woah 5?? stims now? i think olympus has some good ideas and had some interesting formulas in the past, i have not been able to read much in the last months so i saw that there is now a few patented ingredients like elevatp, vaso-6 etc. which are not really anything special. shilajit and green tea/grape seed are probably not really any worse. to be honest i have been using elevatp and also vaso-6 and i feel i would get more from shilajit and a grape seed or pomegranate extract.
actually i am using massacre and i have used secretabridge in the past, pomegranate extract (punicalagins) and i do not get the same benefits in terms of injury healing, pump/vascularity/endurance/nutrient partitioning. the vaso-6 i can’t say if it does anything but i do not train for pumps and never really have much pump, at least not in a sense of blowing up but rather muscles getting harder (the way i train leads to actual structural protein gains rather than glycogenanabolism). i think leucine nitrate gives me a certain longer lasting hardness and abh/bec gave me the most pump i ever had. it is still more the muscle getting solid and veins, not like some having an inch on their arms more for a few hours.)
5 stims can only be bad or the cns. also stims do not give constant increases, say you can do 2 more reps because of them, next workout you will need those stims to keep the level. there will not be consistent progress and one will basically burn out and change the preworkout. i think a pre should be causing permanent improvements in perormance and health, maybe something like eria jarensis with some caffeine and a bunch of neuroprotective stuff could be used regularly. using magnesium-l-threonate and adaptogens could make sure that the cns recovers better by using the product rather than taxing it. i used to use heavy stims a long time ago but realized that when real performance enhancing ingredients are used then a little stim will really make those incredibly noticeable. of course lack of norepinephrine and dopamine will make it hard to perform well but when cellular energy is high then just enough will make that energy really noticeable. ubiquinol/shilajit can really increase reps a lot and seems much more reliable and strong than niagen or example. also elevatp does not compare for me.
creatine-pyruvate has a direct effect on my performance while creatine in any other form does not, not even over time. all it does is slightly increase intracellular water. no improved strength for me though.
i could imagine using the new performax oxymax preworkout with most of the ingredients i listed (used to not have to pay for stuff, now i can’t buy all that as it would be hundreds of dollars a month. knowing the costs off the raws i can tell most pres are 5 dollars max to make, most much less. this formula i posted would be around 30-40 dollars to make. now i simply cannot buy a product for 50 dollars costing 3 in raws (where i live supps are more than in the US).
alcar, pterostilbene, pomegranate extract, gynostemmma and trans-tiliroside with a large meal, then oxymax with creatinol-o-phosphate, amentoflavone, leucin-nitrate, gplc around 2 hours after (possibly massmax for the rhaponticum), then training an hour or so later having some chocolate milk or so in between the pre and the workout could be quite good.
berberine, banaba, gymnema would be affordable to take before other meals. (4-5 of 800-1500calories usually, total 4000 to 5000 right now. in 2 months or so i should have regained and surpassed my previous stats but i was using a lot of substances when i ate 5000 calories and still lost fat when it was becoming slightly weird as calipers would measure like 3%bf or so which i consider impossible but there were only 2mm skinfolds max.)
basically i will get lef ampk activator (trans-tiliroside formula), pomegranate extract, hopefully pterostilbene. i have alcar and banaba, gymnema. will also get mag-threonate. could use a good adaptogen, massmax looks like it could actually do something (i do not expect any muscle gains, ideally cns recovery so training can be done without one day breaks. oxymax looks like it would be a stim that does not feel too peripheral (hardcore pres feel much more druglike than therapeutically dosed dextroapphetamine. the latter does not give a racing heart, weird sensory overload and eliminates tiredness, hardcore pres can leave me with fatigue despite being overstimmed).
not many formulas on the market are something i would use, performax did some good stuff, some was just a copy of something. dedicated nutrition does some good valued products but there is always something not ideal. unbeatable is a nice formula but i don’t like ksm-66. ig-one is cheap and effective.
it is difficult to tell on paper, some olympus stuff looked great but did not do much, other products looked like pleasantly mild stims but felt nasty.
not sure on oxymax and massmax.
there is so many new companies and formulas, i know the ingredients i want but no idea who might make what. ideally a stim with pea-derivatives, eria or senegal ballerina or what they call it
and some caffeine, not too many unpredictable stims. and an adaptogenic formula but not rhodiola, bacopa and stuff like that. so far massmax looks best but i am open to suggestions as i used to know every supp on the market but haven’t ffollowed recent releases. performance/recovery in terms of cns basically.
would like to use the full dose of c3g, only biotest indigo3g has it (600mg active c3g), other supps have 20-35% extracts so one would need like 2 grams and hpn m(6) has 365 mg of a really low extract.