my review of the creatines!!!:)

[jhov]

hi everyone, here is my review of the creatine products i have tried for the past year. it is a list of the best of the best imho!!!
hope it helps and please enjoy. if u have any question or comments please let me know

Review of creatine products

Introduction
In this review I will give my experiences with the different creatine products I have tried over the past year. The products I will be reviewing are Swole v2, v12, Straight and Prolabs creatine. There are many review threads about these products individually but I want this to be a review based on comparisons between the products and thus hopefully my conclusion about the best product in my humble opinion! I will also be giving mini reviews of my 3 friends who will be using other routines for other goals with the same basic supplementation/nutrition I have and using the same cycles of the above listed creatine products!

Supplements I will be using while doing my various cycles are:
I****trix
centrum multi vitamin
Vitamin c1000mg, local vitamin store brand
B-complex again, local vitamin store brand
Flax oil, Fish oil
Infusion/homemade gainer
these supplements will remain the same on every cycle of the above listed creatine supplements including times when I take them and dosages as to be able to make as accurate an assessment as possible as to the effects of the different creatine cycles.

My diet will also remain consistent. I will be eating 6-8 meals a day. It will be in a 40/40/20 macronutrient split of protein/carbohydrates/fats. I will be having above maintenance (bulking) intake of all the above macronutrients based on my stats.

The cardio will consist of HIIT 1x per week on a non workout day. It will be sprints over 100m with short rest periods in between. GPP will not be incorporated into my routine while on cycle this time around because I will be doing my review with friends and time constraints resulting from school and work! I will also be keeping the rest of my daily routine as consistent as possible including training times, time spent in the gym, routine, pre- and post workout supplementation, sleep patterns, diet/nutrition and even showers post workout!

My 3 friends will be doing everything the same as me but the differences will be in there routines, goals and splits. Ed (fr1) will be doing a DFHT routine, Serge (fr2) will be doing a power lifting routine and Ernie (fr3) is a martial artist who does some power building as to help with his preparation for a major kickboxing tournament. He usually cycles of creatine before a competition as to aid in cutting since he felt before we started that he got to much bloat from creatine! I will be following my own program I made myself based on what works best for me as far as growth and recovery are concerned. It is a power building routine centred on the big three lifts, sprinkled with some Olympic lifts and many other pure mass builders. As you can see the goals and routines will be different from person to person and this may be of some use for those of you who have different goals than just bodybuilding or different routines and who wanted a review based on this fact!

Prolabs review! 7/10 score
Well it was a pretty good product but I am not the biggest creatine responder (based on products I used before this one!) around so I was expecting my results to be a bit limited with it. Well I was wrong! I responded alright but not exactly in the best way in my humble opinion. I had gains but these came at a price in my opinion. The water weight gain was a bit unbearable. It seemed as if I gained tons of water but the results I was really looking for with regard to strength, lbm and recuperation were lagging a bit. It was a great product which was easy to mix and pretty much inexpensive in use for the 4 weeks that I was on it. The first week was all water weight gains even though I was not loading it! I just used 4 grams a day either in the morning on non workout days or post on workout days. After this first week I noticed some strength gains and a general feeling of more endurance. The strength gains were limited however. My recuperation after work outs however improved immensely! I had much more endurance during my work outs and I would recuperate much better in my view compared to before the cycle. I had an average of about 5.1 pounds of strength gains per lift while on it and I kept a total of 3.5 pounds of lbm after the cycle of 4 weeks. I had gained over 11.5 pounds while on cycle. Now u see what I mean by the unbearable bloating!

Ed is a good responder and had good gains while on this product. He also noticed some bloat, less than mine, but his overall strength gains and recovery improvements were better than mine. The average strength improvement for him was 6.2 pounds per lift and kept 4.5 pounds of lbm post cycle. He gained 10 pounds while on cycle
Serge also had good gains while on the prolabs creatine. He seemed to get stronger with every wo he did. Bloating was not that outspoken with him as with Ed and me but there was some. Overall endurance also improved a little but this was more pronounced with us than with him. Recuperation was also improved with him but again I and Ed had more pronounced results in this area than he did. He gained 7 pounds while on cycle and kept 3.8 pounds post cycle. He had an average of +7.3 pounds per lift when on cycle
Ernie had the best results of all of us with the prolabs creatine. He had massive bloat as did I while on it however. He had huge improvements on recovery time and endurance while on it. I say huge because he is probably the most cardio-vascularly fit of all of us and he had about the same improvements if not better in the areas of endurance and recovery so relatively speaking it was much better than us. Average gains per lift were about 7.5 pounds and he kept 5 pounds post cycle of the 12 pounds he gained while on cycle.

