Thread: NO2 Products, why they don't work...

So, you wanna get some cobra-like veins popping out all over your body. You work hard in the gym but you still are not quite where you wanna be. You have tried all of the NO2 products out there, but none of them work. So what is the problem, are all these supplemenets crap? What other reason could their be? Well look in the mirror my friend and you will find your answer.

Of the NO2 products out there, most use L-Arginine. L-Arginine is a precursor to Nitric Oxide, a powerful vasodilator. So powerful, in fact, most of the drugs that are used to lower BP/cholesterol (Lipitor) do so by RELEASING nitric oxide, releasing being the key word. L-Arginine is merely a substrate that nitric oxide is made of, it in no way causes nitric oxide to be released. It would be like having 1000 gallons of water to put out a fire, but never turning on the hose. How the hell is that going to work?

So, we are now taking 8 grams of L-Arginine per day to make up for any deficiency we may have and we have the juice available for some mad nitric oxide production. So how do we release the stuff? Well the answer is where you probably didn't want to find it, cardiovascular exercise.

In blood vessels, shear stress on the endothelial wall causes the release of nitric oxide into the bloodstream. Increased blood flow is what causes shear stress on the endothelial wall and, therefore, is what will lead to the release of nitric oxide. Sure, you are hitting the weights hard, but what does that get your heart rate up to, about 60%? How long does your heart rate stay up, 15-20 seconds? You are not really pumping the blood through, are you? Also, the milking action of the muscles on the blood vessels that occurs when you do cardiovascular exercise awill add to the shear stress caused by the blood flow.

Citrulline Malate and other products have come out that are supposed to be better than L-Arginine. Most are merely precursors to L-arginine so they will still require shear stress on the endothelial wall in order for nitric oxide to be released. To be quite honest, I have no idea how they could be better than L-Arginine since, being precursors, they have other paths they can take which would mean not all of it would lead to L-Arginine. From the literature, it seems that most are saying these L-Arginine precursors are more readily absorbed. I have no idea as to whether this is true or not, but regardless, cardio is a requirement for these products to really work.


PS-I realize I have not referenced anything here, but my connection is a piece of shit and I have been booted 4 times since starting this little piece. If you don't believe a part of this, look it up, I googled pretty much everything and alot of the sources have abstracts through google.

FWIW, I just ordered some Swole v.2 and SAN V12 (original), and really look forward to testing them off cycle (on MDien and Etched, cutting, right now).