Jack Yo Ass Up!
Testosterone's guide
to pre-workout stimulants
by Chris Shugart

Warning: By following the info presented herein, you will likely experience a boost in energy and have a great workout. However, you may also get a headache. Hell, you might even fall over dead. That's doubtful, but stranger things have happened. If you have any concerns talk to your doctor. He will, of course, tell you to stay away from all supplements because they'll cause you to grow a third testicle and sprout Frodo-like hair from your toes. He'll then proceed to prescribe you a drug that cost ten times as much and has twice the side effects. If you have hypertension, heart problems, or are currently knocked up then your shouldn't take the more potent stacks mentioned in this article. Read all warning labels before you jack yo ass up!

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.... — Metallica

I bought a big bottle of aspirin, a bunch of caffeine tablets, and a bottle of "nasal decongestants" (ephedrine), which I had to get from a truck stop. This is back when I thought you had to run like Forrest Gump to get lean, so the next morning I popped my stack and sat at my computer waiting for it to kick in. And man, did it ever kick!

A wave of euphoria washed over me and I think I ran twice the distance that I had intended. I couldn't believe this stuff was legal! I was like Chevy Chase in the old movie "Modern Problems," when he snorted a room full of "demon powder," flew into the air and proclaimed, "I liiiiiike it!"

A few hours later, I crashed hard as the stack wore off, but it didn't matter. I was hooked. Stimulants were my new best friends and I wasn't alone.

Just Say No! (Yeah, Right)

Pssst! Hey, buddy, make sure no one's looking over your shoulder right now and I'll tell you a little secret. Are you ready?

We Americans love drugs.

That's right, along with Mom, apple pie, and the Fourth of July, we Yanks just love to jack with our biochemistries. Now before you get your panties in a wad and march away from your computer is a self-righteous huff, let me explain.

I'm not talking about your stereotypical crackhead, hocking Granny's toaster for a piece o' rock drugs. Nor am I referring to your average drunk spending his entire paycheck on Natural Light and kicking back for a three-week bender. Instead, I'm referring to the rest of us. The rest of us aren't trying to escape from life or commit a sort of subconscious suicide, but if we can somehow enhance life with drugs — you know, look better, feel better, work harder — then pass the encapsulating machine!

From your typical housewife wolfing down her Prozac to an athlete using steroids to perform better and recover faster, as a society we've become more open to drug use. Most of us, me included, aren't ready to try anything illegal just yet, so we use a lot of supplements, of which, the very best can be labeled "drug lite."

As a society, stimulants top our list of favorites.

The Mix That Kicks

Bodybuilders and athletes turn to stimulants, legal and otherwise, to either 1) boost performance in the field or in the gym, or 2) increase fat burning.

In this article, I don't want to focus on thermogenesis and lipolysis, although most so-called fat-burners do contain central nervous system stimulants (CNS). I would rather focus on the "buzz" aspect of stimulants, you know, something you can pop 30 minutes before one of those Ian King leg routines to help you survive it. First, let's look at the classic, pre-workout energy booster: the ECA stack.

Besides jacking you up, the old-school ECA stack used to be the supplement of choice to jack your metabolism up a notch ... at least until more advanced products like MD6 were developed. In fact, just about every "metabolic enhancer" on the market contains these ingredients or their herbal equivalents. Let's break it down:

E=Ephedrine) Also known as ephedra sinica and Ma Huang extract.

C=Caffeine) Also called guarana and contained in kola nut extract and green tea extract.

A=Aspirin) Contained in white willow bark or purple willow. (Interestingly enough, the "aspirin" part of the ECA stack has been found to do little to actually increase its effectiveness. Oh, it'll make it last longer, but that's probably not desirable, unless you like those four-hour workouts.)

If your goal is fat loss, however, stick with Biotest's MD6. MD6 is also a good choice if you want to feel "up" but without the nervousness and jitters associated with the ECA stack. As for caffeine, always get it from its purest form, namely over-the-counter (OTC) tablets. Some studies have shown that caffeine derived from colas doesn't give you the boost in performance you can expect from the pure stuff. The sugar probably causes you to ultimately crash, which negates the effects of the caffeine. If you must use soft drinks, Mountain Dew has 54 mg of caffeine and Diet Mr. Pibb contains 57 mg, the highest of any widely available cola (barring Jolt cola, which has 71.5 mg). Still, caffeine tablets work better.

