There’s a good reason why KAGED MUSCLE has become the fastest going supplement in Bodybuilding.com history. There’s also a reason why PRE-KAGED® is one of the highest rated pre workout. Today’s article will scientifically breakdown each and every ingredient explaining what makes PRE-KAGED® such a success.
SIZE MATTERS
Contrary to what some people may say, “size does matter”. There’s a reason the scoop in PRE-KAGED® is double, triple and even 5x bigger than most pre workouts. Quite simply, this sized scoop is required to fit every research proven ingredient in at that correct dosage.
Although this makes obvious sense when you think about it, most people and supplement companies ignore this fact. Just because other leading supplements list all the key ingredients, if they aren’t used in the correct dose they are totally worthless and just a clever marketing trick.
THE INGREDIENTS
As you may know, PRE-KAGED® packs a ton of key ingredients which will help you train harder and for longer yet aid recovery and also help you grow faster. Here are the key ingredients:
- BCAA
- Creatine HCI
- PurCaf Caffeine
- Carnosyn Beta Alanine
- Fermented Citrulline
- BetaPower Betaine
These ingredients in RE-KAGED® are a complete package and research on each ingredient has shown they may help you with:
- Get more reps and total workout volume
- Increase strength,
- Improve your focus,
- Help you reduce your perception of effort,
- Help increase muscle protein synthesis,
- Release more fat from your stored fat cells
- Burn more fat
- Increase the pump
- Improve recovery
- Burn more calories
- Reduce muscle soreness
This really is correct: the ingredients in RE-KAGED® provide ALL the benefits listed above, backed by hundreds of peer-reviewed medical journals. Here is a short breakdown of what each ingredient does and how it may help you achieve your fitness goals.
L-CITRULLINE
L-Citrulline is an amino acid and is turned into L-Arginine once it reaches the kidneys. Despite what you may be thinking, L-Citrulline is actually more beneficial than L-Arginine.
L-Citrulline’s main mechanism is its action of increasing Nitric Oxide (NO). Nitric Oxide plays an important role in vasodilation and blood flow. When you increase NO levels, the blood vessels dilate or relax, which in turn enables more nutrient-rich blood to reach the working muscles. Remember, blood also carries oxygen to the muscles and also plays a role in removing deoxygenated blood from them.
This balance between fresh oxygenated blood and deoxygenated blood is important, helping our muscles contract with full intensity and resist fatigue. The deoxygenated blood also plays a role in waste product removal. Waste products, such as hydrogen ions increase with each rep.
L-Citrulline may also improve cell swelling, one of the 3 main mechanisms behind muscle growth. In addition to that “awesome feeling”, cell swelling initiates a cascade of important physiological processes which grow muscle. These include activation of the mTOR pathway and an increase in Muscle Protein Synthesis, a primary pathway behind muscle growth.
Citrulline may also help reduce fatigue via the reduction of “ammonia”, which is discussed in the next section.
Here are some of the research proven benefits that L-Citrulline may provide:
- Reduces fatigue
- Increased work capacity
- Reduced muscle soreness
- Increases ‘Nitric Oxide’ levels
- Improves blood flow
- Increases arginine levels
- Increases Growth Hormone levels post workout
- Increases Amino Acid uptake
- May aid in ATP (energy) resynthesis between sets
- May allow for increased training volume, a key mechanism behind muscle growth.
- Decrease blood pressure
- May improve immune system function by priming the neutrophils cells
- You get an awesome, skin splitting pump!
Long-term research has also supported the use of Citrulline. One study found Citrulline reduced muscle soreness by 30% following a 16 set chest workout and the Citrulline group performed more reps on the bench press (Perez-Guisado et al. 2010).
To get the benefits of Citrulline try using PRE-KAGED® (containing 6g of Citrulline) 30 – 60 minutes pre workout.
BETA-ALANINE
Beta-Alanine (BA) has become a top supplement in sports performance and bodybuilding. For those performing high intense training or higher repetition work, BA should be a staple pre-workout supplement.
BA works via increasing muscle carnosine levels, which help buffer the PH levels of the cell. In other words, it helps reduce the buildup of acid in the muscle, which causes weakness, fatigue and that burning sensation. By slowing this process down, it means you can continue to exercise at high intensities for longer, or perform more reps in the workout.
This allows you to produce more muscle damage, cell swelling and total volume. All of these are highlighted as the key mechanisms behind muscle growth.
In summary, BA may help with the following:
- Improve muscular endurance, allowing you to get more reps
- Improve short high-intensity anaerobic exercise
- Reduce fatigue, allowing you to train harder for longer
- Improve power output and strength
- Increase VO2 max, the key marker for aerobic exercise
- May also help reduce fat mass due to improved workout performance
- Can help with hormonal alterations from training, such as cortisol and growth hormone.
CREATINE
Creatine is probably the number 1 muscle building supplement in the world. It’s been around for 200 years and has over 500 clinical journals supporting its use. Research has shown it is so powerful that some sporting organizations are considering banning it. It is also often confused with anabolic steroids, although it is a totally legal and a natural substance.
Creatine primarily works by aiding ATP regeneration. The body can only store enough ATP for around 8 - 10 seconds of high-intensity exercise. After this time it works on producing new ATP to meet the demands of that activity. The speed of this process is what limits us from continually exercising at high intensities: if we have more creatine we can restore ATP faster and keep our muscles contracting at a maximum intensity.
Short-term supplementation has shown it can improve sprint performance, jump performance, 1 rep max squat, 1 rep max bench press, amount of reps performed in a set, more total volume per workout etc.