Straight review! 7.5/10
Straight is a great quality product that was extremely easy to mix and very good in the price/quality department. You get 1kg of the stuff for a very good price indeed. We took at least 6 weeks of from any creatine supplements after each cycle. The rest remained the same. Syntrax claims that there is no bloat while on straight well I can tell you that there is. I got bloating but it was much less pronounced than with the prolabs creatine. I also did not load with straight. Just the same 4grams per day routine I did with prolabs as well. The water weight also came on more throughout the entire cycle with me and less in the beginning as it did with the prolabs creatine. Strength gains were about the same as with the prolabs, about 5.5 pounds per lift, and my recovery and endurance with straight remained about the same as with the prolabs. So all in all it was the better cycle for me since I had less bloat, slightly better strength gains, the same improvement in endurance and recovery as with the prolabs. I gained 10 pounds on the 4week cycle and kept 4 pounds of lbm post cycle.

Ed had basically the same results with straight as he did with prolabs. Bloat was less pronounced than with me and overall strength gains and recovery were better than mine. Average strength improvement for him was 6.5 pounds per lift. He gained 9.5pounds on cycle and kept 5pounds post cycle.
Serge had good gains from straight but this time around he had less bloat than with prolabs. He gained about 7.5 pounds while on cycle and kept about 4 lbs post cycle. Strength gains were again up, this time an average of 7.5 pounds per lift. Endurance and recovery were in his opinion about the same as with prolabs!
Ernie again had the best gains of us all but he had noticeably less bloat than while on prolabs. According to him recovery time was about the same as with prolabs but endurance was slightly improved over the prolabs. Strength gains per lift were about 7.5pounds. He kept 6pounds post cycle of the 9.5 pounds he gained on cycle. That dropped to 4 pounds after 2 weeks however because he got ill towards the end of the cycle unfortunately and lost lots of weight. He was the only one of us so far who spoke of a marked improvement in pumps while on straight. So far that was not the case with any of us with straight or prolabs!

[jhov]

Sann v12 review! 9/10
Well here is where it got to be fun. I had huge improvements with pumps on v12. There was no bloat whatsoever and the strength gains were comparatively high. I was also much vascular while on cycle. It is a very good product and the flavour is very good indeed, no after taste either! It was easy to mix and I just took it as recommended 2 xs daily about 8 hours apart. I gained about 6.5 pounds on every lift average. I had huge pumps and my recovery was better than with both straight and prolabs. My endurance was also up and it can be compared to what it was when on straight. I kept 6pounds post cycle of the 10 pounds I gained while on cycle. I also felt great while on it since there was no bloat. Great product all in all for the price!

Ed felt the pumps as I did and had no bloat on cycle with v12 either. He kept 5.5 pounds post cycle with v12 of the 10.5 pounds he gained while on cycle. Strength was up by 8 pounds per lift! He just could not stop talking about the pumps though! Endurance and recovery were as they were with straight in his opinion. ‘’Damn my vascularity is way better’’ was his last comment on the subject.
Serge again could not stop talking about the pumps and vascularity while on v12. He gained about 9 pounds on cycle and kept 5.5 pounds post cycle. Endurance and recovery were again comparable to straight if not slightly better in his opinion as well. Strength gains were 9 pounds per lift!
Ernie had really good gains again from v12. No bloat at all. Strength gains were about 9.5 pounds per lift. He kept 5 pounds post cycle of the 9.5 pounds he gained on cycle. Endurance was up compared to the other products and he really enjoyed the taste of the v12. Again huge pumps, vascularity and better recovery time were the main things he talked about!

Swole v2 review! 9.5/10
This was the undisputed king of the creatine based products I have tried! It had huge hype preceding it’s release and much discussion about it’s purported ‘’anti-creatine’’ containing formula. Well I was somewhat sceptical myself about the ingredients list and was sure that v12 would be the better product. Well I could not have been more wrong! It was better than v12 in every aspect except for pumps and vascularity! Strength gains were up, 9 pounds per lift average. Endurance was also up markedly from v12. Recovery time was just a little better than when on v12. I kept a whopping 7 pounds post cycle of the 10 pounds I gained while on cycle! The taste is great and I felt I could work out forever. And it was cheaper than v12! Great product and great results

