EMISGOD’s BodyBlog

I’ve updated several of my older reviews as well. A lot of my comments I’m going to save for my next Log, tentatively Xtreme Formulations Relentless reformulation + possibly something else before heading into the last Log of the year, which will be an anabolic-minded Log and will be unsponsored as well.

Xtreme Formulations Vendetta: I finally got a chance to try this and I’m glad I did before buying it. The flavor is a fruit punch that I don’t find particularly enjoyable and it takes a good while to mix up. I added this to my pre-workout loading, but didn’t notice any particular benefit from taking it. I didn’t really expect to with only a couple samples, though. Recovery seemed slightly enhanced this weekend, perhaps due to this or to the ICE.
Xtreme Formulations ICE Wildberry Lemonade: boyscouT wrote a review of this in the review sections that pegged the flavor dead-on. It is pleasant tasting, but very light. This mixed very well and actually works extremely well as an actual lemonade (albeit an expensive one), perhaps better than it does as a during workout supplement. Again, it’s hard to assess with only 2 samples, but in comparison to Purple Wraath, between exercise recovery was notably down and I wound up exhausted at the end of my Leg workout. Chest workout I felt more tired than usual, but not flat-out exhausted. This is atypical from what it has been lately, which is a feeling that I have worked everything thoroughly but not outright exhaustion.

SNACLite Power PB: A sweeter, inferior version of Power Butter.

Here’s a few more of the things that have been running around a bit lately:

FRS Anti-Ox/Energy drinks: The Wild Berry is not as good as the Orange in terms of taste. Neither of them did anything detectable in terms of energy and at $2/pop, they are a very expensive soda…

VPX Zero Impact Protein:  I had both the chocolate and the vanilla. Vanilla I liked quite a lot and might be buying that at some point in the near future. Chocolate was considerably less good and probably not something I will be bothering with again. I didn’t care for the texture, with all the bits and pieces of flax seeds and other debris, but I minded it less with the vanilla, since the taste was so excellent.

VPX Zero Impact Bars: I had two of the Pumpkin flavor, which I like quite a lot. This is a bar that requires water, though. No water and you may as well plan on having stomach/abdominal cramps. The second bar was kind of dry, which reminded me of Layne Norton’s comment that considering the profile, the bar should be like cake…I’m really trying to stay away from bars lately (believe it or not), so this would not be something I’d be much interested in unless I had to eat and was near a GNC and had no other good choices or something.

VPX Redline Extreme:  This was supposed to be the new "supercharged" version of it, when VPX broke up the original kickass Redline RTD (metal can) into a castrated version (Redline regular) and the new hype, Redline Xtreme. I had an old can of the castrated version and I had that the other day. Delightful taste, as always, but no effect. The Redline Xtreme flavor I had was grape and it was an ok flavor, certainly nowhere near the original Redline flavor, but not bad, either. It also had no effect. I took my pulse repeatedly on the way to the gym, after waiting about an hour. No increase. As I was pulling into the parking lot at the gym, I felt a very slight charge, but Excedrin + Coke or Mt. Dew would put the charge I had to shame. VPX has thoroughly ruined what was one of the most consistent and best supplements on the market, ever. For shame. More on Redline here: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=884150&highlight=vpx+re
dline
ISS  Oh Yeah! Chocolate Mint Protein wafer bars: I was fortunate enough to win a box of these in one of Coulaid’s threads and my thanks to him and ISS for that. I love mint and chocolate, always have and have had a great deal of it. Same goes for wafers, which are one of my favorite things on the planet, especially strawberry. Combining them seemed like a dream come true. This is certainly no Ande’s candy, not by a long shot. They are much better cold (I had mine in the freezer). If warm, they tend to melt all over the inside of the wrapper. There is not much here in the way of sweetener, rather obviously I guess. Also, I wasn’t too impressed with the profile, but I think this is a novel experiment, albeit one not very successful from my standpoint. I didn’t hate them or anything, but can’t ever see me buying these as they don’t really fit into my diet very well and are not tasty enough to build around them, either…they might be good for a change of pace and I would consider picking them up, possibly, if the price was right, in the scenario depicted above for the VPX ones, but they would definitely not be a regular thing.

ABB Speed Shot: I’ve used these on and off for a few months, typically on an empty stomach. At times, they will increase my heart rate with no discernible increase in energy, at other times, a slight energy charge, but nothing major. The Subzero Red or Fruit Punch or whatever it is tastes considerably better than grape. These might do in a pinch, but are not worth the $3 per bottle you will need to throw down at GNC to get one…

I came downstairs with a fistfull of pills the other day, which prompted my roommate to stop what he was doing, observe that was a lot of pills and then go through all of them as well as their various functions. I am definitely on the biggest supplement load I have been on in quite some time, but since I am waiting for the new Relentless to start the next Log, I thought I would experiment around a bit, especially with the PWO thing.

Essentially, I am going to be trying to use Orotine + Whey as a PWO recovery drink to see how that works. I don’t like using Orotine a bunch as it tends to make me retain water, but since I am retaining it like a mutha anyway from Melting Point, I might as well try it out to see what happens. The theory I’m testing is whether or not creatine is useful in this application. Given my much lowered caloric load, this will be a real test, but since I’m using a creatine that I know works, this should determine it conclusively.

Recovery has gone into the toilet since I started cutting, mostly because of the lowered caloric load, I suspect. Once I got used to lowered weights and higher reps, the workouts have been solid, but recovery is much worse than when I was bulking. It strikes me now how utterly useless many of those recovery products were if they couldn’t work even with all those calories…anyway, that is one of the things I’m experimenting with. Who knows, I might find the ultimate recovery agent this way…
The other is going through all the various samples I have as well as the pre-workout stuff I have lying about. I don’t want to waste it, even though I would rather just stick with Steel Edge. Some of these will be in Mini-Reviews 9…