Now, if you’ve been around Kinobody for any amount of time…
You’ll probably notice that we aren’t the biggest fans of workout/performance supplements.
And there’s a BIG reason for that:
Most supplements on the market now are complete garbage.
And even more so, we don’t recommend supplements often because we believe you don’t need them to build a great body…
Yet, we still get hundreds of questions each day from loyal followers asking what supplements we would recommend.
But therein lies the problem:
Go to any GNC, Vitamin Shoppe, or “supplement” store, and what do you find?
Under-dosed, ineffective, junk-filled crap with horrendously inflated prices.
Why?
Because high quality, properly-dosed products aren’t cheap to make.
And of course, retail stores have insane markups to make as much money as possible.
And yet…
There ARE highly effective, research-backed ingredients that can make a huge difference in your fitness routine (especially if you have your nutrition and training dialed in).
It’s my passion to help each and every one of you reach your fitness goals in the fastest, most enjoyable way possible…
That’s why we decided to do something about it…
I’ve been working on the down-low with Duke neuroscience graduate Chris Walker (my co-host on our Road To Ripped Podcast) and the company team…
Researching the best ingredients and working out formulas that would actually help anyone following the Kinobody Programs get better and faster results.
It’s been several months in the making…
And I’m excited to announce that we just locked in the final formulation and placed the order for the first shipment.
Before we dive into what makes Octane apart of this new wave of transparent, effective supplements…let’s talk about why we really decided to create our own supplement.
WHY MOST PRE WORKOUTS ARE GARBAGE
When choosing a pre-workout, or any supplement, heck even your food – you need to read labels.
Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s are usually deemed healthy places to do your grocery shopping at but even they have foods that contain nasty additives, artificial colors and flavors, etc…
The point is, most poorly made supplements hide behind “proprietary blends.”
This is a way companies can skimp on ingredients to cut cost. All the ingredients are listed under a proprietary blend but NOT the individual dosages.
So you really don’t know what you’re getting…
And on top of under-dosing, most companies don’t do the research behind the ingredients they use. Which raises the question, is that supplement even helping you or not?
When we set out to create Octane, we wanted to be able to back up each ingredient with multiple human research studies before even considering adding it to the formulation.
The third point, and I think we’ve all came across this at one time or another, is the sleazy marketing and outrageous claims some supplement companies make.
All of that nonsense is apart of the greed from people just trying to steal your money. They want to cut costs as much as possible and push as many as they can before getting shut down or exposed.
Of course, that’s on the extreme end of things, but it’s a shame that nowadays it’s still tough to find companies and folks who are willing to put in the effort and time to create something marvelous.
Lastly, and in combination of what we just talked about, the majority of pre workouts on the market now rely heavily on stimulants.
I personally don’t want to feel like my heart is going to explode or the need to rip my skin off when warming up for incline bench. Not to mention the dreaded, post workout crash when you finally come down off the rush.
THE BIRTH OF OCTANE
One night, Chris and I were in Venice Beach, CA at a restaurant for dinner, we started discussing how messed up the fitness supplements currently available to consumers truly are – especially the pre-workouts.
There were no truly natural, organic options for anyone, especially in a formula that leverages the inherent nutrient-rich content of fruit as the sweetener instead of added sugar or artificial sweeteners. And almost every pre-workout also contained very high doses of stimulants.
“What if we could create a natural pre-workout option, with about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, and containing only ingredients that increase natural energy production without stimulating the body’s “fight-or-flight” response,” I said.
“And let’s also sweeten it with organic fruit juice,” Chris said.
That night, we agreed to make Kino OCTANE a reality. The idea was born, but that was just the beginning of the hard work involved in formulating, manufacturing, taste-testing, and lab & compliance testing that went into making this dream a reality.
Through all the red tape, Kino OCTANE has emerged victorious.
