Two Scoops. Get Huge.

July 2012 PumpUps Experiment

PumpUps.comprovides a supplement trial service. For a monthly fee of $10, you are sent a package of supplement samples: 6 different supplements for a total of 10-12 sample packs.

Last month I did a review of PumpUps.com as a service. This month, Tony is taking a look at what PumpUps.com had to offer in July’s shipment, and seeing how much of it he can consume in 24 hours.

Pump Ups Contents (July 2012)

NO3 Chrome
Description: Nitric Oxide Booster (capsules)
Number of Sample Packets: 2
Servings per Packet: 1
Flavor: N/A (don’t chew them, they are gross, but you can open the capsules and snort the powder if you cool like that)

Bullnox Androrush
Description: Pre-workout (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 1
Servings per Packet: 1.5
Flavor: Fruit Punch

Six Nutrition Vitamins for Men
Description: Multi-vitamin (capsules)
Number of Sample Packets: 1
Servings per Packet: 1
Flavor: (they are capsules?)

Inner Armour Peak Anabolic Gainer
Description: Post-workout protein/carbs/creatine/BCAA. “Mass gainer.” (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 1
Servings per Packet: 1/4
Flavor: Chocolate

Purus Labs Muscle Marinade
Description: Pre/Intra-workout (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 2
Servings per Packet: 1
Flavor: Cherry Limeade

VPX NO Shotgun
Description: Pre-workout (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 2
Servings per Packet: 1
Flavor: Exotic Fruit

Now that I have all these supplements, it is time to get fucking swollen.

Pump Ups Supplement Trial Day:

Tony always say, “go big or go home,” so I went all out for this one.

Friday

1:00pm - Consume Six Nutrition Vitamins for Men with 12 oz. of water and a lunch consisting of 3 whole chickens. This vitamin supplement has ingredients to support Heart, Joint, Sex, Muscles, Mind, and Energy. After taking them, I immediately wanted to hit a new 1RM on Deadlift, run a marathon, take the SATs, and have sex with everything! I’m kidding. It is a multivitamin. Nothing happened.

5:00pm - Take NO3 Chrome and wash down with NO Shotgun mixed in 16oz. of water. Within 10 minutes I am feeling pretty good. Got a small buzz going, skin is starting to tingle, I feel uncomfortable sitting still, I should hit the gym.

5:30pm - Begin workout. Despite having already consumed a pre-workout, and the warning label’s claim that “one packet is all you need. DO NOT EXCEED MORE THAN ONE SERVING,” I mixed a packet of Muscle Marinade into a shaker cup to consume during my workout.

6:00pm - I am blazing through my Back portion of my Back & Biceps workout. Pre-workouts got me buzzing and the intra-workout Muscle Marinade is keeping my irregular heartbeat alive. I haven’t hit any PRs but I am putting up some good numbers on all my lifts and getting a pretty good fucking pump when I am doing it - my lats are so swollen that I keep knocking into people because I don’t know my own width.

6:10pm - I finish the end of my back workout with sets of pull-ups to failure. My bicep veins are looking crazy sexy at this point. If I was wearing sleeves, I would have ripped them off. Taking 3 Nitric Oxide products should by my new modus operandi. My biceps are so pumped after doing Back that I was contemplating not doing biceps while I finished off my shaker of Muscle Marinade. Then I stopped being a pussy. NEVER SKIP BICEPS.

6:30pm - 5x5 EZ Bar Curl. 3x8 Hammer Curls. 1 drop set of Alternating Dumbbell Curls. 2x12 High Cable Curls to see if I could get my arm to explode. And one set of flexing gratuitously in the mirror. Operation Arm Annihilation complete.

6:35pm - Consume Inner Armour Peak Anabolic Gainer in 16oz. of water. The cool thing about these PumpUps packs are that, for 3 or 4 days, I don’t have to remember to put powder in ziplock bags, I got the sample packs right there. The problem I had though, was that this sample pack of mass gainer was only 1/4 of a serving, so I feel completely cheated and I had to rush home to get a full Two Scoops serving of protein.

