Whats up everyone and thank your for taking a looking a look in here and hopefully following along on what I plan to be a kick ass ride as I get a chance to log Genomyx's new preworkout... ORIGIN.
Big thanks to Benzo, Vice, and the rest of the Genomyx family for allowing me the opportunity to put on a show for you guys as I put Origin to the test for 30 days!
For those of you that don't know me...
STATS
Height: 6'9" (you read that correctly)
Weight: 235lbs and coming down from a bulk
Age: 28
Training Experience: I've lifted for nearly ten years and only started getting super serious about it for the last two or three years. I've been through Starting Strength, Powerlifting, the P90X fad, and will soon be looking towards moving on to 5/3/1 come May.
THE PRODUCT
The game changer is what we should have called it. We got tired of seeing the same dodgy proprietary blends with so many ingredients, you could never accurately guess if any of it was going to be enough. The pre workout category is flooded with label flare and the same brodacious claims you hear about that one secret trick to getting six pack abs.
We wanted to bring a product to the market that was built simply around effective ingredients at effective doses. We know the serious athlete doesn’t need to be dazzled they just want a product that works. Origin is going to take your training to new heights and push your past your limits like never before. Our more in depth explanation of each ingredient will explain why you’ll be loving each workout.
L-Citrulline
This alpha amino acid is going to be a surprisingly awesome add to your preworkout regiment if you haven’t already tried it. Some of the more popular products have been using it for some time and that’s because it works. What’s it work for?
It’s more of a cascade of changes than one direct impact, as is the situation with most ingredients in the complex human physiology. However, it has been studied to an appreciable degree in the field of exercise performance and there’s a lot of supporting evidence. Citrulline at a dose of 3g was found to improve exercise performance in young and healthy men and women (1).
L-Citrulline in the form of Citrulline Malate has been shown to indirectly buffer the potential of the pH drop that happens in skeletal muscle during exercise(2). This would explain its anti-fatigue effects during intense training. Extending the pH balance of skeletal muscle during exercise would help maintain cellular integrity under such intense conditions.
In one study it significantly increased bench press performance till failure and significantly reduce the post workout exercise soreness commonly referenced as DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness)(3.) This makes it an ideal choice for athletes who are working to the extremes of failure during competition and weight lifters whose post leg day muscle soreness can be incredibly debilitating at times.
Overall you can see why we wanted to use l-citrulline in Origin. It’s not just going to help you get a solid pump and help you warm up effectively, it’s actually going to improve performance giving you the edge you’re looking for in your pre workout.
L-Citrulline Overview:
Blunt skeletal muscle pH drop
Reduce post workout soreness
Increased tolerance to fatigue
Trimethylglycine
More simply known as betaine, this ingredient has a lot of potential as an ergogenic aid and you’ll see its presence in pre workouts more and more these days. It wasn’t found in the rain forest, it was actually first discovered in sugar beets. It’s been used in animals for some time now to produce more favorably body composition and enhance the growing process(4).
While the main mode of action remains up for debate there is plenty of evidence accumulating for betaine’s use in the physical culture. It’s been studied in humans quite extensively and carries some awesome benefits for the average athlete. One study observed a significant increase in growth hormone and IGF-1 response to exercise, and a significant decrease in the cortisol response(5). This basically means there is greater potential for muscular hypertrophy and improved recovery from exercise with betaine supplementation.
As cool as that is it has also been shown to enhance squat performance and actually increased the quality of the repetitions performed(6). Enhanced performance is paramount to quality of a pre workout, at least in the eyes of the athlete. Not only will betaine enhance performance but it will help you recover for your next practice out on the track or your next lifting session in the power rack.
Trimethylglycine Overview:
Increase GH, IGF-1 response to training
Reduce cortisol response to training
Improve body composition
Improve power output and quality of exercise
Rhodiola Rosea
If you’ve yet to hear the term adaptogen, it typically refers to an herb with a wide array of health promoting effects. They help the body cope with various stressors and typically have been used for some time in foreign medicine. Despite having broad applications most adaptogens tend to aid greatly in specific areas and rhodiola’s field of expertise is anti-fatigue(7).
