Feels vs. Reals
Although I was sceptical about seeing any significant benefits from Cardar1ne, I did become convinced that it is an effective supplement that does (mostly) what people claim. It’s a very easy supplement to take - only two pills per day, with no side effects - and worked immediately, meaning that breaks in training did not result in wasted capsules.
The point of doing timed runs had been to try and get a few numbers, rather than judging it solely on feels. Just relying on my notes for these (I, foolishly, didn’t keep a separate record of my times):
(Times in minutes:seconds, obviously. I'm not so slow as to need hours.)
1 Mile:
[Previous Time: 6:33] -> 6:18 -> 6:08
2 Mile:
[Previous Time: 13:40] -> 13:26 -> 14:08
5K:
[Previous Time: ???] -> [Not logged] -> -0:22 -> -0:23 -> -0:27 -> [Not logged] -> +0:14
10K:
[Previous Time: ???] -> [Not logged] -> 51:04
Even though I had a larger gaps in training than I planned to, it seems that during the relatively few runs for which I was taking Cardar1ne, a fairly decent level of improvement was made both in short distances at a fast pace, and slightly longer distances at a slower pace. More importantly, I am confident that these runs show more improvement in my running than I had managed in earlier, pre-Cardar1ne days.
What the numbers don’t show, is how much easier these runs generally felt, and how (particularly towards the end) I was struggling not from cardio capacity, but from the inability of my lower-body muscles to sustain the pace that I wanted.
Dosing
Olympus Labs recommend 7 mg be taken in the morning, and 7 mg taken pre-workout.
I’d say they dosed this quite well: for most workouts, I found 7 mg to be a perfectly adequate dose. 14 mg pre-workout did not seem to give substantially better results in performance, but did provide even further decreased recovery times. 21 mg pre-workout did not appear to offer any advantages over 14 mg.
I’d recommend sticking with ~7 mg twice a day, unless the structure of your training session contains breaks in which you could make more use of the improved recovery with 14 mg.
Feels
For “functional fitness”, the additional cardio capacity is extremely useful. Breathing got heavy and sweat was plentiful, but I definitely felt able to take shorter rests and maintain a constant pace for far longer - something that can directly translate into better scores.
I’ve seen claims that cardarine provides a real mood enhancement, and I found this to be true as well. In the mornings, it served as a handy alternative to caffeine to wake me up and increase alertness and focus. During the period when I was forced to reduce my caffeine intake, cardarine seemed to help a great deal. Surprisingly, I didn’t really experience caffeine withdrawal symptoms in the way I was expecting to.
Somewhat related - I sometimes struggle with ephedrine as it tends to make me a little foggy. Aspirin helps a little with that but (and I don’t necessarily advise this that anyone does this often) I found that taking Cardar1ne with ephedrine and caffeine did not give me the same sluggish feeling that an EC/A stack usually does.
Reals
Saw no evidence at all for Cardar1ne actually helping with weight loss. For the most part, body weight remained constant, as did my calorie intake. I would have expected, if the claims were true, to have lost a little weight while eating at maintenance and eating back calories burned from exercise. Either this didn’t happen, or it was so insignificant that I didn’t notice it.
It’s also fairly expensive on the UK market. Possibly worth it if you’re really training your cardiovascular system for some reason, but a little pricey just for a bit of a boost.
Final Comments
Whilst it’s not something I would take on an overly regular basis (mostly due to expense), I’d pretty be happy to take OL Cardar1ne again. This is especially true if I see it at a discounted price at some point.
I’d probably also be happy to try a different brand at some point in the future.
