Optygen...any Good?



gooders

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Jul 30, 2004
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I'm just loading up with Optygen for the London Tri on Sunday. Apart from some mild wind (though this may be related to the many curries I eat) I haven't experienced any negative side effects. Thought I'd give it a go after reading a review in Triathelete. I did a 10m TT this week and was able to sustain a higher heart rate than normal (178 average, sustaining 183 + for the last 5 mins, my max is 190). I normally average 174....the only other observation so far is that I felt fine the following day, whereas normally my legs feel a little heavy.

Have any of you used optygen? are there any independent reviews or clinical tests of optygen?

I'm approaching the end of the bottle and not sure whether its worth investing more in Optygen or whether I'd get a similar effect from loading with Phosphate (which is much cheaper) for my next big race HIMUK at the end of August.

thanks
 
gooders said:
I'm just loading up with Optygen for the London Tri on Sunday. Apart from some mild wind (though this may be related to the many curries I eat) I haven't experienced any negative side effects. Thought I'd give it a go after reading a review in Triathelete. I did a 10m TT this week and was able to sustain a higher heart rate than normal (178 average, sustaining 183 + for the last 5 mins, my max is 190). I normally average 174....the only other observation so far is that I felt fine the following day, whereas normally my legs feel a little heavy.

Have any of you used optygen? are there any independent reviews or clinical tests of optygen?

I'm approaching the end of the bottle and not sure whether its worth investing more in Optygen or whether I'd get a similar effect from loading with Phosphate (which is much cheaper) for my next big race HIMUK at the end of August.

thanks

there's one peer reviwed piece of research about Optygen -- if memory serves me correctly it came out about 2 months ago and is in Med Sci Sport and Exe. First Author is Conrad Earnest, and no ergogenic effect was found.

Phosphate loading with tribasic sodium phosphate, does appear to provide an increase in power output of ~ 8% in a laboratory 10-mile TT, we have a paper (A) in Canadian j of Appl Phys. A full paper coming soon.

Where do you get your phosphate from -- it appears to be very hard to come by (although is dirt cheap). Make sure you get the right type...

ric
 
Ric,

thanks for the reply, I read the abstract......reproduced without permission.....



"RESULTS: Using a 2 × 2 ANOVA, we observed no significant treatment effect for any between or within group variables including Peak VO2 (Treatment 4.14 (0.2) L•min-1; Placebo 4.10 (0.2) L•min-1), time to exhaustion (Treatment 38.47 (1.7) min; Placebo 36.95 (1.8 min), peak power output (PO) (Treatment 300.00 (12.1) W); Placebo 290.63 (12.9) W), or peak heart rate (HR). CONCLUSION: A 2-week ingestion schema of a commercial herbal-based formula is insufficient to elicit positive changes in cycling performance."

I'm amazed that they consider an increase of peak power output of 10 watts to be insignificant.....I'd love to gain an extra 10 watts for a 40km TT in my next triathlon!.....or am I mis-interpreting their results.

thanks