Black Market Labs has recently reformulated its flagship 2-in-1 pre-workout/test-booster, Adrenolyn BULK. It claims to be a “premium formula” that’s designed to build muscle mass, raise power output and increase overall strength. Thing is, Adrenolyn BULK’s ability to fulfill these promises are questionable, and the potential ‘benefits’ may even be risks. Here’s what you should know before trying Adrenolyn BULK.
Each 30 serving container provides a measly 11 grams of powder per scoop. Of its already small 11 gram dosage, only about 9.2 grams (and we’re rounding up) actually contain proven ingredients that are used to help aid your workout. The other 1.8 grams (or 16% of the blend) consist of various junky ingredients like natural and artificial sweeteners, flavors and dyes.
How Effective Is Black Market Labs Adrenolyn Bulk?
From what we can tell, it’s not the greatest. Unfortunately, BML Adrenolyn Bulk’s individual ingredient dosages are hidden under a proprietary blend. As a result, it’s hard to tell whether or not most of its ingredients are properly dosed because they’re all grouped together under one net value. In other words, unless Adrenolyn Bulk specifies its dosage, you’ll be left wondering how much of an ingredient you just ate, and whether or not it’s even dosed enough to work in the first place.
On that note, let’s go with what we do know. According to the front label, there are 3 main ingredients in Adrenolyn Bulk. These ingredients are: 1.5 grams of D-aspartic acid, 3.2 grams of beta-alanine and 3 grams of creatine monohydrate. Together, they make up more than 80% of Adrenolyn Bulk’s proprietary blend. Additionally, there are also 300 mg of the stimulant caffeine anhydrous.
It should be noted that despite making up more than 80% of BML Adrenolyn Bulk, these 3 main ingredients- with the exception of caffeine – are either mostly under dosed or just barely meet baseline clinically effective standards. We’d be doing you a disservice if we told you that didn’t matter. That being said, let’s cover the uses of each ingredient and how they can help you get results.
The Ingredients in Adrenolyn Bulk
D-aspartic acid, 1.5g
Research has shown that D-aspartic acid, or D-AA for short, can help temporarily elevate testosterone levels in both athletes and infertile men. This is done in a few of ways, but namely by causing certain hormones like luteinizing hormone to release. While more studies are needed, it’s generally recommended to take anywhere between 2,000 – 3,000mg.
CarnoSyn® beta-alanine, 3.2g
Beta-alanine is a popular ingredient found in many pre-workouts. Unlike most amino acids, beta-alanine is non-essential and helps the body produce significant amounts of carnosine. Carnosine helps reduce the amount of acidity in muscles during exercise, thus helping to improve one’s overall athletic performance and ability to build lean muscle mass. Taking a clinical dosage of beta-alanine (3.2 – 6.4g) can also help your body fight muscular fatigue. That said, Adrenolyn Bulk does contain a clinical dosage of high-quality beta-alanine, which is good to see.
Creatine monohydrate, 3g
Creatine is one of the most used supplements to help aid overall athletic performance. It’s one of the most studied ingredients and has been deemed quite safe. It works by helping your body release high-energy phosphocreatine molecules in your body anatomical stress, like a workout. This sustained release of energy helps raise your power output and provide even more benefits. On that note, Adrenolyn Bulk contains an effective dosage of creatine monohydrate at 3g per serving.
So you know, creatine is naturally quite water retentive – so be ready to drink lots of water.
Caffeine anhydrous, 300mg
Caffeine anhydrous is the dehydrated (powderized) form of regular caffeine. Caffeine acts as a nervous system stimulant and binds to neural receptors meant for adenosine. Unlike adenosine, caffeine doesn’t activate receptors but instead just sits there, temporarily interrupting adenosine buildup. Adenosine is partly responsible for the natural process of ‘winding down’ for the night. This reduction in adenosine helps you feel energized, focused and be more powerful, for longer.
Moreover, BML Adrenolyn Bulk contains a generous 300mg of caffeine-anhydrous per serving. That’s about the equivalent of 3 cups of coffee. In terms of how much to take, we don’t suggest taking any more than one full scoop a day. This is because researchers out of the May Clinic found that limiting your caffeine intake to 400mg a day seems to be safe for most healthy adults. If you start experiencing shaky hands or jitters, try lowering the dosage or doing some physical activity (Source).
AdreNOlyn BULK vs FIT
To us, Black Market Labs has two similar but distinct pre-workout supplements vying for the limelight. On one hand you have AdreNOlyn BULK, which BML says is “designed to help increase muscle mass and boost natural testosterone”. And then there’s BML FIT, which makes the claim that it can “maximize your full potential in endurance, power, strength, and stamina”. Thing is, these supplements seem to provide almost the same benefits. In order to find out which one is better than the other, we’ll have to take a look at their ingredients.
For starters, Adrenolyn BULK really only has a few noteworthy ingredients. Like FIT, it has a proprietary blend that successfully hides most of its ingredient dosages from sight. It’s dosages are somewhat low while it’s price point is high, especially compared to competitors. Moreover, Adrenolyn BULK is missing core nutrients and likely contains some ineffective ingredients. While Adrenolyn BULK has zero fillers, which is good, it does have artificial & natural flavors and dyes.
On the contrary, FIT does contain some micronutrients, albeit in (surprise) small doses. In addition to its inclusion of micronutrients, FIT offers 1.5g more powder per serving than Adrenolyn BULK does, putting them at 12.5g per scoop. Each serving of FIT contains four proprietary blends, which include the Endurance and VO2 Max Complex (5.2g), Power Complex (4.8g), Energy and Focus Complex (451mg) and its Electrolyte Blend (330mg). Without accounting for other ingredients, this equates to almost 10.8 grams of power inducing powder.
So Which Is Right For Me?
Deciding on which one to choose other the other really comes down to what you want. In the end, Adrenolyn BULK is more along the lines of power lifting and is the more common type of ingredient list, while FIT takes a more nootropic and anatomical based approach. Both are fine and helpful.
The Bottom Line on Black Market Labs AdreNOlyn BULK
Black Market Labs Adrenolyn BULK has a few good ingredients, but their dosages could be improved. It also uses a proprietary blend that hides most ingredient dosages, so it’s tough to say whether or not they’re effective. When compared to leading competitors, BML BULK simply has fewer ingredients and lower dosages at a higher cost. Until transparency is established and its overall ingredient profile is improved, we’d go with something else that can provide better results for less of the cost.