For some of us, the answer is a $6 bottle of 200 Prolab Caffeine tablets. Pop one with your morning vitamin or ECA stack and BOOM, before you know it, you’re rambling about Obama’s latest bungle, the last Steeler loss and how you just know your friend’s cousin was cheating at Words with Friends when they made AZOTISE for 118 points. AZOTISE? Seriously?

But for the rest of us who want a little more excitement than popping a pill, I’ve discovered the HOLY GRAIL of energy drinks, and SURPRISE, it comes to us from a brand that has consistently delivered the #1 carbonated soda of all-time: MOUNTAIN DEW.

Their latest offering is called KICKSTART and is offers 92mg of caffeine per serving. That’s nearly double the 54mg offered up by regular Mountain Dew, and rest assured, you will notice the difference.

On a recent early morning trip into downtown Los Angeles, I guzzled the can faster than an unemployed terminally ill patient would give up on the Obamacare website and my mouth was running faster than a Ferrari on the 405 at 3am. I wasn’t really counting, but I swear that my girlfriend told me to STFU no less than seven times, which for most married men is about average, but considering this was the morning after our first date, seemed a bit much.

It’s not easy finding an ‘energy drink’ that doesn’t taste like someone squeezed out last nights jizz-rag into a can, but if you can get your hands on a Mountain Dew Kickstart in Fruit Punch flavor, you’re guaranteed to not only be up and running for the first half of the day but you won’t have to worry about that girl you woke up with ever calling you again after the drive home.

Yep. I was 100% dominated and controlled by our favorite hormone. Testosterone. What a beautiful hormone it is. It is the hormone that truly makes the world go round.

I read once that a man’s natural testosterone productions decreases by 1% every year after age 30. That being said I am always looking for ways to keep myself equal to that toady 20-something year old who had no problem jumping in the shower at 1:44am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning after that “hey r you up? i want to see u” text message and driving 20 minutes to get to the other side of the city.

The last couple years when I get those 2am booty call TEXTS I give it some thought and ask myself how comfortable in bed I am and how much gas is in my car and usually I put my phone on silent and curl up with my body pillow.  It seems like these days if it isn’t right in front of me or I don’t trip over my shoe laces on my Reebok Zigs and right into it then I am not going to go out of my way. Oh, hell. I’m getting older.

Enter: Z-TEST by NDSNutrition.

I’ve used “the real thing” in the past. I messed with the andro products of the late 90’s yesteryear. I know about these OTC products. Placebos if anything. Right? Maybe…

A quick stop at a local GNC in Northbrook, IL to say Hello to a buddy of mine who works there on the way home a few weeks ago is what caused me to find Z-Test. Sample packets of the product was on the counter prompting my buddy to give me a handful telling me to give it a shot since he’s been hearing good things about it. Pffft. Salesmen. Suuuuure. Riiiight.  I’m never one to turn down free sample packs and not give a supplement a crack, though.

I took 3 of those oily blackish-green capsules that night and for the next 5 days and this is what I noticed…

1. Vivid dreams: More than likely from the ZMA (Vitamin b6, Magnesium and Zinc). I’ve been saying this since 1998 that ZMA gives me weird colorful dreams.

2. Restful sleep: I usually wake up in the middle of the night right around Witching Hour to empty my bladder but these days I’ve been sleeping through the stabbing pain of my ureters holding in the flow. I am guessing it was the natural full body sedatives and sleep inducers such as melatonin, GABA and the L-Dopa (Also a mood enhancing agent).

3. Woodrow Wilson: Yes. By the 3rd morning I woke up with something I haven’t woken up to in about a year. A Woodrow! Someone was awake before I was.  My guess it was from the nice dose of tribulus, iNdole-3 Carbinol, the DIM (diinolymethane) and the chrysin which is touted to be an estrogen inhibitor that stood the test of time.

After the 6th day I was out of the Z-TEST. I called up my GNC guy and asked him what a full bottle ran. I decided…. Why not?  I picked up my bottle and used it every night. It made me look forward to bedtime and look forward to waking up to see if ol’ Woodrow would be Up & At em’ before me. That and then some. I got back on my normal routine of “twice a day” morning & night.

On top of it all I can always gauge my testosterone levels by how oil my skin gets and if I get a breakout of acne on the back of my neck. Well? I find myself running a paper towel over my head and seeing my hand print in the sheet of Brawny and running some Stridex on the back of my neck and shoulders. The last time I had acne on my shoulders was when I was shooting real testosterone.