Ed’s pumps were less pronounced than while on v12 but strength gains were just as explosive as with me. There was no bloat. He averaged an increase of 10 pounds per lift! He kept 6 pounds post cycle from the 10pounds he gained on cycle. Endurance was up from v12 and recovery was better than with v12 but ‘’not a huge difference with v12’’. ‘’Pumps were less on swole but vascularity was the same imho’’ were his words
Serge ‘’no bloat’’ were the first words out of his mouth when I asked him about v2! He gained about 8.5 pounds on cycle and kept about 5.5pounds post cycle. 9.5pounds per lift were his strength gains. He again said that endurance and recovery were slightly better than the previous product in this instance that being v12! Pumps were the same in his eyes maybe just slightly better and his vascularity was the same in his eyes when compared to v12
Ernie was raving about this product although his results were slightly less on this product than they were with v12 on paper. He felt that the complete lack of bloat and the endurance and strength endurance it gave him were better than with any of the other products! Strength gains were about 8.5pounds per lift. He kept 4.5pounds post cycle of the 9 he gained while on cycle. As I said he claimed that the strength endurance he got, endurance and recovery were better than with any other products in his opinion.

Summary and opinions
Swole v2 was the overall best product we supplemented with! The combination of strength gains, endurance, lack of bloat and lbm kept post cycle were the reasons for this. It was the unanimous choice of all of us as the best product. Pumps and vascularity were the domain of v12! Straight was a good product for a good price and very high quality. Prolabs has a winning creatine and was very good in our opinions but my bad experience with bloat was what had it last in my list and all the lists of the others as well. But by no means should it not be on anyone’s list of best creatine products on the market. The claims of no bloating while on straight are false. There was bloat with all of us but it was less in most cases than with prolabs. Ernie won his competition and also likes v2 so much because he cut prior to the competition and v2 can therefore not only give him the best results in his eyes while bulking but also can be used effectively while cutting. All in all I have been writing this up for 1 year now with help from my friends. If I did not have my journal or good disciplined friends it would not have been possible so thank you to them as well. I hope this helps you all with your choices on which creatines to use for your goals. Keep lifting and good luck!
Peace
J


Extra
Ed has since tried CreaVitargo and places it on the same level as swole v2 for results! His only complaints were the price and the horrible mixability of the product!

[Stocks]

Good reveiw dude I'm interested in hearing the rest

[Stocks]

The swole and v12 reveiws wear'nt there when I wrote the last reply. Overall it was a good reveiw

[DJ Sina]

Very good threat jhov, but I am interested in hearing you try the new v12/swolev2 *noz*

are you gona try NOZ? you should then you should give us a review, I ordered some NOZ and I have had sucess with v12 before, I look forward to my cycle of noz

[jhov]

Originally posted by DJ Sina
Very good threat jhov, but I am interested in hearing you try the new v12/swolev2 *noz*

are you gona try NOZ? you should then you should give us a review, I ordered some NOZ and I have had sucess with v12 before, I look forward to my cycle of noz

thanks alot, very appereciated!!!
well yes i will be doing some noz in about 8 weeks but first i will do another v2 cycle. i will keep a full log of it and if i get enough peeps asking i will keep a log thread of it. Ed did a cycle of it recently and compared it to his results while on v12!!!
i will also be trying out creavitargo in the near future hopefully, but i am very interested in kreataine, satur8 and mid cycle so those may come first. dunno yet.
peace
j

[Bignbuff]

Very interesting. Thanks for doing this jhov!

[GhostfaceKillah]

Someone is used to writing detailed lab reports! Amazing job jhov, as usual.

[DJ Sina]

damn you guys must have lots money to spare...anyway dont you think u should ttake a month off like 1 month off 1 on

[NO MERCY]

Jhov excellent thread my man. One quick question. Did anyone take dextrose with the prolab creatine?

[Damien]

Thanks for directing me here bro.
Nice read.

[jhov]

Originally posted by DJ Sina
damn you guys must have lots money to spare...anyway dont you think u should ttake a month off like 1 month off 1 on

lol no we do not have money to spare lol
yes i do think u should cycle although i know many who do not cycle at all. i always take at least 4 weeks off. i just started another cycle of v2 and will be done in 27days so in 8 weeks time i should be ready for something else

thanks u very much bignbuff and GFK u views are much appreciated
peace
j

[jhov]

Originally posted by NO MERCY
Jhov excellent thread my man. One quick question. Did anyone take dextrose with the prolab creatine?

thanks no mercy
no we did not take dextrose since we are all not big fans of refined sugars (i hear rippedup coming now to say amen ). it was just creatine bro
hope this helps
peace
j

[jhov]

thank u damien and stocks, much appreciated
peace
j

[NO MERCY]

Originally posted by jhov
thanks no mercy
no we did not take dextrose since we are all not big fans of refined sugars (i hear rippedup coming now to say amen ). it was just creatine bro
hope this helps
peace
j

Got cha. Thanks!

