Supplements
I play around with various supplements and see how it affects my body.
Alphabetical order, but you can always search on the top right.
Creatine
Many studies conclude that creatine makes your muscles grow better. Is this true?
Hypothesis
I didn't have one and didn't know what to expect. I just wanted to look swole.
Accidental Experiment
Each week, I do the exercise I hate the most: leg extensions to failure. Failure meaning:
My quads can no longer activate to complete the range of motion to pull the stack up.
I forgot to take creatine for a week and retook it the next week.
Results
Physical
| Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3 | Month 4 | Month 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | 130 | 140 | 155 | 160 | 170 |
| Week 1 reps (max) | 20 | skip | 26 | 24 | 23 |
| Week 2 reps (max) | 24 | 24 | 25 | 25 | (in progress) |
| Week 3 reps (max) | 25 | 25 | 24 | 25 |
I forgot to take it in month 2, week 2, and then retook it month 2, week 3. I went from:
- 140 lbs, 25 max -> 155 lbs, 26 max.
I also took a week off creatine between month 4 week 3, and month 5 week 1 (rested for a week, forgot to take creatine). Went from:
- 160 lbs, 25 max -> 170 lbs, 23 max
With creatine it seems like I can keep the reps up month-to-month even when I increase weights. But when I stop it, I lose out on a couple reps. This is important because it's the last few reps that give you most of your gains.
This is very small sample size so I might add more later.
Mental
I feel "flat" now if I forget to take creatine for a bit and I work out. If I take creatine my muscles feel more "full." Could be placebo.
Conclusion
I think it is working. The numbers certainly don't disprove it. And the effects are more or less subtle, but with creatine I feel "good" at the gym. Without, I feel normal. There's almost infinite studies to show that creatine does help with muscle fullness and muscle growth though, so I do not think it is placebo.
Tongkat Ali
This is all the hype for boosting testosterone. Having high test is good for:
- Muscle recovery
- Stamina
- Getting stronger, faster
And probably a plethora of other things. This claim was popularized by Andrew Huberman. So I tried it out.
Hypothesis
I took a testosterone test last year and back then I was just fat and didn't do any weightlifting. Just some light cardio each day.
Given the hype, I am expecting a huge increase in test.
Compare this to now, where I am:
- Doing zone 2 cardio 4 times a week, at 30-45 mins each session.
- Lifting 4 times a week, about 45-90mins each session.
You could argue that the intense lifting to failure increases test and cardio decreases test, and they cancel each other out. And that last year where I was only doing cardio only has a strict decrease in test.
Bro science.
Thus, I should naturally have higher test, even without the tongkat. But with 2-months of tongkat, I should see a significant increase to my test.
Experiment
I took a 2-month cycle of tongkat ali, at 400mg per day, as recommended by Andrew Huberman's podcast. This was supplemented with weightlifting which is correlated with increasing test.
Results
Physical
I took a testosterone test last year:
After many months of weightlifting + creatine + tongkat, my results are thus:
My test levels decreased by 5%. WTF?
Some of this can be due to intraday fluctuations, as test levels fluctuate up to 30-35% a day. So we can just say "my test level stayed about the same (at a very low level)."
Anyway, I was looking for a result that is more than 50% (or 765++) to be able to confirm tongkat's efficacy. This is because a tiny increase in test is not going to help me much for weightlifting nor muscle building. Anyway, this was not the case for me, so I will say tongkat ali is completely ineffective for me.
Mental
I feel a lot more aggressive when on this. Much more easily agitated. But could just be placebo and me using supplements as an excuse to be short-tempered. I feel in the 2-month cycle though my most aggressive is 1 month in. Now I feel normal.
Maybe there's an adaptation to tongkat and you only get a test boost 1 month in and I missed that window in my test results?
But if the test boost is only temporary I don't see how they can help with a longer-arching goal like increasing lift size.
Conclusion
I think tongkat ali is hype and makes me suspicious a lot of these health podcasts. Or it's maybe like the keto diet where some bodies respond to it and some don't. The reason why I say this is because the Amazon reviews for this specific tongkat ali supplement had testimonials where customers gave before/after of their test, and talked about how it did increase for them.
It just didn't work for me.
If you want to boost your test, you may consider trying this out for a month and do a testostrone test before and after (with a lot of bitching from your primary care provider). If it significantly increases your test, then you can avoid TRT; but if it doesn't do anything for you, you may consider more aggressive alternatives or avoid increasing your testostrone altogether since other methods have significantly adverse side effects.