All of those symptons are a good thing. SMALL price to pay to have the T in your tank on “FULL”.

I have to say I like ZTEST. NDS/PMD Nutrition produced a fine product here. I think it’s a little over priced, though but for a guy in my position it’s a good investment, not a purchase. It’s an investment.

I haven’t gotten stronger in the gym as I think that has more to do with energy levels and calories than anything else but I will say that I had a fun weekend and found myself in the shower at 2am manscaping and scrubbing thinking about the fastest way to get to travel and how I am going to cover my tracks the next day.

An Unbiased Review by Special Ed

I’m not exactly what anyone would call ‘high maintenance’ — I’ve slept on rooftops when tired, drank people’s leftover alcoholic beverages in bars when thirsty (and drunk) and jacked off to my aunt when horny.

But when it comes to meal replacement bars, I think I have a right to be somewhat demanding — after all, if I’m being sold an expensive alternative to Ramen noodles, don’t I at least have the right to expect something more tasty and nutritious??

With the release of their god-awful Syntha-6 Decadence protein bar, BSN’s answer is a resounding NO.

There’s a few ways companies can do protein bars — they can go Promax on us and deliver a bar that tastes so good we assume they’re totally full of shit when claiming 20g of protein per bar. Or they can go the Ohh Yeah! route and pack their bar with real food like peanuts to mask the taste of the interior. And then sadly there’s a few companies that go the LCD way.

And by LCD, I mean Lowest Common Denominator.

As in let’s throw together the cheapest bar possible with the shittiest ingredients imaginable and use the immigrant factory workers as laborers, insect exterminators AND taste-testers.

I don’t know whether to rag on the nasty cocoa xylitol, the excess sodium, or the terrible texture (think chewing gum meets stale peanut butter) but suffice to say there’s not much to like about the BSN Syntha-6 Decadence bar.

Even the wrapper looks like a cheap afterthought.

If BSN is going to follow in Muscletech’s footsteps by bringing us fourth-rate, outsourced, garbage LCD products unfit for consumption by starving Cambodians, then the least they could do is put some effort into the marketing by fabricating 8-page advertorials with great copywriting.

But no. BSN was content to treat Ronnie Coleman like a politician’s Guatemalan whore-servant to convince the hardcore bodybuilding douche that they actually cared about bodybuilders, only to go running into the arms of MMA and every other sport in a full-fledged assault to prove that their true motive was nothing more than to gain entree into the Walmarts of the world to sell the cheapest possible ingredients to the most ignorant possible citizens with margins so slim that to actually have a focus group stop and taste this garbage would probably cause them to lose money.

It may taste like horseshit, but BSN’s Syntha-6 Defecation stands tall as a sad testament to the American marketing machine: If you build it (and package it in shiny red), they will come.

The year of 2010 brought us the hip hop club anthem from The Far East Movement G6 but in the dietary supplement  world a new company rose out of the ashes like a Phoenix which happens to be their logo.
Enter: Redefine Nutrition. Redefine made big waves in the nutritional supplement/sports nutrition industry with their FINAFLEX line. An innovative company looking to change the game and the way it’s played in this market offering new ideas in formulation of products and unique combination of compounds using what is proven to have effect on body composition and ridding itself of useless fillers and other junk that is used to make a product looked “stacked to the max”.

Last week I was able to try a sample packet of their Rest/Recovery formula known as G8. Sleep aid formulas have been getting popular as of late. We’ve always heard that we grow and change from rest or when we sleep and the most savvy of serious trainers know that natural release of growth hormone is released during deep sleep. There is definitely something to be said about the benefits of quality sleep. Something so misunderstood and so abused. We live in a society that dubbed the phrase “Sleep? Overrated. I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. Lack of deep sleep accelerates the aging process and gradually works against our complex human bodies wrecking havoc in a long run and blunting real gains and change we work so hard to induce.

I know what it’s like to lose sleep. Being a rotating shift worker who still hit the weights I often find myself at night tossing & turning trying or flipping my pillows over and over again. I’ve tried Tylenol PM and even Nyquil but both can make me feel groggy and achy the next morning. Then I tried G8.

I knew based on some of the ingredients that I would have to try it on a day when I don’t have to be up at 6am for work so I picked “my Friday” and poured one packet (one serving) in a glass of water right around 11:00pm. It turned the water into a green murky color but to my surprise it was quite easy to drink. The Lemon Freeze tasted like juice with a slight hint of that medicine-like aftertaste. Tolerable.  Like usual I laid in bed and posted on Muscleweek.com and did my round of creeping facebook and downloading music. By 11:30 my eyelids were heavy and sand filled my eyes. I knew it was time to log off and post another day.

