and even the slightest glimmer of potential start to disappear.

10 minutes after taking it… Nothing.

20 minutes after taking it… Still nothing.

30 minutes in… I’m thinking I should have just drank less expensive fruit punch.

Started working out, had no noticeable gain in pumps, no increase in energy and no noticeable gain in focus either. I was seriously tripping out. What the hell was going on here?

I mean bad supplements are one thing, but I didn’t even get a caffeine kick… My morning coffee does a better job of waking me up than this stuff. NOT impressed!

But since I had 6 packets I figured what the hell, maybe it’s just me? Maybe I got a bad batch? I tried the grape flavor and still nothing. But, I was determined to see it produce SOME kind of result in a human being!

So I told Steven, a good buddy of mine (a retired national level gymnast) to try a serving. Now this guy barely takes supplements, and on top of that he’s a vegetarian so if there is anyone out there with highly responsive, virgin receptors, it’s him. I even made sure this substance was anonymous to him. I just mixed the powder in with some water, told him to drink it before we hit up the gym and asked him to jot down or remember anything “out of the ordinary” that he feels as a result of taking LamePump 250.

So what were the shocking results? Well in short… NOTHING YET AGAIN. Steven was very confused, he asked me if I had just given him some fruit juice and played a prank on his ass because he felt absolutely nothing. If anyone is playing a prank here, it’s Gaspari Nutrition. I won’t dis their entire product line based on one crappy supplement but wtf is this? April fools is OVER god damn it!

Conclusion:

At $1.22 per serving I guess it COULD replace Gatorade or some other lame sports drinks as your during-workout cocktail, but that’s NOT what it’s been advertised as. Therefore, since SuperPump250 tastes AWESOME but lives up to NONE of it’s claims, I’m gona give it 1 star.

But where I see failure I also see opportunity. Gaspari… Remove the useless ingredients, put some REAL god damn caffeine in the product & drop the price by about $15 bucks. Then market it as a during-workout drink. It’s sure to be a winner… But as for providing SUPER pumps and INCREASED lean mass and all that bullshit, this stuff is pathetic. Please move along.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Im going to have my last packet of Raspberry lemonade with a grilled chicken salad.

-FitJerk

———–
© 2009 – 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

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!

———–
© 2009 – 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.