In fact, we had the distinct advantage of wisdom accumulated through Chris’ years of running his top-notch research-backed nutraceutical company Truth Nutra, along with his Duke University neuroscience degree coupled with my training wisdom and vision for the exact type of “feeling” and nervous system benefits from this perfect formula.
The combination of this wisdom and vision has birthed the most well-formulated and effective – and just all-around healthy – natural pre-workout formula available.
No fluff, no extras, no fake ingredients to make it look cool. No flashy hype. Simply the highest quality, most potent combination of all-natural ingredients available anywhere.
INGREDIENTS IN OCTANE PRE WORKOUT SUPPLEMENT
As you can see from the image above, Octane contains 8 all-natural, science-backed ingredients in their most bio-available (digestible) form.
Why these ingredients? The following “blends” are just sexy names to explain how each ingredient is helping your body.
Blend #1: The Metabolic Acceleration Blend
THIAMINE, L-CITRULLINE, BIOTIN
Whenever you exercise, metabolic stress is placed on your body in the form of increased production of waste by-products like lactic acid and ammonia.(1,2,3)
You’re probably familiar with lactic acid, which causes the “burning sensation” in your muscles and prevents you from getting those final few reps that are so important for muscle growth. Ammonia, on the other hand, is produced when your body breaks down the protein in your muscles. These by-products take time to clear out of your system and contribute to fatigue and reduce your ability to use oxygen and produce energy.(4,5)
Not only that, but the longer they hang around, the slower your recovery is after the training session. Therefore, one of the main goals we wanted to focus on was enhancing your body’s metabolic capacity to handle these by-products to not only improve energy production and blood flow to your muscles (ie. the “pump”) during the workout, but also to enhance your recovery from the session after the workout.
That’s exactly what The Metabolic Activation Blend focuses on, by supplying key nutrients that enable your cells to produce more energy in a healthier way, and assist your body in clearing out the harmful by-products.
Here’s what’s in The Metabolic Activation Blend:
THIAMINE (100mg) – Thiamine, also known as vitamin B1, is crucial for your oxidative metabolism and is powerful for reducing your lactic acid and ammonia production.(6,7,8,9,10,11,12)
Because higher doses of this water-soluble vitamin stimulate the oxidative metabolism so well, it helps your cells produce more energy in a healthier way, resulting in less fatigue during the workout session.(13,14)
All of this is because thiamine helps your cells utilize glucose (carbohydrate) better, resulting in more energy and a better metabolic profile, which keeps your body functioning better during and after the workout.(13,15,16,17)
We chose a dosage of 100 mg, which is the dose used in most research studies.
L-CITRULLINE (6,000mg) – L-Citrulline is an amino acid that has a powerful effect on increasing blood levels of nitric oxide (NO), which relaxes blood vessels and allows more blood flow to working muscles (the coveted “pump”).(18,19,20,21)
However, l-citrulline has another, lesser-known role: Reducing ammonia levels by stimulating the urea cycle (in fact, this is how it increases NO levels as well, by sparing the amino acid L-arginine).(22,23)
Since ammonia causes fatigue and decreases your cells’ ability to produce energy efficiently, L-citrulline has naturally been found to increase the number of reps you can perform, decrease your fatigue during the training session, and reduce how hard the workout feels (the “Rating of Perceived Exertion”, or “RPE” for short).(24,25,26,27,28)
This amino acid is so powerful that we included 6 grams of L-citrulline – the highest amount we could legally put into it.
BIOTIN (300 mcg) – Similar to thiamine, biotin (vitamin B7) plays an important role in healthy energy production, and similar to L-citrulline, it helps to clear out ammonia levels in your body.(29,30)
But not only does biotin add to the lactic acid-reducing and ammonia-reducing power of thiamine and L-citrulline, but it has also been shown to greatly enhance insulin sensitivity, even reversing type 2 diabetes in some studies.(31,32,33,34)
Because of this, adding biotin ensures that you not only get those powerful metabolic effects, but that you make better use of the carbs in your post-workout meal, aiding in even faster recovery from the workout session.