7:00pm - I am still waiting for some crazy bowel movements to hit me, but nothing yet. Could it be I’ve found a pre-workout cocktail that doesn’t make my intestines revolt?

8:00pm - Crazy bowel movements.

10:00pm - Begin drinking

10:28pm - BTFO

Saturday

9:00am - I wake up feeling not so sore (probably the awesome multivitamin), but I have an apocalyptic hangover, like somebody dropped a 25lb dumbbell on my temple. Attempts to counteract these effects include consuming my second packet of Muscle Marinade and chugging approximately a gallon of whole milk while watching Pumping Iron.

10:00am - I feel human again, although the Muscle Marinade is failing at Hangover reversal. So much for Muscle Marinade’s claim that “One packet is all you need. DO NOT EXCEED MORE THAN ONE SERVING,” cause one packet ain’t doing shit right now. What did we learn here? Take TWO SCOOPS. GET HUGE. END OF STORY. I take my packet of Bullnox straight to my face, and it tastes amazing (not joking, Bullnox really did taste good). I watch Sportscenter for a bit and head to the gym.

Total 24 Hour Pre-workout consumption:

• Muscle Marinade - 2 Servings
• NO Shotgun - 1 Serving
• Bullnox Androrush - 1.5 Servings
• NO3 Chrome - 1 Serving
• Six Multivitamin - 1 Serving (I count this because it has stimulants in it)

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I am not terribly impressed with this, and y’all shouldn’t be either. How do I expect people to call me The Internet’s Foremost Expert on Pre-Workout Supplement Abuse when I barely exceeded 3x the recommended serving amount for these supplements? Tony can do better. Tony will do better.

-Tony”Too Pumped Up” Muscoli

Praise the Lord! Any Lord! Allah! Hallelujah! Baruch Hashem! ברוך ה׳! Namo Amida Butsu! Hansen Natural CEO Rodney Sacks! The Monster Titties Girls! Whatever alien God that Christian Scientists worship! I don’t give a fuck who you thank, I’m just glad this drink exists and that I’ve found it.

Monster Energy Drink with 15 Grams of Protein = Chub

If I could marry a canned beverage, this would be it. Why? Because it is the perfect marriage of protein and energy - of getting huge and heart palpitations - that is why. When I first saw this I went from 6:00pm to 6:45pm. I am not even kidding, my pants definitely moved a little bit.

My choice in energy drink has just been made for me. Never again will I waste valuable time on a Saturday night deciding between RedBull and AMP or RockStar or Monster or Jack3d or Full Throttle or shots of tequila or an iced coffee or No-Doz or Cocaine. From now on, it is this drink 10 times out of 10.

Monster Rehab Protean Review:

Monster Protean Taste:

This dank shit tastes like a regular Monster Rehab “Tea” drink, just a little bit more supplementy. It tastes as though they took cans of their Rehab Tea drink, stuck a needle into them and shot them up with 15g’s of high quality protein. Taste is perfectly acceptable if you like Monster and it leaves you with ZERO excuses to get any other energy drink besides this one.

Taste: 7.9/10

Monster Protean Nutritional Content:

I have yet to see another energy drink with 15 grams of protein, all other ingredients are mute at this point.

Nutritional Content: 10/10

Monster Protean Effects:

Big Tony kicked off his Saturday night right by doing Two Scoops Strikeouts: take a hit, take a shot of protein vodka, chug a Monster Protean, exhale, get a blowjob, repeat.

Needless to say, I played like a champion. The proprietary Rehab® Energy Blend kept me buzzing all night, ensuring that I had sufficient motivation the beat the beat up, and the added protein removed the anxiety caused by alcohol’s effects on protein synthesis. While most Two Scoopers were thinking, “shit, all this booze is inhibiting my protein synthesis,” I was thinking, “shit, all this booze is inhibiting my protein synthesis, but at least I chugged an extra 30g’s of protein to make up for it.”

Effects: 9/10

Monster Protein Review Final Score: 9/10

Buy this shit.

-Tony “Two Scoops” Muscoli

PumpUps.com provides a supplement trial service. For a monthly fee of $10, you are sent a package of supplement samples: 6 different supplements for a total of 10-12 sample packs.

