Mattias, very soon I will be writing a very comprehensive article on natural hormone manipulation. So having done my research and put many of the points in practice, I find myself looking at “Brutal FX pre workout” with a very analytical and critical eye indeed.
Let me first list some positives for you then (unfortunately) move on to some of the negatives.
Caffeine..............great CNS stimulant and a fat mobiliser.
L-Tyrosine........... Tyrosine is converted into dopamine and from there into nor-adrenaline. Adrenaline and Nor-adrenaline are very powerful hormones that lead to alertness and mental arousal. These two hormones also give you a slight loss in appetite (good if you’re on a diet).
L-Arginine Alfa-ketoglutarat.........is aprecursor to nitric oxide and is involved in blood vessel dilation (more vascularity for the bodybuilder)
Mattias, I’m going to stop here for shortage of time.
Now let me give the reason for why I would not take this product. As I have once mentioned to you before, I like to be the one in control of a supplement and not the other way around. It’s hard to be in control when the manufacturer includes a big cocktail of ingredients which as I will show you now, play some roles that are not advantages for an aspiring bodybuilder.
Caffeine............. It elevates the stress hormones cortisol, adrenalin and noradrenalin (we all know what these hormones do to your muscles). As you can see from the quantities of caffeine found in this product, it’s placed in such a large amount to give you that PUNCH. Unfortunately what you get in alertness, you lose in muscles.
L-Tyrosine.............Similarly here, the end product that the manufacturer is aiming for (since they can’t give you straight adrenaline), is the end product of Tyrosine which is another catabolic hormone, namely adrenaline.
L-Arginine Alfa-ketoglutarat..............No problem here as far as any catabolic hormone and the aim is for some pump through blood vessel dilation.
Ok, now that I made the product sound like rubbish, is there anything I can do to overcome some of the negatives whilst at the same time accentuating the positives? I say maybe and yes.
If the king of all catabolic hormones is Cortisol, then the king of all anabolic hormones is Insulin. Can we control insulin through training by insuring for an insulin spike which will give a knock out to cortisol? Usually I would say a resounding yes! However my task now has been made more difficult (not impossible but difficult due to the negatives I mentioned above).
Another irony with this product is that is gives you so much energy that you may just over exert yourself which will put another damper on your testosterone due to the stress (and the rise in cortisol).
In a nutshell, insure your INSULIN is overpowering ALL by ingesting very high GI carbs pre and continued throughout your training session as I recommend in my 2200 and 2800 “diets” on this forum. I’ll leave it here before you kill me Mattias!
Fadi.