Besides being the core thermogenic stack of the weight loss industry, ECA also found a home in the so-called "legal high alternatives" market which purport (falsely, I might add) to be natural alternatives to MDMA, the real and quite illegal drug dubbed Ecstasy in the club scene. I can almost picture a suburban housewife freaking out when she discovers her daughter has been using herbal "XTC" at an all night rave, while at the same time her cabinet is full of Diet Fuel or Metabolife which contain about the same active ingredients!

The "natural high" products that contain ECA include Herbal Ecstasy, Magic Mushrooms, Cloud Nine, and ephedra-free formulas such as Rave X. (Many manufacturers simply doubled the caffeine after removing the ephedra.) I'd advise you skip the latter products. For one, the prices are ridiculous. One capsule of Herbal Ecstasy can cost over two bucks! If it were effective, then the price would be fine, but from what I can see, any thermogenic from GNC or a few Vivarin will have about the same effect at a much cheaper price. Also, some of these "supplements" appear to be low quality, with some companies spending more on fancy packaging than on the quality of their ingredients. Leave this junk to the ravers.

The Law of Diminishing Returns

Ah, the crash. The rule of thumb is the better the high, the harder the crash. The real problem when stimulants wear off is not the crash, but problems with the law. I'm not talking about a big guy wearing a badge and a scowl either, but the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Basically, it works like this. Let's say there's a scale from 1-10 used to characterize your mood and energy level. If you rate yourself a one, then you probably just woke up next to a fat chick with an enormous hangover after getting two hours of sleep. If you score a ten, then you probably feel like you've just won the lottery right after Monica Brant agreed to be your sex slave for life. Okay, you get the idea.

Let's say you're at five. You feel okay, but not exactly ready for the back and chest day of Poliquin's "1-6-1 Training." You pop a CNS stimulant, get jacked up to an eight, and have a great workout. A couple of hours later when it wears off, however, you fall back down, not to a five, but to a three. Yep, you just crashed and burned. What's more, with repeated use, the "high" won't be as good as it used to be since, in effect, you're burning out your receptor sites.

The Dark Side

Some pro bodybuilders, with their typical "how much shit can I take and still breathe?" approach, are rumored to use cocaine and methamphetamines before training. Also called speed, crank, or ice (a smokeable form), methamphetamines can be dangerous and highly addictive substances.

If you need something this strong to get your butt in gear, then maybe weight training isn't for you! Consider knitting. Besides, let's try to keep in mind that along with being "buff" our goal should also be to remain healthy. Stay away from the hard stuff.

The Next Generation

Trying to find a pre-workout stimulant that thinks outside of the ECA box is like trying to find some cutting-edge steroid info in Men's Health. It ain't easy. There are two categories that fall under "Next Generation" stimulants: neurotransmitter formulas and medicinal fallouts. Neurotransmitter formulas give you more of a "brain buzz" than do central nervous system stimulants. Two of the most popular ones are our own Power Drive and EAS Neurogain.

I remember being very excited when Neurogain came out. I had been studying nootropics or "smart drugs" for a few years and found the whole subject area fascinating. I bought not one, but two, big bottles of Neurogain and couldn't wait to try it. Did I like it? Well, imagine being back in high school and getting the chance to remove a cantaloupe-breasted cheerleader's blouse ... only to find a bra full of toilet tissue and a set of inverted nipples. In other words, Neurogain sucked "big-time!"

Those in the know, like Tim Patterson, figure it's the St. John's Wort, which acts more as a relaxant than a stimulant. Another problem was the taste. I can drink just about anything, supplement wise, but I damn near had to hug some porcelain every time I took Neurogain. (I noticed EAS has it in capsules now — not that I'd ever buy it again.)

That's why I was skeptical when Power Drive came out. Power Drive and Neurogain share a few ingredients, namely L-Tyrosine and DMAE, but Power Drive doesn't contain St. John's Wort. Instead, it has phosphatidylcholine and Ginkgo Biloba, which help to increase focus and concentration. The taste of Power Drive is about like Tang, much better than the toxic Lobotomy Lime flavor of Neurogain!

Neurotransmitter formulas may not jack you up like an ECA stack, but they will help you sustain higher energy levels, increase motivation and mood, and accelerate the progress of your training. (I also use Power Drive before writing, since without it, I'd lose focus and this article would digress into a series of seafood recipes, and maybe a dissertation about animal husbandry, Texas-style.)

The next category is pretty intriguing. Medicinal fallouts, as I call them, are slowly trickling down to the street, most illegally at the time of this writing. Some of the better stimulants come from prescription weight loss medications. Phen-Fen, no longer available since some users developed heart valve damage, was notorious for its ass-jacking properties. I once trained a woman who admitted going to five different doctors trying to get a prescription. Since she wasn't overweight they all turned her down, except for the 6^th doctor, who had developed a reputation for passing out diet medications like M&Ms.