What I noticed 11hrs later…

That’s right. I slept like a slumbering dragon for an uninterrupted 11 straight hours. Not once did I toss & turn or wake up to empty my childlike bladder.  Here are the dynamics on how it works:

Recovery/Sleep Inducing Matrix – It has L-Glutamine, L-Arginine and L-Dopa in it. L-Dopa is known to be a mood elevating compound that studies show has an effect on our serotonin levels or “feel good hormones”. Glutamine & Arginine I am guessing to support anti-catabolism while we sleep giving us a trickle of important amino acids in our bloodstreams. Also, it has phenibut in it which is actually a prescription drug in Europe used for sedation and promoting calmness and well-being. Very powerful and works much better than the active ingredient in Benedryl in my opinion.

Mood Elevators: Besides the L-Dopa it also contains Tyrosine, L-Phenylalanine and 4 butanoic acid, 2 amino -3 propanoic acid.  All chemistry jargon for other active ingredients that can help increase a positive feeling of well being, recovery and restoration of body functions impaired by lack of quality sleep such as sex drive and sensation.

It has Vitamin C and Vitamin B6 in it which I am not sure why exactly. I’m surprised it doesn’t have Magnesium and Zinc in it giving it a ZMA feature.

I woke up feeling as light as a feather and full of energy that can’t be obtained from some STIMULANT or favorite thermogenic. Nothing was aching and it didn’t take me time to “get going”. I wasn’t groggy or crabby like I usually am in the morning before I start my day with coffee and newspaper. I was Alert & Orientated and ready to take on the day. In other words. I felt young, ready, willing and able.

If anything I would say that a full serving might be a bit too much. Most people work most days during the week and I am inclined to believe that a full serving may make you sleep through your alarm on your cell phone and miss work or be very late. The way I would advise to use this product would be on the days you have OFF the next day where you can afford to sleep in a bit but if it were to be used on a nightly basis I would recommend that a half serving or 3/4 serving be used to assess your personal tolerance. I also would suggest it be cycled and tapered off a little. In other words it should be used strategically and responsibly. It’s very effective and worth the price of admission.

So seeing how I fit in to that category, I decided to take a shot at Jack3d and give myself the most amazing pre-workout EVER!

Being the conservative guy that I am, I decided to stick with the entry-level Lemon-Lime flavor rather than roll the dice with some bastardization of Grape Bubblegum or White Blue Raspberry. I was hoping for something along the lines of Gatorade original, and thankfully, that’s exactly how it smelt when I tore open my sample pack.

But before mixing with water, I noticed a dire warning printed on the label. Yes, the dreaded ‘Black Box Warning’:

This Product Produces An Intense Sensation Of Drive, Focus, Energy, Motiviation & Awareness. In Addition, It Allows For Rapid Increases In Strength, Speed, Power & Endurance. Therefore, Extreme Caution Must Be Exercised & Should Not Be Used By Novice Athletes.

Now I must admit — this made me more than a little nervous. After all, despite my trophy rack consisting of championships earned at Chess, Scrabble, and QuakeCon, I still considered myself something of a Novice Athlete. To be honest, I was slightly dumbfounded.

Was USP Labs trying to imply that one needed to be a Professional Athlete to ingest this wondrous concoction? But then I thought about that pimply-faced, chubby teen who came running into the GNC right before closing, heaving and puffing after having sprinted three stores down from his Hot Topic cashier position, and I thought to myself: If he can use Jack3d, then gosh darn it, so can this pimply-faced, chubby old man who can’t even run the length of two stores without heaving and puffing.

I poured the contents of the pouch into my 8 oz of distilled water because nothing screams ‘Hardcore Bodybuilding’ to the wannabes at Gold’s Venice like a bottle of distilled water — especially when I announce to the camera Levrone-style — ‘Eight Ounces of Jack3d…in yo face!’ with each rep of sipping.

Jack3d tasted better than I expected — not quite Gatorade level, but certainly better than Powerade — but the real test would be the workout.

I cleared out a section of the gym where the incline benches are located (a loud and toxic, pre-workout fart blast can do that) and I got to work. I banged out 20 pushups as a warm up and it felt like butter. I was ready to dig deep.