[rick1168]

dudes, wait til you try Satur8...I havent tried Swole V2 yet but I have tried the V12...theyre close but today was only my second day on Satur8 and the pump was like being high...actually the pumps were so quick it hurt...could barely get thru my workout...felt like I was on drol or something...its the real deal!

[scott_donald]

thats brilliant very informative i tried the san v12 but did not find it worth the money so used ast micronised again.... so may try the swole in the future but not for a while... hope this thread does not get lost...

how did the friend get on in the kick boxing....

weldone again and happy experimenting...

[rick1168]

satur8!

[jhov]

Originally posted by scott_donald
thats brilliant very informative i tried the san v12 but did not find it worth the money so used ast micronised again.... so may try the swole in the future but not for a while... hope this thread does not get lost...

how did the friend get on in the kick boxing....

weldone again and happy experimenting...

well he won like i said in the thread and he is on a role and has been using the v2 with pauses for about 3 months now. thanks for the compliments scott, they are much appreciated and damn i have not been on that much so i did not notice it earlier but congratulations on 8000 bro. tremendous achcievment and keep it up
peace
j

[scott_donald]

Originally posted by jhov
well he won like i said in the thread and he is on a role and has been using the v2 with pauses for about 3 months now. thanks for the compliments scott, they are much appreciated and damn i have not been on that much so i did not notice it earlier but congratulations on 8000 bro. tremendous achcievment and keep it up
peace
j

thanks remember not to stay up too late toonight... funny thing is i have slowed downt he posting lately... but football sunday so 6 hours of posting...

[HAJ]

great post. thanks for all the information

[naturalguy]

I am just curious, when you say creatine "bloats" you do you mean that you look like you are holding water? Because creatine monohydrate does not do this. Creatine Monohydrate draws water INTO the muscle cell, it does not cause subcutaneaous water retention (between the muscle and the skin). Many people perceive it as bloating because they gain weight on the scale.

In my opinion micronized creatine is the best product out there.

[sawastea]

Wow, I go on vacation and come back and suddenly there is a nice review on some top of the line products. That brought a tear to my eye. Great comparison of the products and kudos for having your friends jump in the review with you

Great job, j

[sawastea]

Originally posted by scott_donald
but more importantly was the vacation good...

Yes. The vacation was very nice. I went to Atlanta for the weekend and it got VERY ugly. I never had so much Mexican food in one weekend. I got extremely obliterated during the football game and the whole afternoon was a blurr. Now that I'm back home I need to go to the gym! Cheat meal? HAHAHA, how about a cheat 4 days

[sawastea]

Originally posted by naturalguy
I am just curious, when you say creatine "bloats" you do you mean that you look like you are holding water? Because creatine monohydrate does not do this. Creatine Monohydrate draws water INTO the muscle cell, it does not cause subcutaneaous water retention (between the muscle and the skin). Many people perceive it as bloating because they gain weight on the scale.

In my opinion micronized creatine is the best product out there.

Micronized creatine's mixability is better then, un-micronized creatine monohydrate. Anyway, here is a nice thread about creatine bloating...

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...creatine+bloat

Naturalguy is all over this thread ...

Anyway, to get rid of the "bloat" you guys are experiencing, possibly look into "plasma expanders." They seem to do the job

Well, IMO, the benefits of creatine far outweight the 'bloating' you may have while on creatine. If you consume 1+ gallong of water daily, the bloat should subside after a week or so...

[jhov]

Originally posted by sawastea
Micronized creatine's mixability is better then, un-micronized creatine monohydrate. Anyway, here is a nice thread about creatine bloating...

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...creatine+bloat

Naturalguy is all over this thread ...

Anyway, to get rid of the "bloat" you guys are experiencing, possibly look into "plasma expanders." They seem to do the job

Well, IMO, the benefits of creatine far outweight the 'bloating' you may have while on creatine. If you consume 1+ gallong of water daily, the bloat should subside after a week or so...

yes the expanders do work very well with regard to ''bloat''
and yes the benefits far outweigh the bloat!!!
we were drinking about 1.5 gallons each per day
naturalguy i understand what u mean etc i am just stating what we felt and saw, it is our experiences with the supplements over the past year just our humble opinions i guess based on the facts of what we experienced!!!
peace
j

[LostProphet]

This is a great results thread Jhov. Very detailed feedback.

This forum and the bro's who post here can only benefit from product reviews like this. Look forward to reading your next review of a product.

[derekmac]

Excellent thread, jhov.

[jhov]

thank u all very much for the kind words derekmac and LP!!!
i hope it helps someone with there decisions, that is all i wanted to do but the nice responses are much more than i expected
thanks again guys
peace
julius

[RippedUp]

Excellent work, J.

You are one great addition to the board.

Thanks.