Pump Ups sent me a sample of their product offering and asked for my two scoops on it. I warned them I would give my (brutally) honest opinion, and they shipped it anyway - good for them, they got balls.

Note: I am reviewing Pump Ups as a service, not the supplement samples they send.

PumpUps Arrive

The package arrives in this bubble wrap envelope emblazoned with the PumpUps logo. Like any package you get in the mail, it is exciting. It is kind of like you are getting a present that somebody forgot to wrap, except you know this present is supplements. And if you love supplements as hard as I do, then getting supplements in the mail makes you feel like a little kid waiting at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning… fucking rock hard.

I dumped my PumpUp out onto my coffee table and was generally please with the shiny packaging and the poster with boobs:

Pump Ups Contents (June 2012)

NO-Xplode 2.0
Description: Pre-workout (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 1
Servings per Packet: 1.5
Flavor: Fruit Punch

Inner Armour BCAA Peak
Description: Pre/Intra/Post-workout amino acids (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 2
Servings per Packet: 1
Flavor: Watermelon

Cytosport Monster Milk
Description: Post-workout protein/carbs/creatine/BCAA. “Mass gainer.” (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 1
Servings per Packet: 1
Flavor: Graham Cracker

P28 Bread
Description: High-protein bread (bread)
Number of Sample Packets: 1
Servings per Packet: 0.5
Flavor: Bread?

High Energy Labs Electro Amino
Description: Pre/Intra/Post-workout amino acids (chewable tablet)
Number of Sample Packets: 2
Servings per Packet: 0.25
Flavor: Fruit Punch Sidewalk Chalk?

Myogenix After Shock
Description: Post-workout protein/carbs/creatine/BCAA. “Mass gainer.” (powder)
Number of Sample Packets: 1
Servings per Packet: 0.5
Flavor: Pina Colada

Product Inventory Card

High Energy Labs Electro Amino Product Flyer

Inner Armour BCAA Peak Product Flyer

Myogenix Thermal Core Product Flyer

Pump Ups Supplement Samples Trial

Now that I have all these supplements, it is time to get fucking swollen.

Pump Ups Supplement Trial Day:

12:30pm - I use the P28 Bread to make my sandwich for lunch. The bread actually doesn’t taste half bad, especially after spending a couple days in shipping. It is a little chewy, but that is to be expected. You have to have a little give-and-take when you are cramming 14 grams of protein into a slice of bread.

4:00pm - 1 Scoop of my regular whey protein in preparation of my afternoon workout.

5:00pm - I take the 1.5 Serving packet of NO-Xplode 2.0 and fart almost immediately, as is tradition.

5:20pm - I am feeling pretty good from my pre-workout, but since we were 0.5 servings away from a full two scoops, there is room for improvement. I chew on one of the High Energy Labs Electro Amino chewable tablets and the taste of sidewalk chalk inspires me to properly hydrate before my workout.
A serving size of Electro Aminos is 4 tablets, but there is only 1 tablet in a sample pack. Luckily, 1/4 of a serving of shitty Tums is all I really feel like stomaching at this point.

5:30pm - Blast Pecs

6:30pm - Mix packet of Graham Cracker flavored Cytosport Monster Milk with 8oz of Skim Milk. Consume. It tastes like somebody blended soggy Graham Crackers into milk, so I guess the flavor is relatively on point? For all these protein/BCAA post-workouts, all you really have to go on is taste and bowel movements when you are sampling, so I’d say that Monster Milk was a success considering it did taste as advertised. Although, I learned I would probably just stick with a simple chocolate flavor if I was to go out and actually purchase this product (I won’t).

6:45pm - I take the 2nd of the High Energy Labs Electro Amino chewable tablets. It still tastes like sand.

The rest of the samples are also BCAA post-workouts, so they will have to wait for another day.