I loaded the bar up with 135. Sure, it’s “light weight” to Ronnie Coleman but it’s downright “average” to us mortals with low testosterone. BOOM! I rocked out 15 reps with a form so sweet, the gals on the elliptical machines right in front of me were smiling and licking their lips in approval (either that or they were watching a Ryan Reynolds interview on Extra).

I tossed another couple of ‘Magnums’ (45’s) on the bar and braced myself. You know how it goes — if 225 feels heavy, it’s not gonna be a good day. I squeezed my shoulder blades together like Ryan Kennelly and held my breath like Scot Mendelson and screamed like Tori Black as I lifted off. The 225 was steady as I held my arms in the locked position over my erect nipples. Yes, I thought! I’m gonna crush this!

I lowered the bar in a controlled manner so I could feel every fiber in my pecs coming to life, just like Dorian told me to do (or Dorian’s MD article told me. Or Dorian told MD Ghostwriter Ron Harris. Or Ron Harris just made that up.) And then it touched my chest and I exploded. I arched my back, exhaled, and grunted so loud a Planet Fitness lunk alarm went off 12 miles away in the Valley.

But nothing happened.

The 225 just sat there on my chest like a female bodybuilder paid to sit there and spit in my face. Except this time, I wasn’t paying for the humiliation.

Help, I whispered.

But the figure girls on the elliptical had moved on from gossiping about Ryan Reynolds to openly negotiating prices for Trenbolone.

I tried to tilt the bar to make the plates slide off, but then I remembered that I was the ONLY schmuck in the 60 year Gold’s Venice history who had ever placed collars on the barbell. Fuck!!!

My pride stopped me from crying out like a girly-man, but it didn’t stop me from flopping my legs around like those speared-Dolphins from The Cove.

Finally, someone noticed.

And it wasn’t just anyone — it was Rico McClinton!

Yes, THE Rico McClinton — a controversial 3rd place winner at the 1999 NPC Nationals!!

He swooped in like one of Lee Priest’s 37 Superman tattoos and grabbed the bar and in one easy motion, spared my life and won the hearts and minds of MuscleWeekers everywhere.

I graciously thanked him and offered him some of my Jack3d backwash lingering at the bottom of my bottle, but he politely declined.

I stared into the bottle looking for a scapegoat for my faux pas. Could I blame Jack3d for my failed lift?

Of course not. I’d never gone higher than 185 on the incline bench, and even then I needed a spot to move the bar two inches.

But the point is that Jack3d (and its Black Box Warning) gave me the courage to try.

And isn’t that what Bodybuilding is really about? Throwing caution to the wind and putting strange, unknown substances with lengthy warnings into your body in the hopes that you’ll derive some muscular benefit therefrom?

To which I can only respond to myself: HELLZ YEAH!

During a recent and rare sojourn into GNC at the Jefferson Valley Mall, about two miles from Gregg Valentino’s arms, I spied something equally lumpy in a shiny brown wrapper, marked down to half-price: OHYEAH!, it read. But before you can say “Gayer than ice dancing with Clay Aiken”, I chose to look past the porn-influenced name and give this bar a shot. Oddly, before I could even sample it, I told MW Senior Editor Blockhead about my recent purchases and when I mentioned the ‘Oh Yeah’ bar, he quickly said, “That’s my favorite” before clarifying that ISS Research’s Strawberry Flavor was his preferred bar. (Insert fruity joke here!) So there I was — just me and my Ohyeah Protein Bar.

I had selected the Peanut Bar and the first thing I noticed after unwrapping it was how delicious it looked. Trust me, I’ve eaten more than my fair share of candy bars, and I was drooling before I even took a bite. Unlike those companies that drape their inedible protein in a black layer of stale chocolate (or worse, carob!), ISS drapes the Oh Yeah bar in an attractive beige peanut butter coating that barely covered the ample amount of peanuts just beneath the surface. I took a big bite. SCRUMPTIOUS! The crunchy nuts and outer peanut butter layer provided the perfect balance for what appeared to be a dark chocolate protein log inside the bar. ISS wisely masked the flavor of the bland protein mix with fresh peanuts and high quality chocolate and I didn’t taste anything except for what they wanted me to.

I finished the bar in record time and without any beverage needed to wash it down. Most importantly, I actually came close to eating a second bar in the same sitting because it really did taste that great. I’m happy to report that ISS is a company that actually does a bit of taste-testing to deliver a scrumptious, high-quality product that I highly recommend.

Ed. Note: I took away one star for making me say ‘Oh Yeah’ to a pimply-faced teenage boy at the GNC counter.