BlueGROWTH Review
First off, I want to thank Controlled Labs and Renegade for giving me the opportunity to log their product.
I'd like to approach my review with a slightly different approach then traditional reviews. I don't feel as comfortable giving a point system review because I haven't experienced enough GH products to have any kind of depth of comparison. Furthermore, I switched from a dirty bulk to an uber carb-nazi clean cut and the physiological and endocrinlogical differences in such a switch would have a significant effect on such things as growth, strength, weight and ant-DOMS effects, therefore, I have chosen to focus on an element that ought not have any strong variance due to dietary factors.
I'll focus primarily on rest and recovery theories so my experience may or may not be something so exclusive to my personal phase of bodybuilding.
Firstly, the most notable and unavoidably apparent effects I experienced from BlueGROWTH are lucid, vivid, numerous in variety and perhaps less relevant, extremely weird, weird dreams. How could I relate this to bodybuilding? One of the most over-looked and underrated aspects of bodybuilding, particularly to either green or stubbornly young hearted lifters such as myself, is the emphasis on the importance of the rest & recovery phase.
Initially, I thought because my dreams were so lucid, in so many varying narrations and my recollection of them so vivid the next day, that what I was improving or more clearly put, spending more time in was REM sleep. That was the understanding I went with in my search for answers.
Sleep proceeds in cycles of REM and NREM, the order normally being N1 → N2 → N3 → N2 → REM.
* Stage 1: Polysomnography (sleep readings) shows a reduction in activity between wakefulness and stage 1 sleep. The eyes are closed during Stage 1 sleep. One can be awakened without difficulty, however, if aroused from this stage of sleep, a person may feel as if he or she has not slept. Stage 1 may last for five to 10 minutes. Many may notice the feeling of falling during this stage of sleep, which may cause a sudden muscle contraction (called hypnic myoclonia).
* Stage 2: This is a period of light sleep during which polysomnographic readings show intermittent peaks and valleys, or positive and negative waves. These waves indicate spontaneous periods of muscle tone mixed with periods of muscle relaxation. The heart rate slows and the body temperature decreases. At this point, the body prepares to enter deep sleep.
* Stages 3 and 4: These are deep sleep stages, with stage 4 being more intense than Stage 3. These stages are known as slow-wave, or delta, sleep. If aroused from sleep during these stages, a person may feel disoriented for a few minutes.
During the deep stages of NREM sleep [N2- early N3], the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, and appears to strengthen the immune system. As you get older, you sleep more lightly and get less deep sleep. Aging is also associated with shorter time spans of sleep, although studies show the amount of sleep needed doesn't appear to diminish with age. Invalid Link Removed
Therefore, there is a greater amount of deep sleep (stage N2- early N3), while the proportion of REM sleep increases later in the night and just before natural awakening. Prior to my personal research, I thought REM was the peak point of restful sleep and also the peak point of GH release, on the contrary, sleep is deepest at N3 or the NREM stages in general and GH release is actually most prevalent during NREM sleep stages.
A brief outlay of a normal sleep process usually involves REM and Non REM (NREM) sleep. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is the part when active dreaming occurs, and little HGH is produced during this phase.
Non REM sleep is a much deeper phase of sleep than REM sleep, and during this phase, the pituitary produces high levels of HGH. The pattern of HGH release closely follows the brain wave patterns, with a large burst shortly after falling asleep, and continuing thereafter according to sleep wave patterns.Invalid Link Removed
My personal conclusion from my own understanding, is that sleep not only occurs in cycles from N1 through REM and can relapse back to N2 back through REM many times a night, but for a natural insomniac as myself, who wakes up to use the restroom 3-4 times a night on average, my cycles may start all over from N1. So how does this relate to dream lucidity and the fact that theoretically, too much REM sleep can actually leave you sluggish in the morning, as it can be a sign of inadequate NREM sleep, yet I wake up feeling completely refreshed?
My first theory was that I concluded that what BlueGROWTH was doing was helping me complete a full rest cycle MANY times a night, as my cycle resets many times due to my getting up many times a night. What about people who sleep through the entire night? I would conclude under certain presumptions, that some people may or may not complete sleep cycles from N1-REM or if they do and are not recalling dreams, that they are waking up from an NREM stage or an inadequate REM stage.
Now to be a bit exclusive in my experience. I traditionally never seem to dream most likely due to simple lack of recollection, which isn't uncommon, but on BlueGROWTH, perhaps I am experiencing a full cycle in so many completed stages, that I simply have more dreams to recall from, therefore, I feel they are more lucid due to my quality of recollection; Not that I recall every single dream, but that because I experience more stages of NREM through REM, I simply have more stories to choose from.
Theory number two. REM being the final stage of sleep and the stage traditionally closest to pre-awakening, the dream lucidity could be that my NREM stages were slept through with such quality, that during the phase of the most increased brain activity, my brain activity is enhanced in that REM stage, due to the quality of sleep in my NREM stages.
Conclusion, GH release is enhanced in either scenario I proposed. Either BlueGROWTH promotes many cycles of N2-REM or the quality in NREM stages are improved and are the peak times of GH release.
Thank you again Controlled Labs and I hope I have given a satisfactory log and a fair, objective review.
Of course there's always Arnold's personal preference in inducing quality NREM sleep.
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