Normally I’m very skeptical of supplements. I’ve always felt that many companies are less than scrupulous, and many of their products leave much to be desired. It was with this in mind that I contacted Blonyx after my review of supplement research indicated that HMB and Creatine were the only supplements that have broad scientific validity. They were kind enough to send over a sample of their HMB+Creatine product for me to conduct a 30 day self experiment. Spoiler alert, it works, but not exactly how I thought it would.
Research Recap
Before we get into the nitty gritty of the Blonyx HMB+Creatine product lets do a quick recap of the previous article that covers the science behind it. Remember that HMB+Creatine was shown to work primarily through enhancing protein synthesis and muscle recovery. It further affected elite athletes as well as novices in a variety of ways including: increasing muscle mass, increasing maximal oxygen usage (VO2), and overall power output.
The Experiment
For this review I decided to conduct a 30 day experiment where I would be testing two aspects of fitness. The first was my one rep max power clean, and the second was my Fran time. I picked these two because they rely on two very different energy systems to improve.
Power Clean is purely an explosive power test and requires no endurance whatsoever. Fran is almost purely anaerobic, requiring a certain amount of aerobic capacity in the first minute or so of the WOD. I tested these on June 23, 2016 and then retested on July 27, 2016.
My training was not significantly different than my normal routine. I trained about 4 days per week and olympic lifted twice a week. I also completed about 3 metabolic condition session each week as well. The training volume really wasn’t much different than the majority of athletes out there.
My pre-test one rep max power clean was 245lbs with a Fran of 3:23. Neither were a PR for me, but they were right around my best scores.
Personal Experience
For those of you that expect some kind of jittery, nervous feeling from your supplements, you will have to look elsewhere. The HMB+Creatine easily mixes in any liquid and is slightly bitter if you mix it with water. As the label indicated I took two scoops per day and could tell no difference in my normal day to day activities. The biggest difference came in the last sets of my workouts, particularly with olympic lifting.
My olympic lifting cycle was dirt simple. I would do sets of three at a given percentage until my form started to degrade. So if I was feeling good and getting stronger, I could put in more work. This is where the supplement shined.
During one particular workout on the 4th of July I could definitely tell the product was working. I was able to complete 10 sets of 3 reps of power clean at 215lbs. Now that is just about 90% of 245. Based on scientific research, I should have at most been able to do 20 reps at that load. Instead I was able to put in 30% more work, and felt great.
It’s also important to note that I did not complete a single thruster or a WOD that even remotely resembled Fran. I wanted to make sure that any improvement to that WOD came only from the product, and not merely practicing.
Results
I know you’re all waiting with baited breath to find how much I was able to improve. In the power clean I went from 245lbs to 255lbs, matching a PR. This is a respectable improvement, but nothing near the improvement in my Fran time.
In that WOD, I went from 3:23 to a lifetime PR of 2:56! I was completely blown away, considering that my previous all time PR of 2:58 was in 2009 when I had about 20lbs less muscle. Needless to say, my experience validated the research.
I believe there were a couple of reasons I was able to complete Fran 15% faster. One, I believe that the HMB+Creatine increased my work capacity and aerobic threshold. Fran did not feel especially different until that killer round of 15, where I had to break to catch my breath during the pre test. During the second test, I was able to keep pushing, ultimately finishing the workout unbroken.
Recommendations
As I stated in my previous article about these two compounds there are a couple of things you need to be doing before you try this. First make sure your diet, and sleep are adequate for hard training. Next you need to commit to using the product as an experiment. Decided what variable you want to test, change no other aspects of your training, then retest afterwards. Remember, I had a very good experience with this product, but that does not mean everyone will. Some of you will show little improvement and others can completely crush my results.
Based upon my previous research I believe that this product primarily works by supporting your ability to work harder. Where normally you’d stop at 6 sets, you can now go till 10. This type of advantage can add up to huge improvement over time.
If you are interested in running your own personal experiment use the coupon code below and you will receive 10% off of your order. One tub is normally $60 dollars, so you are saving enough to buy a new selfie stick to help capture all those sweet gains.
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