Triple X Pre-Workout
$39.99
Pros
- Good Ingredients
- Available online
Cons
- Contains a proprietary blend
- Key Ingredients are underdosed
- Ineffective
- Cannot compete with the best
- Dangerous ingredients
Welcome to the most comprehensive Triple X pre-workout review on the world wide web!
Fed up of trawling the world wide web for hours at a time in search of the perfect pre-workout product, only to be met with sales pitches and inflated marketing claims…?! I know we were! That’s why we’ve put together a detailed Triple X Gold Star Performance pre-workout review to give you all the information you could possibly need in order to decide whether this particular supplement is for you!
Whether you’re just starting out on your fitness journey and you want gains quickly, or you’ve been training for a long time already and are struggling to reach beyond a plateau, then a pre-workout supplement could be exactly what you need to take your training to the next level!
Unfortunately for consumers, the world of nutritional supplements is a little reminiscent of the Wild West with a loose regulatory system at best and an apparent willingness of manufacturers to hide critical information from buyers!
That’s where we come in. By cutting through the bullshit and giving you a detailed assessment of the key ingredients included in Meth Lab in relation to what the latest scientific research tells us, you’ll be under no illusions as to whether this pre-workout is worth parting with your hard earned cash for!
Triple X pre-workout review: my initial thoughts
The first place I look when I’m considering the merits of a pre-workout product is the Supplement Facts Label. There are a few things you can take note of even with the briefest of glances, and perhaps the single most important question you should be asking yourself is whether there are any proprietary blends included?!
For those of you who may not be 100% sure of exactly what a proprietary blend is, it can be described as a mix of ingredients where the total blend weight is given, but the precise quantities of individual component ingredients is not disclosed. This makes it very difficult for you to know exactly how much of everything you are consuming per serving.
Despite what supplement manufacturers might try to tell you about hiding their secret formulas from the prying eyes of competitors, there is actually only one reason why they make use of proprietary blends. To hide underdosed ingredients from you!
Unfortunately for this product, whilst a number of ingredients do have their precise dosages disclosed, many of the most important ingredients are contained within a single proprietary blend weighing just over 7g. Not such a positive start to our Triple X pre-workout review.
The other vital piece of information you should be looking out for on the Supplement Facts Label is the total weight of one serving and how much of this weight is actually made up of active ingredients. This will immediately give you a pretty good idea as to whether the product has the capacity to contain meaningful doses of many of its ingredients, whilst also revealing how much of each scoop is wasted on flavorings, preservatives and other fillers! In the case of Triple X, a one scoop serving weighs 10g (9.8g of which are active ingredients). This is definitely a good ratio, but we’re not sure 10g is going to be sufficient given some of the ingredients included… more on that next!
Triple X ingredients
Di caffeine malate (404 mg)
The 404 mg serving of di caffeine malate in Triple X provides a fairly substantial 300 mg of actual caffeine.
Capable of both boosting your energy levels and increasing fat burning potential during workouts, caffeine is undoubtedly the most popular stimulant ingredient on the nutritional supplement market, finding its way into pre-workouts with regularity!
Most of the scientific research suggests that caffeine is ergogenically effective at doses as low as 100 mg and is safe for human consumption at levels as high as 400 mg per day, which means the 300 mg per serving of this Triple X pre-workout is definitely going to be of benefit. It’s a little over our preferred dose of 250 mg, though, and is likely to cause some mild side effects (more on that a little later) as a result!
Taurine (1500 mg) and tyrosine (600 mg)
We have grouped these ingredients together as a result of the limited scientific research to support their efficacy for exercise performance.
Taurine is purported to help boost endurance levels but research has indicated that supplementing with 1-6g before exercise has absolutely no effect on physical performance.[1]
Tyrosine is thought to help improve cognitive performance and boost energy levels as a result of its relationship with hormones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline, but there is little if any actual corroborative evidence of such an effect!
Triple X proprietary blend (7,316 mg)
There are multiple ingredients of note in this proprietary blend, a number of which can be extremely beneficial to your exercise performance if dosed correctly. Unfortunately, there is no way of us knowing exactly how much of any of them is included per serving.