SIBERIAN GINSENG (Eleutherococcus Senticosus Root Extract) (300 mg) – While the other ingredients play a role in helping your body remove the harmful by-products created for exercise, Siberian Ginseng helps prevent them from being created in the first place by increasing your cells’ use of oxygen.(35,36)
And because your cells are also able to produce energy through better metabolic pathways, this also leads to an increase in work capacity and total work output, meaning you can workout harder, for longer.
Not only that, Siberian Ginseng has shown some very promising effects for increasing mental function, improving blood lipids, decreasing oxidative stress, and enhancing immunity, helping improve your health and recovery on many levels.(37,38,39,40)
Blend #2: Neural Alignment Blend
CAFFEINE AND L-THEANINE
Your output in the gym relies on the ability of your central nervous system (CNS) to signal your muscles to fire. Studies have even shown that when external electricity was used to cause a muscle to contract, fatigued muscles were still able to contract just as hard as fresh muscles, indicating that the nervous system was the factor that lead to decreases in strength.(35,36)
So if you want to have the most productive training session possible when you step foot in the gym, you want to make sure your nervous system is ready to fire on all cylinders.
That’s exactly what the Neural Alignment Blend does…
Here’s what’s in it:
CAFFEINE (150 mg) & L-THEANINE (100 mg) – Caffeine is one of the most well-studied compounds on increasing exercise performance and nervous system function.
These studies show an increase in reps performed, better strength-endurance, a lower rating of perceived exertion, an increase in time to fatigue, and many other ergogenic benefits.(37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53)
It works by binding to adenosine receptors, blocking the action that adenosine would normally have on inhibiting neural function and causing feelings of fatigue and tiredness. By blocking these receptors, you allow your nervous system to increase it’s output and allow your muscles to contract harder and lift more weight, and many studies support the fact that caffeine works by increasing activation of the nervous system.(54,55)
Caffeine has even been shown to help improve testosterone levels and increase fat loss.(56,57) This alone is a great way to boost your workout quality, but by adding L-theanine, we can add a significant advantage.
Specifically, L-theanine smooths out the “jitters” that caffeine can cause, while allowing the increased energy and alertness to persist. In essence, you get a smooth, steady energy that allows you to focus and attack your workout with determination.
Studies have shown that the combination of caffeine and L-theanine delivers many benefits, including increased fat loss and improved brain function / cognition.(58,59,60,61) But L-theanine has many other benefits for after the training session, including improved restoration of immune function, decreased fatigue, and enhanced mental regeneration.(62,63,64,65,66,67,68)
Since many Kinobody followers drink plenty of coffee through the day, we wanted to find the right dose to give a boost before your workout, without overdoing the caffeine. We found 150 mg of caffeine and 100 mg of L-theanine to be the sweet spot for relaxed focus and energy during your training session.
Blend #3: The Electrolyte Primer Blend
SODIUM AND POTASSIUM
SODIUM (100 mg) & POTASSIUM (100 mg) -During exercise, the electrical salts that your nervous system uses to send signals throughout your body (ie. “electrolytes”) get depleted through increased turnover and loss in sweat.
By including these electrolytes before your workout, you can preempt that loss and prevent the drop in performance that comes from low mineral levels. This is similar to why rehydration beverages like Gatorade help to keep athletes more hydrated and improve performance more than water alone.(74,75,76,77,78,79)
This will also have the added benefit of preventing a rise in the stress hormone aldosterone, aiding in faster recovery from the workout by maintaining better homeostatic balance.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON PRE WORKOUTS
Octane is the pre workout that will enhance your entire exercise experience from your ability to do more in the gym and trigger better muscle gains, to your ability to recover faster and come back to the next workout stronger than before.
Once again, I’m so excited to bring a pre workout that’s actually going to make a difference in your training sessions.
We’re ready to let Octane speak for itself.