In summary, Creatine can provide the following benefits:
- Improve power output and strength
- Increase muscle mass and muscle fullness
- Increase short high-intensity anaerobic exercise
- Improve sports performance, swimming, sprinting, jumping etc
- Reduce fatigue, allowing you to train harder for longer
- Fatigue resistance, allowing you to maintain performance from set 1 to the end
- Could also reduce muscle damage and aid recovery
PRE-KAGED® uses Creatine HCI which has improved bioavailability and ensures the highest quality product in an efficacious dose.
BCAAs
Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAA) consists of 3 key essential amino acids, Leucine, Isoleucine and Valine. These 3 amino acids play a key role in Muscle Protein Synthesis - the main mechanisms behind building muscle and reducing muscle breakdown.
PRE-KAGED® utilizes the correct, research proven dose of BCAA, a 2:1:1 ratio. Although you may have seen 8:1:1 or even 10:1:1 this is basically just leucine with insignificant amounts of the other 2 BCAA. Although Leucine is definitely key, research has shown that all 3 BCAA are important and too much of just 1 type can be detrimental.
BCAA play an important role in reducing muscle break down and increasing muscle building known as “Muscle Protein Synthesis”.
They can also beneficial for reducing fatigue or rate of perceived exertion in your workout. This is due to Valine’s role in reducing the effects of serotonin on the brain which leads to fatigue / tiredness.
The BCAA in PRE-KAGED® are also a natural fermented version. This means they are extracted and processed correctly, avoiding the negatives you may receive from synthetic BCAA production. The artificial manufacturing process can decrease the quality and increases the allergen and intolerance risk -- Bird Feathers and Human Hair.
BETAPOWER - BETAINE
Betaine is obtained in the diet via the muscle building vegetable, beetroot. The patented supplement version of betaine is BetaPower™, a purified form of anhydrous betaine. New research shows it can improve physical performance, especially strength, power and muscle endurance.
BetaPower™ has the equivalent of around 5 whole beetroots and is clinically tested to contain a minimum of 99% pure betaine. The patented product also ensures the highest quality which is free from harmful chemicals and contaminates.
BetaPower™ has many health and performance benefits. In short, research has shown betaine can:
- Increase strength
- Increase power
- Increase muscle mass
- Increase aerobic capacity
- Help with high blood pressure
- Aid cardiovascular health
- Reduce the oxygen demand of exercise, meaning you can work more efficiently
- Improve aerobic exercise performance
- May reduce your rate of perceived exertion (e.g. how hard an exercise feels).
- Reduce inflammation
- Increase skeletal muscle creatine content
- with preliminary data in kidney health, help with increased blood flow and have anti-ageing properties.
As you can see, Betaine or BetaPower™ has many benefits, including health, physique and performance.
The benefits of BetaPower™ are due to Betaine, a derivative of amino acid glycine. Betaine is known as an osmolite and methyl donor. While the osmolite aspect helps protect cells, proteins and enzymes from environmental stress, the methyl donor aspect can aid in performance.
As a methyl donor, betaine participates in the methionine cycle which can assist the synthesis of creatine. This is one of the primary mechanisms behind Betapower™ and Betaine’s performance enhancing effects. Methionine may also play a role in muscle protein synthesis and translation, which, again, could aid in body composition and performance.
Several studies have recently investigated the use of Betaine or BetaPower™ in gym-based exercise. Hoffman et al. (2009) found the use of BetaPower helped increase the number of reps performed over 3 sets. This is vitally important, as total volume, (i.e. the amount of reps and weight lifted per workout) is a key mechanism behind muscle growth.
Another study by Lee et al. (2010) found a significant increase in bench press throw power, isometric bench press force, vertical jump power and isometric squat force when supplementing with BetaPower.
Betaine or BetaPower™ research suggests it may aid in cardiovascular health, blood flow and exercise performance. It is one of the few supplements that may help with health AND performance. PRE-KAGED® has the research proven dose of 1.5g of BetaPower™, take it 30 – 60 minutes pre workout.
CAFFEINE
Caffeine is a commonly used substance with over 90% of the US population using some form of caffeine on a regular basis. In sport, weight lifting and exercise it is known as a powerful drug and banned from many sports organizations and events.
It is one of the few supplements that has been repeatedly proven in research. Interestingly, it’s the key supplements in most pre workouts due to it being cheap and extremely effective. That’s correct, most poorly formulated pre workouts are just expensive caffeine, with the rest of the ingredients not being backed by research or being incorrectly dosed.
Caffeine can provide an array of benefits, including increased focus, reaction time, reduced fatigue, tiredness, improved power, total reps performed, increased fat burning and fat oxidation.
As you can see, many of these benefits relate directly to a bodybuilder or athlete’s goals. This makes caffeine a staple supplement for many athletes and bodybuilders.
Some studies have shown you can burn 30% more fat by taking Caffeine pre workout, other studies have shown it drastically improves strength on squat and bench press.
PRE-KAGED® uses the research proven dose of caffeine; it is also uses PURCAF™ organic caffeine which ensures the following:
- Organic Certified
- Non-Genetically Engineered
- 90% Pure Caffeine
- Chemical-Free Extraction – Water Extracted
- Plant-Based Energy – Not Synthetic
- Water Soluble
- Clear in Solution
- Neutral Taste and Odor Free
SUMMARY
As you can see, RE-KAGED® is a perfect combination of supplements, provided in the correct doses and utilizing the purest, patented ingredients. At present, there is no other pre workout mix that can match the dosing, quality and combination RE-KAGED® has to offer.
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