8:47pm - Poop. Oh god, I pooped. Usually the NO-Xplode shits happen shortly after consumption so I am surprised I lasted this long, but this is NO-Xplode 2.0 - for Insane Muscle Pumps and Advanced Strength Delayed-Onset Diarrhea. I am talking shirt off, sweat-beading-up-on-my-forehead, consistency-similar-to-that-of-wet-concrete shit. My guess is that my digestive system was not accustomed to all the superfluous garbage ingredients Monster Milk has in it compared to my straight Whey. Between the healthy portion of Graham Cracker Monster Milk, and the NO-Xplode primer, my asshole had decided to punish me.

I had a date at 9 o’clock that I had to cancel, while pooping, via text, because I was glued to the porcelain.
I am not kidding.

Tony’s Two Scoops on PumpUps.com

Pros

• Getting supplements in the mail is exciting. Getting supplement samples once-a-month makes it feel like you have a monthly bodybuilding birthday.
• You get exposure to new supplements you might not have thought of before. I have had P28 Bread before, but most people haven’t, and it is a pretty cool product for those sick of eating rice and potatoes. And if you find a new supplement you might not have normally, then this service has done its job.
• The sample packets are easy to transport. It is nice to have the packets laying around to throw in your gym bag in case you know you won’t have access to your regular tub of supplements later in the day.
• SWAG. As strange as it was to receive a Thermal Core product flyer without actually receiving a sample of Thermal Core, it still makes for some great dorm room wallpaper:
  

Cons

• The actual number of samples was less than advertised. The website claims they ship 6 supplements (10-12) samples. My package only contained 8 actual samples, with a total of 6 servings.
• Flyer didn’t match product samples. I have this awesome flyer, with this sexy babe on it telling me to get shredded with Thermal Core, except I can’t try the product advertised. Instead, I have to resort to masturbating to a fucking supplement flyer… sad.
• Except for pre-workouts, it is hard to judge the effectiveness of a supplement with only a 1 or 2 day supply. There isn’t really anything PumpUps.com can do about this, but all you can really judge post-workouts on is taste (and bowel movements, apparently). I guess this is still better than buying a full tub of the stuff before realizing it tastes like a dog’s asshole.

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Final Word

I, Tony Muscoli, would recommend trying PumpUps.com (I wasn’t paid to say that).

$10 a month is nothing, just buy one less girl a drink at the bar, and in return you receive a bunch of shiny supplement sample packets that you can use to deck out your supplement collection. I would pay for 2-3 months, see how you like it - see if you are finding any new supplements you like.

If you find a new supplement you like, now you can go spend your hard-earned money on it. P28 Bread, for example, would be something I would be happy I found.

On the contrary, if you find out that you really don’t like a supplement you had been considering spending money on, you might have just saved yourself some $cratch. For example, I might have considered buying Monster Milk this winter when I wanted to start bulking up again. However, now I know that if I did that, my asshole would hate me - and I’ve saved myself the $70 I would have spent on a 4lb tub of post-workout laxative.

Try it. Why not? If after 3 months your supplement purchasing decisions haven’t been affected either way, then save your $10 and put it towards the supplement stack you know works for you.

Get Pumped.

-Tony”Too Pumped Up” Muscoli

June 5th, 2012 - News that Bodybuilding.com has pled guilty to selling dietary supplements spiked with steroids - and agreed to pay a $7m fine - proves the FDA is “not blowing smoke” when it says it will crack down on adulterated products, says one analytical testing expert.

The day the FDA starts cracking down on the supplement industry, is the day that bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts across the country will finally be presented with safe, tested, regulated supplement products.

This is TERRIBLE NEWS, and the reasons are two-fold:

1. If the FDA starts meddling in the supplement business, you are going to have to start buying your Jack3D from that shady guy who hangs out in the locker room of your local boxing gym. And if you have ever bought horse tranquilizers from Franky Z before, you know it is not a pleasant experience.
2. Bodybuilding.com was selling supplements laced with steroids and I DIDN’T BUY ANY?! God damn it I really dropped the ball on that one.

Between March of 2006 and September of 2009, Bodybuilding.com had 5 products available for purchase that were labeled as dietary supplements, but were in actuality - DRUGS.

