preworkout supps?

bill86

bill86

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never actually asked a doctor their opinion of them. thoughts on all the stuff they put in them? any negative effects in the long run? and how long do you really need to 'cycle off' of them?

ive got friends (and, more recently, me) who really never get off them.... some even bump up past the 'max' dose when they start building a tolerance, but ive never done that personally.....for the past couple weeks ive resorted to monster energy drinks to have some caffeine before my workout without all those extra stimulants, and it just doesnt do the trick. are the stim junkies putting their health at risk here? i think bsn said 'after you train with it, youll never want to train without it', and thats 110% true

thanks for taking your time to answer our questions by the way
 

dinoiii

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Ha! My opinions may not be (scratch that) likely are NOT the same as the average doctor (so take that as you will).

I think people using pre-workout admixtures are looking predominantly for the stimulant effect. So sure...there is an adaptive response process by the body to agents such as these, and your body will become very acclimated requiring higher doses and so on...you've probably heard that before. At the same time, the concern is ... the HOW your body is dealing with this. Cortisol levels become amped and your body becomes subsequently resistant to a lot of things.

Its not the end of the world; I believe stimulants have their place in productivity, performance enhancement - you can usually offset this by NOT taking it on NON-workout days; some products say to take every day. You can also do what I recommend with ANY stimulant product and that is to adopt a 5-on, 2-off ("weekend holiday") protocol OR alternatively, a 3-on, 1-off, etc... protocol making sure things are cycled to offset this "autoregulation."

You might benefit by ingesting some adrenal adaptogen style supplements (i.e. - Rhodiola, Ashwaghanda, etc...) especially on days "off" from the stimulants.

From a health risk standpoint; ahh, that's tricky...see even a little stim may go a long way in someone with an anatomical variation that they are unaware they have. Acute increases in blood pressure could promote long-term hypertension; which would not be good in some cases (especially those using progestin or nandralone species anabolics). So ... maybe, but I wanted to be sure you saw how to avoid it in most cases (cycling) as illustrated above if you are going to use them.

One of the things I want to be very clear about is presenting objective info without too many "recommendations" per se. Recommendations would be much more specific and unique to the person asking the question.


D_
 
bill86

bill86

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i appreciate the response. every time i try a new PWO i check my blood pressure periodically as i tend to have somewhat high/prehypertension blood pressure, although it's come down in the past couple of years. i always follow the 5 on 2 off routine, unless i need to be up especially early on a weekend day, then i just opt for my PWO rather than coffee haha.

i guess i just started to worry what all these things could be doing to me on a neurological level, especially since i feel the NEED for that pre workout boost of some sort (if not a pwo drink, then at least a monster energy drink or something), and i feel like there probably havent been many studies on the long term effects since they were really just introduced around 2004 or so.

thanks for the reply!
 

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