Rhodiola Rosea has been to show stimulate the actions of norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin in the central nervous system. These neurotransmitters are responsible for a variety of things such as mood and energy levels. It’s also been shown to increase the ability of dopamine and serotonin precursors to cross the blood brain barrier(7).
Those specific effects should produce higher energy levels, better overall mood, and general sense of wellbeing. These results have actually been demonstrated in a variety of human studies ranging from doctors working the late shifts to high school students(7).
Rhodiola has been demonstrated to enhance exercise performance with acute doses and that consistent daily usage of rhodiola did not reduce the effects it had on exercise performance(8). It’s also been shown to be cardio protective through its neurotransmitter modulating effects and protective from different environmental stressors like extreme cold(15).
Training, or exercise in general, can be particularly fatiguing not just physically but also mentally. It’s important to keep the central nervous system functioning optimally during training for quality performance. Not only during training but also after, many of us can’t afford to be run down for the rest of the day after training.
That’s the primary function of Rhodiola Rosea in Origin, as an aid to help athletes cope with the mentally fatiguing effects of exercise both during and after training.
Rhodiola Rosea Overview:
Adaptogen helping the body cope with strenuous exercise
Enhance cognitive function
Improve mood and energy levels
Cardio protective
Di-caffeine malate
This relatively new form of caffeine has made its way into the supplement world already and is sold widely in diet pills and colas claiming a few benefits to regular caffeine such as improved digestion. There really isn’t much relevant research in that regard but anecdotal evidence suggests di-caffeine malate is much smoother in comparison to generic caffeine anhydrous.
Origin contains just about as much caffeine as most other preworkouts but due to using dicaffeine malate it should feel much smoother and less jittery for those who are not very tolerant to caffeine. By mass, dicaffeine malate is just under 75% caffeine so the 200mg dose/serving in Origin actually yields about 150mg of pure caffeine per serving.
Aside from that di-caffeine malate still has the same awesome studied ergogenic effects regular caffeine has to offer such as:
Improved exercise performance(11,12,13,14)
Increased fat loss through accelerated lipolysis(12)
Improved recovery from training(9)
Blunts the cortisol response to training, increases testosterone levels(10)
Improve blood flow and vasodilation during exercise(29)
Caffeine can actually increase the amount of blood flow during exercise as well. I know it’s commonly reported to be a vasoconstrictor but during exercise skeletal muscle regions are less receptive to vasoconstriction due to greatly enhanced blood flow. Caffeine is also a known phosphodiesterase(PDE) inhibitor(29) which has many effects at the cellular level one of which is vasodilation. A better-known PDE inhibitor would be Viagra, which effectively much more potent than caffeine in this regard but the principles are the same(30).
Overall, caffeine is likely one of the most underrated ergogenic considering the heaping amounts of supportive evidence and its relative cost to some of the more exotic ingredients out there. When used properly in moderation along with a proper exercise routine and diet it can have profound effects on your progress.
Theanine
This amino acid is very prominent in most teas and is considered the main pharmacological constituent responsible for the relaxing effect of teas. It does this by adjusting the frequency of certain brain waves, specifically scaling the brain towards the more focus attention derived alpha waves(17,18).
What’s so special about alpha waves? Alpha waves are one of the four main brain waves(delta, theta, alpha, beta) and are acutely pronounced during relaxed focus and attention. Unfortunately a majority of us spend a lot of our time in the anxiety prone beta wave zone due to the stresses of daily life. Beta waves aren’t very conducive to solid focus and as an athlete you know focus is incredibly important during competition. Theanine can relax you before the big competition, without putting you to sleep(23), so that your level of focus alone will intimidate the competition.
