Blonyx CrossFit Supplements

There’s no denying CrossFit is a strenuous sport. The loads and stress you put your body through day after day, WOD after WOD means getting out of bed or walking down a set of stairs is just plain difficult at times 🙂

We all know much of the reason for this is based on recovery. Yet making time to ensure we properly warm-up, cool-down, stretch, mobilize, have your pre and post WOD meals, then get enough sleep before you do it all again the next day can be a difficult balancing act. That’s when the whole issue to supplement or not to supplement comes in.

There are some like Robb Wolf who think taking supplements are not necessary and you can get all your nutritional requirements from Paleo foods. Yet others say taking a protein powder and a few other supplements are a necessity to help aid recovery. So deciding what works best for you is a bit of a minefield.

Over the years I have managed to find what works best for me, although this hasn’t come easily. I have tried, tested and taken the myriad sport supplements on the market. I’m often trying different protein powders and a variety of supplements and then cutting them out altogether. I like seeing how my body responds when I introduce or omit a product or food from my diet.

I like to test what happens if I cut out fish oil? Do I notice the difference in my recovery if I take pre or post WOD meal with some BCAAs? The reason for this constant trial and error process is because over the years I have come to understand that every body is different and have found that some things people swear by have just never worked for me. Therefore the only way of ensuring something actually works is to test it for yourself.

Although since starting Paleo I have tried cutting out as many unnecessary foods and supplements as I can. Until recently I was only taking a protein powder but now that too has been given the flick. That is not to say I won’t take it again but for now I like how my body is reacting and recovering to workouts without it.

Ahhh how times have changed. When I used to go to my local globo-gym I took pretty much everything and anything under the sun. From some common supplements like protein powder, L-Carnitine, BCAAs, glutamine, creatine, tribulus, HMB to some uncommon like Ma Huang, Chromium, Hydroxycitric Acid, Forskolin and whatever else the guy at the shop said to try.

I had both good and bad experiences on many of these supplements. The bad being the fact I spent a lot of cash but got little results. Walk into a supplements store today and you will be flooded with the range and choice. We recently reported about the dangers of some sports supplements so trying to choose something that you can trust, is free of preservatives, unnecessary chemicals and does not require a linguistics Professor to pronounce can be a challenge.

Yet recently a company called Blonyx contacted me and it appears they may just tick all those boxes. Rowan Minnion is a former sportsman turned CrossFitter who founded the Blonyx Biosciences company in 2010. He graduated from Glasgow University with a Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology before moving to Iowa State University where he played varsity soccer and carried out research in HMB and other supplement ingredients such as creatine. After gaining a First Class Masters in Physiology and Sports Science he worked as researcher, testing supplements for athletic and medical purposes for a US based biotech company before he took a job as sleep researcher.

After working for others for so many years Rowan decided to take his expertise and knowledge of CrossFit and launch his own CrossFit focused supplements company. Knowing how concerned the community is about chemicals in their diet, Rowan spent much of the development stage making sure his products were Paleo friendly by ensuring they were free of any additives, preservatives or fillers of any kind.

Blonyx is a company that is growing within the community sponsoring such athletes as Blair Morrison of CrossFit Anywhere, Ricky Frausto of CrossFit Omaha and Steve Howell of CrossFit Whistler. Others such as Jason Khalipa, Pat Barber, Jamie Hagiya, Jarett Perelmutter and Neal Maddox are all currently using and testing Blonyx supplements.

Blonyx has two products on the market, HMB Sport and HMB+ Creatine. Rowan claims they are the “purest HMB based products” available today. The HMB Sport is essentially nothing more than capsules containing HMB bound to calcium. It is completely natural and usually found in foods like grapefruit, alfalfa and catfish. The HMB+ Creatine is simply the HMB and as the packaging says includes creatine. Creatine is found in red meat and fish and is due to this Rowan states, “Like all Blonyx supplements, HMB+ Creatine’s ingredients are consistent with the paleo diet ethos as they are all from foods that would normally exist in a hunter-gatherer’s diet. It is highly likely that meat eating cavemen living amongst the grapefruit trees were the fittest around.”

Blonyx suggests, “HMB reduces the muscle damage caused by heavy weight training while allowing quicker recovery and improved performance in the next training session,” while creatine “on the other hand, increases both muscle mass and strength when combined with heavy lifting or sprinting.”

Rowan recently sent me a bottle of HMB Sport and HMB+ Creatine to test. So for the next month, I’ll be using the HMB+ Creatine to see if I notice a difference in my overall strength and recovery.

It’s been a long time since I have taken either creatine or HMB so I’m interested to see if I notice any difference. I know not all supplements are created equal so in just over 30-days time I’ll report back to you my unscientific thoughts.

In the meantime if you would like to test out some of Blonyx supplements for yourself then now is your chance. Blonyx is giving away a choice of either their HMB Sport or HMB+ Creatine to one lucky Rx Review reader.

All you have to do is comment on our Facebook Page tagging The Rx Review. For those that don’t know how to tag a Facebook Page all you need to do is write “@The Rx Review” and answer the question, “Why you would like to win some Blonyx Supplements.”

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on which side of the globe you sit, the competition is only open to those inside the United States and Canada. We will close the competition 6pm Pacific Time, Saturday the 14th of April 2012.

If you like to find out more about Blonyx you can read more on their site here.

I’ll give you a full review of my experiences in the next month. In the meantime best of luck!

For the record we should note that we are receiving no commission or cut of any kind from Blonyx sales. The only thing that has been provided to us are the two bottles for review purposes and the opportunity for one of our readers to try the product.

-Michael 🙂