There are some mixed feelings about Advocare and their marketing plan, and I am going to concrete figure out if Advocare supplements will help me in my races and training. I do not sell Advocare, and quite frankly I approach it with a very objective view. I say this for any people who say, "Just another advocare person..." That is not the case. I am doing this for non-biased results.
This post is an on-going post of the research I am doing with Advocare products. Don't consider it to be "done" until you read "I am done with this study."
Some people love advocare, some people don't like them (but still like their products), and some people are just straight up afraid of them. I am creating this post as a non-biased test for if Advocare helps or hinders me.
If you clicked on this from Google, I know that you aren't going to read most of this post. You can scroll down to "My results".
Sprint Triathlon:
Protein Shake and Cheerios for breakfast
-Pre Race (about 15 minutes prior)
2 capsules of Catalyst
1 package muscle fuel
-During Race
Rehydrate drink in a waterbottle for the bike
I am told to try Arginine Extreme, however I am not sure If I should take it in this kind of race. It should be pretty fast.
-Post Race
Stretch
Post Workout Recovery
Eat food at whatever point I get hungry
Nighttime Recovery at bedtime
Olympic Triathlon:
Protein Shake and Cheerios for Breakfast
-Pre Race (about 15 minutes prior)
2 capsules of Catalyst
1 package of Muscle Fuel
-During the race
1 bottle containing 1 packet of Arginine Extreme and 1 packet of Rehydrate combined
1 bottle containing water
Rehydrate Gel 1 hr into ride
Rehydrate Gel 30 minutes into run
-Post Race
Post Workout Recovery
Eat food at whatever point I get hungry
Nighttime recovery at bedtime
I have a Sprint Triathlon in 2 weeks and an Olympic Triathlon in 3 weeks. I will update my blog with the results.
To let you know my background;
I am a 35 year old husband, father, and full time worker. My schedule for races/training is cramped.
-I completed my first Sprint triathlon on a mountain bike and swim trunks in 1:46.
-I completed my first Olympic triathlon in 3:00.
-I have completed several 5k/10k races
-All of these race reports are found under "my races" at the top.
I have been doing a lot of training (that of which I can fit in). All of this training is documented on my Garmin Connect Page. My username is lifejustice, so if you would like to see my calendar, you can do so. unfortunately, there is no way to embed my training reports so you can see what my training schedule looks like.
I have a race in 5 Weeks. The Seafair Olympic Triathlon. This is going to be "the race" in which I use advocare supplements to qualify their performance, and if they will make it into my bag of tricks. I am going to do a shorter Sprint Triathlon a week before this race as a "introduction to advocare" race. I will be implementing the Advocare products into this race as well, however I am not doing it to monitor the performance of Advocare. I am simply doing it to ensure that Advocare supplements do not harm me during the test race. I do not want to drink vinegar and then eat baking soda and have my stomach explode. This earlier race? This is just to make sure my stomach doesn't explode.
I have used a few advocare products in the past. Here is a summary of my history with Advocare products:
-The Spark is great, however I have broken out with acne in my shoulders/back after a full serving. I can't verify 100% that this is because of the Spark as there were other factors involved, however the few times that I have a good amount of it, this happens. This has occured in one other person I know. Some people say that some bodies don't react well to large amounts of Vitamin B. I have yet to take large amounts of Vitamin B alone to see if that is the case. The last few times I haven't broken out, but I only had a small mount.
-SLAM: I have only had sips of Slam. The first time, I also broke out a little bit...but not after other small uses.
-Rehydrate: I drink rehydrate and have no problems with it. I feel that it is a great replacement to gatorade or any other electrolyte drink. I am going on a bike ride with it this afternoon. I have had no negative reactions to it, and have felt great after exersize with it.
-Rehydrate Gel: I have had one rehydrate gel. I found it MUCH EASIER to consume than other gels, such as Hammer or Gu. It has always been a chore for me to suck those down. The Rehydrate gel is a much easier consistency (much more liquid) and you don't need to suck down water to wash it down. The lemon flavor really wakes up my mouth. After my ride with it, I felt like I had more energy and felt good. The Advocare Rehydrate Gel has fewer calories in it than other gels, so this is important to remember in endurance events. It is important to consume x amount of calories per hour.
-Catalyst: I am not 100% certain what Catalyst has in it. It was given to me once before a ride. I felt great the entire ride and after the ride. This may also be a source of my breakouts, but I still need to do more studies to see if that is the case. I am skeptical (a healthy amount) of Catalyst for endurance racing, as Advocare suggests I just need this on long rides however I think I know myself better than Advocare knows me. I still need to do more research on this.
-Nighttime recovery:
I had a hard run yesterday. I got a PR by running 4 miles in 30:05. I was very excited about it, but knew I would need to recover. I was given a nighttime recovery about 8 hours after the run. About 30 minutes after I took it, my legs felt very relaxed and comfortable. My typical recovery was no longer uncomfortable. When I woke up in the morning, my calves and quads (There are big hills on the run) were very stiff, as I expected. I am anticipating that Nighttime recovery does not magically recover you...but eases the pain during recovery. I could be wrong, but I will find that out in the study. After a few hours, my legs feel much better.
Here is the run I went on. Note the elevation:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/190785756
My Results:
Sprint Triathlon - Muscle Fuel
This post is an on-going post of the research I am doing with Advocare products. Don't consider it to be "done" until you read "I am done with this study."
Some people love advocare, some people don't like them (but still like their products), and some people are just straight up afraid of them. I am creating this post as a non-biased test for if Advocare helps or hinders me.
If you clicked on this from Google, I know that you aren't going to read most of this post. You can scroll down to "My results".