These products qualified as drugs because they contained synthetic anabolic steroids or synthetic chemical clones of anabolic steroids.
These fucking awesome products were:

• 1 Force Methadrol
• 1 Force Dymethazine
• GeneticEdge Technologies (GET) SUS500
• Nutra Costal D-Stianozol
• Rage RV5

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If you find some, I’ll pay you for them. Cash, straight up. I need these supps in my arsenal.
Look how LEGIT this stuff looks:

SUS500 shit is straight pharmaceutical bro! Now the FDA might start taking that all away from us. Can’t a playa go anabolic anymore without having to deal with Franky Z and his awkward dirty jock-strap fetish?

-Tony “Two Scoops” Muscoli

FDA.gov - FDA challenges marketing of DMAA products for lack of safety evidence
Agency cites ten companies in warning letters

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued warning letters to ten manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements containing dimethylamylamine, more popularly known as DMAA, for marketing products for which evidence of the safety of the product had not been submitted to FDA.

Also referred to as 1,3-dimethylamylamine, methylhexanamine, or geranium extract, the ingredient is in dietary supplements and is often touted as a “natural” stimulant.

The products mentioned in the warning letters are:

• Biorhythm SSIN Juice
• Lean Efx
• Spirodex
• PWR
• Napalm
• Code Red
• Hemo Rage Black
• Lipo-6 Black Ultra Concentrate
• Lipo-6 Black
• Lipo-6 Black Hers Ultra Concentrate
• Lipo-6 Black Hers
• MethylHex 4,2 
• Nitric Blast
• Oxy Elite Pro
• Jack3D

Quick, everybody run to GNC!

Fire up your bodybuilding.com account!

Login to supplementwarehouse.com!

Go on EXPERT MODE and go to smartpowders.com!

It is time to BUY AS MUCH OF THIS SHIT AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN.

If you don’t know what DMAA is, it is the shit that fucking rocks your shit in Jack3d. Read the Two Scoops Jack3d Review if you want to learn more, but basically this shit is like caffeine on meth, and people fucking love meth.

So go stock up on Jack3d, or even get some straight up DMAA powder, before they make this shit illegal and you lose all motivation to work out.

-Tony “Two Scoops of Meth” Muscoli

This picture has been floating around Tumblr fitness blogs recently, so I took the liberty of fixing it. Tony saves the internet, again.

-Tony “Two Scoops” Muscoli

This review will take you through the experience of taking a first dose of GNC’s pre-workout supplement, Ravage.

1. The Bottle
   It looks stupid. Not as shiny and flashy as NO-Xplode, and not as simple and science-y looking as Jack3d. But looks aren’t important, results are, and the result of naming this thing “RAVAGE” means that it will command respect when you display it prominently in your kitchen.
   
   
2. Ingredients
   GNC decided to take BSN’s approach here and stuff their pre-workout with as many fucking ingredients as possible. 3 of them work (Caffeine, Creatine, and L-Arginine), 87 of them will RAVAGE your asshole.
   
   Luckily, they keep all the effective ingredient dosages hidden in their mysterious proprietary blend, so you don’t know if you are actually getting enough of any ingredient to do anything.
   
   The rest of the diarrhea-inducing ingredients are all a bunch of plant extracts that may, or may not, do anything other than confuse your digestive system. Fenugreek, Wild Yam, and Cinnamon Extracts round out my skepticism nicely. More bro-science that actual science behind some of these ingredients, but hey, if you put ALL OF THEM in one supplement, one of them is bound to do something right? Right?
   
   
3. Smell
   Open that tub up and take a whiff. Your nostrils will sting a little. They will be confused, perplexed, then they will tell you, “Don’t do it. Something doesn’t smell right.” But you don’t care, you are trying to get huge. So you take a scoop and start stirring. Fuck!… It smells even worse now.
   
   
4. Scoop
   Normally the scoop wouldn’t get its own category, but RAVAGE’s scoop is so fucking big I got confused and thought they put the wrong size plastic scoop in my tub, then I checked the label. The serving size is 1 scoop. 1 scoop is 26 grams. That is over 5 times bigger than Jack3d’s serving size of 5.5g. 2.5x bigger than HyperFX’s serving size. RAVAGE’s serving size is the same as my whey protein. That is fucking insane.
   