Citrulline, beta alanine and creatine monohydrate are, without doubt, the most effective nutritional supplements on the market and all three are included in some capacity in Triple X. Citrulline helps to increase nitric oxide production which in turn leads to greater vasodilation and improved circulation helping you to fight fatigue.[2] Beta alanine supplementation increases your muscle stores of something called carnosine which plays a direct role in the buffering of lactic acid during short burst of intense anaerobic activity.[3] And creatine monohydrate helps users to increase strength and build lean muscle mass![4]
All three, however, must be dosed at optimal levels in order to have these purported benefits. For citrulline, that’s 3-6g per day, for beta alanine that means 4-6g per day, and for creatine monohydrate a dose of 5g per day is required.[5][6][7]
Consequently, whilst it is mathematically possible for there to be an optimal dose of one of these ingredients in this 7.3g proprietary blend, it is physically impossible for all 3 to be dosed anywhere near optimally! The most likely of the three to be included in a meaningful quantity is citrulline as it appears first on the list of ingredients and is therefore the most prevalent ingredient in the blend. Creatine monohydrate is only the 4th most prevalent ingredient in the blend which means there is zero chance of there being a dose of 5g.
In addition to these three powerhouses of the nutritional supplement world, this proprietary blend also contains some very concerning ingredients. Doses of both synephrine HCL and 2-amino-6-methylheptane should be treated with the utmost caution. Both are potentially lethal stimulants with similar properties to methamphetamines with dangerous repercussions for your health!
Triple X by Gold Star Performance side effects
The two ingredients which we must highlight above any others for the potential to cause side effects, and the severity of these side effects are synephrine HCL and 2-amino-6-methylheptane. Both of these compounds are potentially lethal and should be avoided at all costs. With potential related health issues including heart palpitations and increased blood pressure, pre-workout products should absolutely not contain such ingredients, and with any luck this Triple X by Gold Star Performance supplement will be removed from sale in the near future!
The 300 mg serving of caffeine also has the potential to cause some minor side effects including diarrhea, vomiting, the jitters and even anxiety.
As a result, if you are new to pre-workout supplements or have a low caffeine tolerance level, then it may be a good idea to start with a half dose of this product. And, that’s only if you’re ignoring the potentially lethal servings of synephrine HCL and 2-amino-6-methylheptane.
Whilst beta alanine (harmless tingling sensation) and creatine monohydrate (gastrointestinal discomfort) can also both cause mild side effects, it seems unlikely that this product contains the doses required to elicit such responses!
Is Triple X pre-workout safe?
In a word… NO! The inclusion of synephrine HCL and 2-amino-6-methylheptane, turn this product from a mediocre pre-workout which may benefit your training regime, to a potentially dangerous supplement which could cause you serious harm!
Where to buy Triple X?
Triple X pre-workout doesn’t actually seem to be available on the official Gold Star Performance website. You can purchase it at samedaysupplements.com for $39.99 which means a serving price of around $1.30, but it is currently “out of stock”.
Summary: Triple X pre-workout review conclusion
There is only one factor that really needs to be considered in the context of this Triple X pre-workout review, and that’s the inclusion of 2 potentially lethal stimulant ingredients.
The more than optimal dose of caffeine and the inclusion of supplement powerhouses citrulline, beta alanine and creatine monohydrate, whilst all huge positives, mean nothing if this product could be dangerous for human consumption.
Add to the mix that all three of those beneficial key ingredients are included in a proprietary blend so we have no idea how much of any of them is present, and things go from bad to worse for this product!
Whilst the $1.30 price tag puts this pre-workout in the middle of the road as far as cost goes, a complete lack of product transparency and the inclusion of dangerous stimulants means you are quite literally playing roulette with your cash and your life!
Our final verdict. If you care one iota about your general health, then we would recommend leaving this pre-workout well alone. Even If you are a bit more laissez faire when it comes to your wellbeing, then we would still recommend overlooking this product. It is incredibly unlikely to contain meaningful doses of its most beneficial ingredients, as already discussed, and you can almost certainly do better for the money. Keep looking!
References:
[1] https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-1024/taurine
[2] https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/l-citrulline-or-citrulline-malate-n-o-content.html
[3] beta-Alanine supplementation augments muscle carnosine content and attenuates fatigue during repeated isokinetic contraction bouts in trained sprinters- J Appl Physiol (1985). 2007 Nov;103(5
[4] Grindstaff PD, et al. Effects of creatine supplementation on repetitive sprint performance and body composition in competitive swimmers. Int J Sport Nutr. 1997;7(4):330–46.
[5]Bailey, S. J., Blackwell, J. R., Lord, T., Vanhatalo, A., Winyard, P. G., & Jones, A. M. (2015). L-citrulline supplementation improves O2 uptake kinetics and high-intensity exercise performance in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology, 119(4), 385-395.
[6] International society of sports nutrition position stand: Beta-Alanine- J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2015; 12: 30.
[7] Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update- journal of international sports science and nutrition.
Leave a Reply