Theanine’s ability to stimulate alpha waves is incredibly helpful in enhancing your workout cognition and many studies have gone to observe these effects alongside caffeine as well. The two play off each other in an incredibly effective synergistic fashion resulting in greatly improved memory, reaction time, and self-reported levels of mental fatigue(16). Theanine effectively blunts the ‘jitters’ many experience from caffeine in larger doses while caffeine brings the overall energy state much higher.
Theanine has been studied in rodents using some exercise models to determine if it has anti-depressant qualities. If the animals work longer under stressful conditions but remain relatively similar in normal conditions than its considered to be anti-depressant, caffeine for example would be considered a strong anti-depressant(20). Theanine was found to have significant anti-depressant effects(21) and should result in greatly improved exercise tolerance and reduce the perceived level of fatigue in athletes using it.
On top of all that awesome stuff there’s more good news. If you’re a serious athlete and overtraining is more or less just something you do, theanine is going to be amazing for you. It is very common for athletes to feel lethargic and simply mentally drained after a taxing workout and this can be a pain if you’ve got a mentally demanding job. Theanine has been studied in athletes at a dose of only 50mg to greatly accelerate mental recovery after exercise(22). This alongside Rhodiola should greatly attenuate any post exercise mental fatigue, letting you go on with the rest of your daily schedule on time and on point.
Theanine Overview:
Increase focus and relaxed attention
Smooth the energy from caffeine
Improve exercise tolerance and resistance to fatigue
Accelerate mental recovery from exercise
Origin Overview:
Origin will greatly accelerate your training because we made sure to use only the ingredients we would want in our own pre workout and only at doses that work. When you see the effects add up in your own training session we know you’ll have a new favorite pre to cycle in.
Origin Total Mechanisms of Action:
Increase focus and relaxed attention
Improve exercise tolerance and resistance to fatigue
Accelerate mental recovery from exercise
Improved exercise performance
Increased fat loss through accelerated lipolysis
Improved recovery from training
Adaptogen helping the body cope with strenuous exercise
Enhance cognitive function
Improve mood and energy levels
Cardio protective
Increase GH, IGF-1 response to training
Reduce cortisol response to training
Improve body composition
Improve power output and quality of exercise performed
Increased blood flow leading to stronger pumps
Increased ammonia clearance from skeletal muscle
Reduces DOMS(Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)
TAAR-1 agonist, enhanced vigilance
Write-up taken from nutraplanet
TRAINING
Things are actually a little different for me this time around. I previously bulked from the end of July all the way through the end of November. As much as I tried to keep it clean I ended up cheating more than I wanted to and put on some excess weight. While my strength went through the roof I was not satisfied with the person I saw looking across from me in the mirror so I've already started making some changes to my weight training and diet.
Training is a 4 day split that encompasses more LISS cardio than I used to. This is due to the fact that my wife has convinced me that we need to run a mini-marathon at the beginning of May. Although I wasn't sure if I was up for the challenge I thought it would be a good goal to set for myself for Spring/Summer and that the LISS training building up to the race would be great for a cut as well. So you will be seeing a lot of cardio during this log as well and one of the things I'm stoked for is that Origin can be used pre-cardio as well.
DAY 1: CHEST/TRIS
DAY 2: LEGS
DAY 3: OFF/CARDIO
DAY 4: SHOULDERS
DAY 5: BACK/BIS
DAY 6: OFF/CARDIO
DAY 7: OFF/CARDIO
My weight training consists of building up and going heavy on the compound movements and adding in a ton of accessory exercises and focus on the stretch/squeeze of each rep... usually lowering the weight and going high rep. I'm focused more on hypertrophy and growth here than I am on actual strength.
At any point in time during this 30 days the training may be switched up according to how I feel. If I go into the gym to do legs and feel great and decide to go heavy then I may not end up doing cardio the next day and instead might choose to move onto Shoulders (as an example). I'm just playing it by ear and will be listening to my body.
