cheap -epi log

[emiliozapata]

So I got 4 bottles of =
Swanson Ultra Organic Cocoa Polyphenols Extract 700 mg 30 Org Vegcap - Swanson Health Products

and 4 bottles of=
Swanson FIT Performance Energizer with ActiGin 50 mg 30 Veg Caps - Swanson Health Products

Gonna run them for 6 weeks at 3 pills each per day as 2 in the am and 1 at around 5pm also picked up a few bottles of Fearn liquid SL

I am normally anti-supplement however couldn't pass up the prices and thought WTH if these cocoa polyphenols work it will be a cheap way to see if -epi is legit or not-sadly there is no way to know the mg amount of -epicatechin I will be getting

I am going to use , as I always have, military presses for max reps with a standard weight setup ( two 50 lb plates plus bar of unknown weight) as the measuring stick for any performance increases- to me everything else is bunk ("pumps", "energy" "wood" "mind-muscle connection" etc. all terms i have seen used for evaluating supps but unmeasurable and essentially worthless)

To evaluate this I will do a starting rep count tomorrow and then I will do maybe 2 more attempts at week 3 and week 6 (although I am already about 4 days in) -the catch is I will otherwise not do any military pressing with the weight or any similar weight in order to eliminate a training effect accounting for any increases in reps-I basically do no weighted overhead pressing in my normal trainings

 

[Jakethaniel]

Very interesting, I wish you luck!

I know you said everything else is bunk because it's immeasurable, but would you say you're feeling any differences as of yet? Either way I'm excited to see what it does for the test you have set forth!

As an aside that you might have already taken into account, the caps are definitely worth taking on an empty stomach and with green tea and/or ground black pepper(piperine) for maximized absorption.

 

[emiliozapata]

I have indeed been taking with two caps of GTE as well- I can say that I think my pumps have been better but I always feel like that is such a subjective thing that it is hard to say although I do believe in the past when I have eaten cacao nibs pre workout I got amazing pumps so the polyphenols may indeed be producing the same effect-

I am alot weaker than I have been in the past when using the standard BB overhead press for reps- today I did 6- in past workouts/logs I have been at ten or well over but I chalk this up to simply the ageing process and my basic lack of much pure strength training in the recent/near past- this is a good thing in a way though as I will easily be able to see any increases second to the supps as I will not change my routine up much which is mostly running, sledgehammer work, pullups/pushups/dips etc.

 

[emiliozapata]

workouts are going well- recovered nicely from a big chest and tri day- did do some weighted carries that were basically the same performance wise from what I have been doing

have been doing some hunting and feasting on wild squirrel and deer meat- going to make up some nice bone broth today to use for the next few days and will boil up 2 deer livers to add to my protein shakes for the next week or so

 

[emiliozapata]

moved some dumbbells in benching that I haven't moved in a while this weekend and recovered amazingly well

 

[emiliozapata]

quite a discovery today- realized I actually only had 30 days of the cocoa polyphenols if I dosed at 3 per day so I decided to try to overhead presses- now i was skeptical of how i would do because monday i did some chest and tri work and reps were down from 2 workouts prior when i did same weights-was really confused as to why and chalked it up to not enough recovery between workouts- then an epic fail today 3 reps first effort then squeezed out 4 after getting pissed and gutting out that 4th rep however that still put me down 2 reps- again at first confused and pissed and then it hit me- about a week ago I quit taking the lecithin- the PA- and I am weaker for it- so my conclusion at this point is that the cocoa polyphenols are a bust-maybe -epi works at the right doses but not with these- the main conclusion is that lecithin does the job- i had stopped it over a concern for the potential inflammatory linoleic acid

 

[Jakethaniel]

quite a discovery today- realized I actually only had 30 days of the cocoa polyphenols if I dosed at 3 per day so I decided to try to overhead presses- now i was skeptical of how i would do because monday i did some chest and tri work and reps were down from 2 workouts prior when i did same weights-was really confused as to why and chalked it up to not enough recovery between workouts- then an epic fail today 3 reps first effort then squeezed out 4 after getting pissed and gutting out that 4th rep however that still put me down 2 reps- again at first confused and pissed and then it hit me- about a week ago I quit taking the lecithin- the PA- and I am weaker for it- so my conclusion at this point is that the cocoa polyphenols are a bust-maybe -epi works at the right doses but not with these- the main conclusion is that lecithin does the job- i had stopped it over a concern for the potential inflammatory linoleic acid

Damn, that's too bad, and yes, PA is great!
There might have just not been enough -epicatechin in this product, but it would be interesting to run maybe 1 cap of these with a real -epicatechin product. I might have to give that a try when I run -epicatechin again myself.

Are you planning to finish the 30 days and see where you're at compared to the 4 reps on this day?

 

[emiliozapata]

yes i am going to finish it out w/o adding back in the lecithin to see what happens

 

[emiliozapata]

quick update- i am still off the SL and I am back to 6 reps so now I don't know what to think-must have just been poorly recovered for the 2 workouts that were weak- will do one final update when cocoa polyphenols are gone- did scale back to 2 pills per day x 1 week now and will finish out that way

 

[emiliozapata]

final post- the cacao extract was in no way efficacious in increasing strength-

 

[Jakethaniel]

That's too bad, thanks for testing it out!