A stimulant-free pre-trainer like Up-Lift provides you with a considerably different experience than you would get from stimulant-driven product. It's also a far superior experience if your goal is to make your workouts generate more muscle for you. Here's why.

A good rule of thumb is that the better your pump, the more muscle you're likely to gain from your workout. To get a pump, your muscles must become engorged with blood. In turn, this requires:

(1) Lifting a heavy enough weight,

(2) Performing enough reps and

(3) Not resting too long between sets.

If the weight is so heavy that you can only squeeze out, say, 4-5 reps, then it will be harder to get a pump, unless you're resting very briefly, say 10-15 seconds between sets. On the other hand, if the weight is too light, you may not recruit every available muscle fiber unless you continue the set until failure, something that's harder to do with lighter loads. And if you rest too long between sets, less blood will accumulate in your working muscles, which of course lessens the pump. The bottom line is this: Optimizing factors (1), (2) and (3), above, requires more than the short-lived increase in perceived energy levels offered by a cheap stimulant like caffeine.

Support of Vasodilation

At the end of each set, the blood vessels in your muscles open up wider. Termed vasodilation, this facilitates an increase in blood flow. Over a period of sets, your muscles fill up with blood, resulting in the pump. Nitric oxide (NO) stimulates vasodilation. As discussed in the Book of Muscle Synergy, studies on animals and humans suggest that the combination of arginine and citrulline is more effective than arginine alone for increasing NO and vasodilation. As above, gram quantities of these amino acids are required and they don't come cheaply. At the time of writing this article, 1 kg (1000 g) of citrulline costs a little over $22, nearly 300% as much as caffeine. And that's if you buy a minimum of 25 kg. Up-Lift contains 3.5 g of arginine alpha-ketoglutarate and 1.15 g of citrulline per serving.

Importantly, don't confuse the water retention and consequent swelling sensation (sometimes referred to as "bloat") produced by some pre-trainers with a pump. The swelling is often the result of water retention in the space between your cells. This is known as extracellular fluid retention (EFR), or edema. EFR may be caused by certain kinds of creatine (creatine ethyl ester), glycerol and other ingredients used in some pre-trainers. Anecdotally, yohimbine users also complain that it causes water retention. (Ironically, it is often found in weight-loss products.)

Support of Energy

Energy is obviously an essential ingredient to a great workout. If you feel sluggish, it's going to be harder to get a pump. Low muscle glycogen can also impair your pumps. Your muscles may feel "flat". This happens when you don't eat enough carbohydrate. The best way to avoid this is to...well...eat more carbohydrate, particularly leading up to your workout (e.g. 4-5 hours before hand). With its fast-acting maltodextrin, Mass Maker provides a convenient and tasty way to do this.

Again, while stimulants may succeed in increasing your perceived energy levels, this effect will soon wear off, after which you'll feel like you have even less energy than you started with. Part of the reason for this is that in stimulating the CNS, stimulants use up neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine. (Stress does the same thing. Perhaps this is why stimulants can make you feel stressed!) This is where a supplement like tyrosine can help. Tyrosine is a precursor to all 3 of the above-mentioned neurotransmitters. Up-Lift contains 1.5 g of tyrosine per serving.

Conclusion & How to Use Up-Lift for Maximum Workout Success!

(1)   Stimulants, whether we're talking about caffeine, 1,3-DMAA, or otherwise, do not make a pre-trainer. The increase in perceived energy you get from stimulant-driven pre-training products soon fades, leaving you feeling more tired -possibly much more tired- than you were before. (New research reveals that all your morning cup of coffee may be doing is getting you back to normal following your overnight "withdrawal" from caffeine.) You also develop tolerance to stimulants quickly, the result being that you have to take more and more of the product in order to get the same effect.

(2)   If you're looking for a quick perceptual "pick me up", then take a serving of 7-Keto Musclean along with Up-Lift before you train. This is a common practice of natural bodybuilders and fitness and figure competitors, particularly when preparing for a competition. Each serving of 7-Keto Musclean contains 500 mg of Guarana extract and 500 mg of Green tea extract, both of which are natural sources of caffeine and other methylxanthines. Green tea extract has been shown to increase antioxidant status and metabolic rate, whereas Guarana has been shown to enhance mood. The tyrosine in Up-Lift will help replenish neurotransmitters, whereas its other ingredients will help you fight fatigue and attain maximum muscle contraction strength and endurance and vasodilation. Stack these products with Creatine Select, and you're guaranteed to get some serious mass and strength gains very quickly. (Read the Creatine Select educational hand-out to get an idea of how many pounds of lean mass you can gain in just a few days.)

(3)   Up-Lift isn't just for pre-training. You can sip on it during as well as after your workout. In the minutes immediately following your workout, for instance, NO-synthesizing enzymes are still activated. This provides a great opportunity to feed them Up-Lift's NO precursors, arginine alpha-ketoglutarate and citrulline. Don't let it pass you by.

REFERENCES

1.     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651845/?tool=pubmed