So if you've bothered to read all that then stay tuned because you guys and gals are in for a crazy ride! I love going hard in the gym and getting great results for the sponsors! LETS DO THIS!
Big thanks to Benzo, Vice, and the rest of the Genomyx family for allowing me the opportunity to put on a show for you guys as I put Origin to the test for 30 days!
For those of you that don't know me...
STATS
Height: 6'9" (you read that correctly)
Weight: 235lbs and coming down from a bulk
Age: 28
Training Experience: I've lifted for nearly ten years and only started getting super serious about it for the last two or three years. I've been through Starting Strength, Powerlifting, the P90X fad, and will soon be looking towards moving on to 5/3/1 come May.
THE PRODUCT
The game changer is what we should have called it. We got tired of seeing the same dodgy proprietary blends with so many ingredients, you could never accurately guess if any of it was going to be enough. The pre workout category is flooded with label flare and the same brodacious claims you hear about that one secret trick to getting six pack abs.
We wanted to bring a product to the market that was built simply around effective ingredients at effective doses. We know the serious athlete doesn’t need to be dazzled they just want a product that works. Origin is going to take your training to new heights and push your past your limits like never before. Our more in depth explanation of each ingredient will explain why you’ll be loving each workout.
L-Citrulline
This alpha amino acid is going to be a surprisingly awesome add to your preworkout regiment if you haven’t already tried it. Some of the more popular products have been using it for some time and that’s because it works. What’s it work for?
It’s more of a cascade of changes than one direct impact, as is the situation with most ingredients in the complex human physiology. However, it has been studied to an appreciable degree in the field of exercise performance and there’s a lot of supporting evidence. Citrulline at a dose of 3g was found to improve exercise performance in young and healthy men and women (1).
L-Citrulline in the form of Citrulline Malate has been shown to indirectly buffer the potential of the pH drop that happens in skeletal muscle during exercise(2). This would explain its anti-fatigue effects during intense training. Extending the pH balance of skeletal muscle during exercise would help maintain cellular integrity under such intense conditions.
In one study it significantly increased bench press performance till failure and significantly reduce the post workout exercise soreness commonly referenced as DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness)(3.) This makes it an ideal choice for athletes who are working to the extremes of failure during competition and weight lifters whose post leg day muscle soreness can be incredibly debilitating at times.
Overall you can see why we wanted to use l-citrulline in Origin. It’s not just going to help you get a solid pump and help you warm up effectively, it’s actually going to improve performance giving you the edge you’re looking for in your pre workout.
L-Citrulline Overview:
Blunt skeletal muscle pH drop
Reduce post workout soreness
Increased tolerance to fatigue
Trimethylglycine
More simply known as betaine, this ingredient has a lot of potential as an ergogenic aid and you’ll see its presence in pre workouts more and more these days. It wasn’t found in the rain forest, it was actually first discovered in sugar beets. It’s been used in animals for some time now to produce more favorably body composition and enhance the growing process(4).
While the main mode of action remains up for debate there is plenty of evidence accumulating for betaine’s use in the physical culture. It’s been studied in humans quite extensively and carries some awesome benefits for the average athlete. One study observed a significant increase in growth hormone and IGF-1 response to exercise, and a significant decrease in the cortisol response(5). This basically means there is greater potential for muscular hypertrophy and improved recovery from exercise with betaine supplementation.
As cool as that is it has also been shown to enhance squat performance and actually increased the quality of the repetitions performed(6). Enhanced performance is paramount to quality of a pre workout, at least in the eyes of the athlete. Not only will betaine enhance performance but it will help you recover for your next practice out on the track or your next lifting session in the power rack.
Trimethylglycine Overview:
Increase GH, IGF-1 response to training
Reduce cortisol response to training
Improve body composition
Improve power output and quality of exercise
Rhodiola Rosea
If you’ve yet to hear the term adaptogen, it typically refers to an herb with a wide array of health promoting effects. They help the body cope with various stressors and typically have been used for some time in foreign medicine. Despite having broad applications most adaptogens tend to aid greatly in specific areas and rhodiola’s field of expertise is anti-fatigue(7).
