I decided to join a gym for a few months and work with a personal trainer... it was either that or crossfit and I guess i flipped a coin and wound up at the gym..haha. I am coming back to exercise after significant time off from major plastics...

Anyway, first session was today and my goals are to strengthen and tone, reduce body fat percentage and (nice to have) build up some more butt since mine is quite skinny. Trainer recommended taking aminio acid supplements when doing aerobics to keep body from burning lean muscle - if I understood correctly. I am curious if this really makes a difference... i know some of you have researched this stuff alot.

My bodyfat is about 29% but i really wonder how accurate the pinch tests are on the formerly obese. Anyway, he laid out a plan of how to get to like 20% bodyfat and I told him I thought 25% is good enough for a 49 year old (I didn't mention my fear of my butt disappearing entirely..haha)

The compliment he paid is that even though i have been off exercise for awhile... just started back up recently, my strength and flexibility are really good. My form is good too. I credit my Julian Michael's DVDs I learned alot from them. I laughed when he said I could kick the butt of the 30 year guy he just worked with who claimed to be athletic.

I will be most interested to see if in a month I can drop 2% body fat down to 27 since I didn't see that kind of movement working out on my own (well, I didn't have a good way to measure either, just going by my scale that supposedly measures body fat%).

In truth, as expensive as CrossFit is, I bet by the time I pay for personal training, cross fit is an affordable option. I am just doing month to month at the gym so thought i would re-evaluate after a month but I am liking it there - good group classes, trainer was really good and it isn't too crowded.

A serving size is 2 scoops, You will see on the product packaging that it recommends taking 2-4 scoop in the morning, 4-6 scoop before working out, 2-4 scoops after working out and 2-4 scoops scoops latter afternoon.

My advice is not to take so much of it for a few reasons:

1. You will use it up in 3 days. There are only 30 servings.

2. Your body will get accustomed to the caffeine and it will become less effective for energy.

3. Each serving has 10 calories. Taking their max recommendation is pushing almost an extra 200 calories a day. Probably not a big deal if you are in fact killing each workout, but something to consider.

Check your tolerance for caffeine and take the appropriate number of scoops for you. More on dose size and effectiveness below.

I like that the energy comes from green tea and green coffee bean extract. It is a much smoother form of energy that you can draw upon rather than the crazy jittery, upset stomach and crash that comes from most NO products like c4, jack3d, etc. Been there and done that. Trust me, you do not need that.

The amino blend is good. The only gripe I have is the quantity of each each ingredient is on the low side per single dose so it takes either mid (4 scoops) or max dose (6 scoops) size to realize the proper benefits during a work out. I have found the low dose (2 scoops) does nothing for me. ON is a little sneaky in creating the product this way because it is not very cost effective for the consumer. For this reason, it is way more cost effective to go with xtend as you get more aminos for the money. Just my opinion.

Taste is awesome. I get the watermelon flavor and use it as a pre workout drink. I use xtend bcaa post workout in addition to other times of the day because of the cost effectiveness issue.

Wow, that is an awful lot to consume in a day to get the Aminos you need.

Yeah, no kidding. That is the one gripe I have with the ON Amino Energy product.

Yeah ... about that ....

So I followed the dosing instructions on the tub and put in two servings, it said four servings for workout use but I decided to be conservative and just go with two....

I have never done speed, but this $h!t had me awake till dawn, I couldn't slow down, was grinding my teeth, awful, simply awful. I killed my workout but what a price. In fact, maybe even a bigger price than that; I was so sped up and bursting with energy that I may have overdone it on the leg press machine because today my left hip socket if I straighten out my leg and put weight on it, is in excruciating pain.

So, a big thumbs DOWN on this product.

Caffeine has different effects on different people. Perhaps take less if you are super sensitive towards the caffeine. I am not so tend to dose on the higher sides. The caffeine is what makes Amino Energy a good pre workout supplement.

If you just want aminos before a workout without any caffeine, go with a product like catalyst. I used to take this and like the clean results that came from it in terms of stamina and energy. Catalyst has a different set and type of aminos than xtend that are designed for energy. The aminos in xtend are designed more for recovery.

I like GAT Muscle Martini as well.

Does Xtend have caffeine? I am uber-sensitive to caffeine, I can have one cup of black tea first thing in the morning and that is it, any later and I am up all night.

Zero caffeine in XTend

Agree, no caffeine. xtend is the best amino supplement out there! Tastes good too.

Tastes awesome. I also mix it with my grape Isopure sometimes.

What is the cheapest way to get Xtend?

Buy the 90 serving tub from Amazon at around 50.

I have never seen that huge tub before. I need that.

I needed to get some more xtend and did not want to wait on amazon 2 day prime, so went down to GNC to pick some up. They do not sell it. However, they did sell me on trying usplabs modernBCCA.

Here is my opinion:

cost: modern bcaa provides 30 servings for 44 dollars. They even had a 2:1 sale going on, but I declined as wanted to try the product first. Xtend at 90 servings for 36 dollars (if you can find that) has a better value. Average price I pay for xtend 90 servings is 50.

Taste: modern bcaa is not as sweet as the xtend. I like the sweeter taste of xtend when comparing watermelon flavors. Both are zero calories.

Effectiveness: I cannot really judge modernBCAA on effectiveness because I have not used it before a workout yet. However, I did use it after my workout and notice no doms today. Modern bcaa has an 8:1:1:1 ratio of the bcaa blend where xtend has 2:1:1:1 ratio. Does this make a difference that there are 8 parts luecine to the other aminos? Not sure. Modern bcaa has something called sustanine in it that may give it an edge over xtend in terms of doms.

Mixability: modern bcaa still had little packets of powder in my bottle even after shaking vigorously for 20-30 seconds. Xtend usually has no clumps when shaking 5 seconds of less. Not a deal breaker, but I wish modern bcaa mixed a little better.

Overall, the jury is still out until I can gauge the effectiveness of modern bcaa after some workouts this next week.

Has anyone else tried modern bcaa and has an opinion on it?

Edited February 2, 201412 yr by Fiddleman

I have tried modern but never for the same reason as I use XTend. XTend is a during and modern is a post workout drink which I use GAT muscle martini for. I like the muscle martini better than the modern. Modern doesn't taste wery good to me at all. The ratios differ for the purpose. Drink that modern after and the Xtend during.