Sprint Triathlon:
Protein Shake and Cheerios for breakfast
-Pre Race (about 15 minutes prior)
2 capsules of Catalyst
1 package muscle fuel
-During Race
Rehydrate drink in a waterbottle for the bike
I am told to try Arginine Extreme, however I am not sure If I should take it in this kind of race. It should be pretty fast.
-Post Race
Stretch
Post Workout Recovery
Eat food at whatever point I get hungry
Nighttime Recovery at bedtime
Olympic Triathlon:
Protein Shake and Cheerios for Breakfast
-Pre Race (about 15 minutes prior)
2 capsules of Catalyst
1 package of Muscle Fuel
-During the race
1 bottle containing 1 packet of Arginine Extreme and 1 packet of Rehydrate combined
1 bottle containing water
Rehydrate Gel 1 hr into ride
Rehydrate Gel 30 minutes into run
-Post Race
Post Workout Recovery
Eat food at whatever point I get hungry
Nighttime recovery at bedtime
I have a Sprint Triathlon in 2 weeks and an Olympic Triathlon in 3 weeks. I will update my blog with the results.
To let you know my background;
I am a 35 year old husband, father, and full time worker. My schedule for races/training is cramped.
-I completed my first Sprint triathlon on a mountain bike and swim trunks in 1:46.
-I completed my first Olympic triathlon in 3:00.
-I have completed several 5k/10k races
-All of these race reports are found under "my races" at the top.
I have been doing a lot of training (that of which I can fit in). All of this training is documented on my Garmin Connect Page. My username is lifejustice, so if you would like to see my calendar, you can do so. unfortunately, there is no way to embed my training reports so you can see what my training schedule looks like.
I have a race in 5 Weeks. The Seafair Olympic Triathlon. This is going to be "the race" in which I use advocare supplements to qualify their performance, and if they will make it into my bag of tricks. I am going to do a shorter Sprint Triathlon a week before this race as a "introduction to advocare" race. I will be implementing the Advocare products into this race as well, however I am not doing it to monitor the performance of Advocare. I am simply doing it to ensure that Advocare supplements do not harm me during the test race. I do not want to drink vinegar and then eat baking soda and have my stomach explode. This earlier race? This is just to make sure my stomach doesn't explode.
I have used a few advocare products in the past. Here is a summary of my history with Advocare products:
-The Spark is great, however I have broken out with acne in my shoulders/back after a full serving. I can't verify 100% that this is because of the Spark as there were other factors involved, however the few times that I have a good amount of it, this happens. This has occured in one other person I know. Some people say that some bodies don't react well to large amounts of Vitamin B. I have yet to take large amounts of Vitamin B alone to see if that is the case. The last few times I haven't broken out, but I only had a small mount.
-SLAM: I have only had sips of Slam. The first time, I also broke out a little bit...but not after other small uses.
-Rehydrate: I drink rehydrate and have no problems with it. I feel that it is a great replacement to gatorade or any other electrolyte drink. I am going on a bike ride with it this afternoon. I have had no negative reactions to it, and have felt great after exersize with it.
-Rehydrate Gel: I have had one rehydrate gel. I found it MUCH EASIER to consume than other gels, such as Hammer or Gu. It has always been a chore for me to suck those down. The Rehydrate gel is a much easier consistency (much more liquid) and you don't need to suck down water to wash it down. The lemon flavor really wakes up my mouth. After my ride with it, I felt like I had more energy and felt good. The Advocare Rehydrate Gel has fewer calories in it than other gels, so this is important to remember in endurance events. It is important to consume x amount of calories per hour.
-Catalyst: I am not 100% certain what Catalyst has in it. It was given to me once before a ride. I felt great the entire ride and after the ride. This may also be a source of my breakouts, but I still need to do more studies to see if that is the case. I am skeptical (a healthy amount) of Catalyst for endurance racing, as Advocare suggests I just need this on long rides however I think I know myself better than Advocare knows me. I still need to do more research on this.
-Nighttime recovery:
I had a hard run yesterday. I got a PR by running 4 miles in 30:05. I was very excited about it, but knew I would need to recover. I was given a nighttime recovery about 8 hours after the run. About 30 minutes after I took it, my legs felt very relaxed and comfortable. My typical recovery was no longer uncomfortable. When I woke up in the morning, my calves and quads (There are big hills on the run) were very stiff, as I expected. I am anticipating that Nighttime recovery does not magically recover you...but eases the pain during recovery. I could be wrong, but I will find that out in the study. After a few hours, my legs feel much better.
Here is the run I went on. Note the elevation:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/190785756
My Results:
Sprint Triathlon - Muscle Fuel
- Before the race, I took the catalyst and the muscle fuel. It was a cold rainy morning. Shortly after I took these, I felt like King of the World and I kept thinking "Let it rain...it will just slow down everybody else." At this point, Muscle Fuel was awesome!*
- Swim went fairly well. It seemed to take a long time. I wanted out of the water and on the bike.
- 5 minutes into the bike, I began throwing up. It was time to find out why.* I haven't thrown up from catalyst before...so that leaves the muscle fuel or the lake water to be the culprit. I lost 2 minutes as I was at a complete stop throwing up into a ditch. I still finished with a decent time.
- The run was a run.
- I was not able to fully determine how Post Workout recovery helped, as my fitness level is to the point where Sprints are not a major tax on my body in the recovery phase.
*2 weeks after the race, I tested a 1/2 serving of Muscle fuel about 45 minutes after breakfast while my body was well rested and under no physical duress. I had the same "Take on the world!" feeling, as I took my dog for a walk. About 30 minutes after the consumption of the Muscle Fuel, I ended up in the bathroom throwing up. Everything about the episode was similar to during the race so I was able to determine that Muscle Fuel was the source of my nausea and vomitting during the race. I will no longer be using it any more.
Olympic Triathlon - Slam and Rehydrate (gel and drink)
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