   Hypothetically, what happens if the heavier ingredients settle to the bottom of the bottle during transit and just caffeine is left on top, and you don’t think to stir it up, and you accidentally scoop yourself 20 grams of Anhydrous Caffeine? 10 grams is fatal for fucks sake. You would have the most hardcore workout ever.
   
   
5. Taste
   No surprises here. It smells like shit, tastes like shit. But whatever, taste isn’t the end goal here, hugeness is.
   
   
6. Energy & Pump
   Naturally, I took two (giant fucking) scoops of this shit to get a good buzz going. It worked.
   

   How I Felt After Taking RAVAGE:

   
   RAVAGE certainly has enough caffeine to fuck up my workout. 200mg per serving, so two scoops had me buzzin’ like that weird German guy in Blow. I had to jump rope in between sets to keep people from noticing that I was shaking uncontrollably.
   
   Pump wasn’t anything spectacular, but it almost doesn’t matter when YOU CAN LIFT FOR 4 HOURS STRAIGHT.
   
   Strength saw good improvements in endurance. I didn’t notice myself hitting any new PR’s, but I was lifting heavier weights for longer. Normally you start to fatigue after hitting your big compound lifts early in your workout, but it felt like 18 sets of Incline, Flat, and Decline bench were just a good warmup for my tricep isolation lifts. Fuck yeah.
   
   
7. Hangover
   After your incredibly energized workout, you leave hyper-exhausted and become useless to the fucking world. I found this out the hard way. I tried working out over my lunch hour. My 45 minute lift turned into an hour and 45 minute lift, and by the time I got back to my desk I was basically asleep. You know what they say, “Work hard. Workout even harder. Then don’t work at all.”
   
   
8. Price
   SRP for RAVAGE is $39.99. There are 20 servings in a bottle. If you can do math, and I know many Two Scoopers can’t, that is $2 a serving. $2 a serving for a pre-workout is insanely retarded. Energy drinks at CVS are cheaper than that shit. By comparison, NO-Xplode is $1.34 per serving if you are stupid enough to buy it at SRP of $66.99. If you bargain hunt for NO-Xplode, and I can fucking bargain hunt, you can get it down to $0.51 a serving. Therefore, vis-à-vis, to summarize, in conclusion, RAVAGE is over-fucking-priced.

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Final Verdict: Definitely worth a shot, but not for the money, and you’ll probably move on after 1 tub anyway.

-Tony “Two Scoops” Muscoli

We have all been there…

USA Today - Ray Lewis reaches into the black leather briefcase on the floor in front of his locker and pulls out a clear plastic bag. It is show-and-tell time.

Stamped “P.M.,” the bag is filled with multicolored vitamin supplements. Before noon, the iconic Baltimore Ravens linebacker already had consumed a protein shake, egg whites, an apple, 2 gallons of water and a similar bag of “A.M.” supplements.

Lewis, 36, is explaining why he believes he has survived 16 NFL seasons — and still is playing at a Pro Bowl level as the Ravens prepare for Sunday’s AFC divisional playoff game against the Houston Texans— in such a physically demanding sport… Lewis estimates he swallows 50 pills a day.

50 pills a day? Fuck. Yes. Ray. Lewis. Even at my peak I think I was only in the 30’s. Two servings of Animal Pak (11 pills each), thermos, fish oil, L-Carnitine, L-Arginine, and a few others and I was only at like 35 pills a day. Does he invent new supplements? This is fantastic. Fascinating. What is Ray’s stack? I have to know. I must. 50 pills a day is barbaric. That is why I am just a lame meathead blogger taking 30 pills a day and Ray Lewis is a 16 year NFL veteran.

50 pills a day, get huge, be one of the most feared linebackers in the NFL. Time to step up my supplementation game.

-Tony “Two Scoops” Muscoli

Thanks to Pete for the article.

This is actually 100% true, as any biopsy of my digestive system would reveal.

-Tony “Two Scoops” Muscoli