Rhodiola Rosea has been to show stimulate the actions of norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin in the central nervous system. These neurotransmitters are responsible for a variety of things such as mood and energy levels. It’s also been shown to increase the ability of dopamine and serotonin precursors to cross the blood brain barrier(7).
Those specific effects should produce higher energy levels, better overall mood, and general sense of wellbeing. These results have actually been demonstrated in a variety of human studies ranging from doctors working the late shifts to high school students(7).
Rhodiola has been demonstrated to enhance exercise performance with acute doses and that consistent daily usage of rhodiola did not reduce the effects it had on exercise performance(8). It’s also been shown to be cardio protective through its neurotransmitter modulating effects and protective from different environmental stressors like extreme cold(15).
Training, or exercise in general, can be particularly fatiguing not just physically but also mentally. It’s important to keep the central nervous system functioning optimally during training for quality performance. Not only during training but also after, many of us can’t afford to be run down for the rest of the day after training.
That’s the primary function of Rhodiola Rosea in Origin, as an aid to help athletes cope with the mentally fatiguing effects of exercise both during and after training.
Rhodiola Rosea Overview:
Adaptogen helping the body cope with strenuous exercise
Enhance cognitive function
Improve mood and energy levels
Cardio protective
Di-caffeine malate
This relatively new form of caffeine has made its way into the supplement world already and is sold widely in diet pills and colas claiming a few benefits to regular caffeine such as improved digestion. There really isn’t much relevant research in that regard but anecdotal evidence suggests di-caffeine malate is much smoother in comparison to generic caffeine anhydrous.
Origin contains just about as much caffeine as most other preworkouts but due to using dicaffeine malate it should feel much smoother and less jittery for those who are not very tolerant to caffeine. By mass, dicaffeine malate is just under 75% caffeine so the 200mg dose/serving in Origin actually yields about 150mg of pure caffeine per serving.
Aside from that di-caffeine malate still has the same awesome studied ergogenic effects regular caffeine has to offer such as:
Improved exercise performance(11,12,13,14)
Increased fat loss through accelerated lipolysis(12)
Improved recovery from training(9)
Blunts the cortisol response to training, increases testosterone levels(10)
Improve blood flow and vasodilation during exercise(29)
Caffeine can actually increase the amount of blood flow during exercise as well. I know it’s commonly reported to be a vasoconstrictor but during exercise skeletal muscle regions are less receptive to vasoconstriction due to greatly enhanced blood flow. Caffeine is also a known phosphodiesterase(PDE) inhibitor(29) which has many effects at the cellular level one of which is vasodilation. A better-known PDE inhibitor would be Viagra, which effectively much more potent than caffeine in this regard but the principles are the same(30).
Overall, caffeine is likely one of the most underrated ergogenic considering the heaping amounts of supportive evidence and its relative cost to some of the more exotic ingredients out there. When used properly in moderation along with a proper exercise routine and diet it can have profound effects on your progress.
Theanine
This amino acid is very prominent in most teas and is considered the main pharmacological constituent responsible for the relaxing effect of teas. It does this by adjusting the frequency of certain brain waves, specifically scaling the brain towards the more focus attention derived alpha waves(17,18).
What’s so special about alpha waves? Alpha waves are one of the four main brain waves(delta, theta, alpha, beta) and are acutely pronounced during relaxed focus and attention. Unfortunately a majority of us spend a lot of our time in the anxiety prone beta wave zone due to the stresses of daily life. Beta waves aren’t very conducive to solid focus and as an athlete you know focus is incredibly important during competition. Theanine can relax you before the big competition, without putting you to sleep(23), so that your level of focus alone will intimidate the competition.