For a while there, this doctor was the preferred drug dealer for the average American housewife in my city. (Gee, wonder how many of them had those DARE bumper stickers slapped on the back of their mini vans?) During the Phen-Fen craze, it was also common to "lose your prescription" and for some odd reason, women tended to run out of pills early. I can't imagine why, can you? After the drug combination was pulled, the OTC market became swamped in "Phen-Free" type products. What did most of them contain? You guessed it — the ECA stack.

Another trend involves people without Attention Deficient Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) using Ritalin. Ritalin, of course, is today's medication of choice when you want to drug your hyperactive teenager into a stupor. If you don't have ADD or ADHD, however, Ritalin will act as a stimulant. There have even been cases where kids are rolled in the schoolyard, not for their lunch money, but for their Ritalin! Oral users report a fairly mild stimulatory effect. Reportedly, the high is much better if you snort it. Some have even injected Ritalin, which is certainly not something T-mag recommends! The current street price of Ritalin is five to ten times higher than prescription costs.

The next wave of trickle-down highs may come from the treatment of narcolepsy. Narcolepsy, which literally means "sleep sickness," is a disorder where a person can fall immediately into REM sleep without warning, even while driving a car. (Check out Rob Schneider's last movie "Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo" and watch for the narcoleptic bowling scene. Cruel, but damned funny!)

Traditionally, stimulants such as Dexedrine have been prescribed to treat this disorder. But in early 1999, Provigil (modafinil) was approved by the FDA. Since Provigil isn't an amphetamine, it may one day find its way into the OTC market as an "alertness aid," just like caffeine. The manufacturer reports that it's discussing possible testing with the Defense Department to see whether Provigil will help sleep-deprived soldiers perform better. Hopefully, we'll be able to get our hands on some soon.

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Here are a few of my favorite pre-workout recipes, and a few tips:

ECA Classic
• 200 mg of caffeine
• 20 mg of ephedrine
• 300 mg of aspirin (optional)

Be sure and read the Ultimate Diet Pill article back in Issue 17 of Testosterone for an alternative view.

Power Stack Lite
• 1 serving of Power Drive
• 200 mg of caffeine

Power Stack Extreme
• 1 serving of Power Drive
• 200 mg of caffeine
• 20 mg of ephedra

Energy-6 Stack
• 1 serving of MD6
• 1 serving of Power Drive

Tip 1) Try taking stimulants on an empty stomach with plenty of water. This might cause a little nausea at first, but you'll like the extra kick you'll get and the fast absorption rate.

Tip 2) Don't burn yourself out on central nervous system stimulants. Save the ECA stack for when you really need it. (Power Drive is fine for everyday use, however.) When I used to train powerlifters, I'd have them lay off caffeine, including soft drinks, coffee and chocolate, in the weeks prior to a meet. Then, right before the meet, I'd have them chew up a couple of Vivarin. Since they weren't used to the caffeine, it would kick them in the ass nicely and give them that extra edge they felt they needed. Taken early enough, the caffeine would also have a mild diuretic effect and would help lifters make their weight classes. They would chew two more tablets before the deadlift, traditionally the last lift of the meet.

Tip 3) As mentioned above, some stimulants like caffeine make you pee a lot. Ephedrine also makes it more difficult to hold your urine so you may find yourself heading off the potty more often. Just be sure to drink plenty of water when using stimulants. (They may also affect your ability to build and sustain an adequate erection, but hey, who cares? Long as we can lift a lot of weight, right? Actually, I assume that you'll agree with me in categorizing that as a negative side effect. Just use ephedrine when you really need it and a limp dick won't be a problem.)

Tip 4) Don't fall for that bee pollen and ginseng crap. While these may have some kind of beneficial use, as pre-workout stimulants they suck!

Tip 5) Start with small dosages and work your way up.

Tip 6) If you find yo ass too jacked up at bedtime, three milligrams of melatonin will help you get a restful sleep. Of course, you may soon become a sort of herbal Elvis if you continue in this upper/downer vicious circle!

Tip 7) If you're Canadian, load up your coffee table and haul it to the gym. Before a heavy set, take off your shoe, get a running start, and kick the table leg as hard as you can, preferably crushing several toes. Since just about every stimulant mentioned here is illegal in Canada, this is about the best adrenaline rush you can hope to get. Sorry, guys.

Whichever method you choose, use your head and educate yourself before you put anything into your body. Have fun and, dude, have a nice trip!

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