Theanine’s ability to stimulate alpha waves is incredibly helpful in enhancing your workout cognition and many studies have gone to observe these effects alongside caffeine as well. The two play off each other in an incredibly effective synergistic fashion resulting in greatly improved memory, reaction time, and self-reported levels of mental fatigue(16). Theanine effectively blunts the ‘jitters’ many experience from caffeine in larger doses while caffeine brings the overall energy state much higher.
Theanine has been studied in rodents using some exercise models to determine if it has anti-depressant qualities. If the animals work longer under stressful conditions but remain relatively similar in normal conditions than its considered to be anti-depressant, caffeine for example would be considered a strong anti-depressant(20). Theanine was found to have significant anti-depressant effects(21) and should result in greatly improved exercise tolerance and reduce the perceived level of fatigue in athletes using it.
On top of all that awesome stuff there’s more good news. If you’re a serious athlete and overtraining is more or less just something you do, theanine is going to be amazing for you. It is very common for athletes to feel lethargic and simply mentally drained after a taxing workout and this can be a pain if you’ve got a mentally demanding job. Theanine has been studied in athletes at a dose of only 50mg to greatly accelerate mental recovery after exercise(22). This alongside Rhodiola should greatly attenuate any post exercise mental fatigue, letting you go on with the rest of your daily schedule on time and on point.
Theanine Overview:
Increase focus and relaxed attention
Smooth the energy from caffeine
Improve exercise tolerance and resistance to fatigue
Accelerate mental recovery from exercise
Origin Overview:
Origin will greatly accelerate your training because we made sure to use only the ingredients we would want in our own pre workout and only at doses that work. When you see the effects add up in your own training session we know you’ll have a new favorite pre to cycle in.
Origin Total Mechanisms of Action:
Increase focus and relaxed attention
Improve exercise tolerance and resistance to fatigue
Accelerate mental recovery from exercise
Improved exercise performance
Increased fat loss through accelerated lipolysis
Improved recovery from training
Adaptogen helping the body cope with strenuous exercise
Enhance cognitive function
Improve mood and energy levels
Cardio protective
Increase GH, IGF-1 response to training
Reduce cortisol response to training
Improve body composition
Improve power output and quality of exercise performed
Increased blood flow leading to stronger pumps
Increased ammonia clearance from skeletal muscle
Reduces DOMS(Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)
TAAR-1 agonist, enhanced vigilance
Write-up taken from nutraplanet
TRAINING
Things are actually a little different for me this time around. I previously bulked from the end of July all the way through the end of November. As much as I tried to keep it clean I ended up cheating more than I wanted to and put on some excess weight. While my strength went through the roof I was not satisfied with the person I saw looking across from me in the mirror so I've already started making some changes to my weight training and diet.
Training is a 4 day split that encompasses more LISS cardio than I used to. This is due to the fact that my wife has convinced me that we need to run a mini-marathon at the beginning of May. Although I wasn't sure if I was up for the challenge I thought it would be a good goal to set for myself for Spring/Summer and that the LISS training building up to the race would be great for a cut as well. So you will be seeing a lot of cardio during this log as well and one of the things I'm stoked for is that Origin can be used pre-cardio as well.
DAY 1: CHEST/TRIS
DAY 2: LEGS
DAY 3: OFF/CARDIO
DAY 4: SHOULDERS
DAY 5: BACK/BIS
DAY 6: OFF/CARDIO
DAY 7: OFF/CARDIO
My weight training consists of building up and going heavy on the compound movements and adding in a ton of accessory exercises and focus on the stretch/squeeze of each rep... usually lowering the weight and going high rep. I'm focused more on hypertrophy and growth here than I am on actual strength.
At any point in time during this 30 days the training may be switched up according to how I feel. If I go into the gym to do legs and feel great and decide to go heavy then I may not end up doing cardio the next day and instead might choose to move onto Shoulders (as an example). I'm just playing it by ear and will be listening to my body.
So if you've bothered to read all that then stay tuned because you guys and gals are in for a crazy ride! I love going hard in the gym and getting great results for the sponsors! LETS DO THIS!