Review: F3 Nutrition Pre-Workout Supplements

This week we take a closer look at F3 Nutrition’s pre-workout supplements, Air Speed and Annihilate.

Items: Air Speed and Annihilate
Price: Air Speed – US$49, Annihilate – US$49
Manufacturer: F3 Nutrition
Purchase: www.F3Nutrition.com

I’ve been training at CrossFit gyms for a number of years now, and I admit, there have been many times when I’ve walked into my box and just didn’t have the energy, or motivation to workout.

Whether it be due to the stresses from a tough day at work, or simply a lack of sleep I’ve had during the week, sometimes I simply don’t feel like training.

While I don’t like relying on pre-workout supplements to get me up and going for a workout, sometimes when you are flat and unmotivated, they can be quite helpful. In addition, they can also help improve your performance while training.

In the past month, I was asked to put F3 Nutrition to the test, and review two of their pre-workout supplements: Air Speed and Annihilate.

F3 Nutrition is not a complete stranger to the functional fitness market. The brand has sponsored a few competitions in the past year, and was once the sponsor of 6th place finisher at the 2011 and 2012 CrossFit Games, Dan Bailey.

In terms of their name F3 stands for fit, form and function. Their mission is to:

“Provide exceptional nutritional products that supplements a healthy lifestyle and support athletes fitness goals. Our products will be engineered to be safe and effective nutrition products that are free of banned substances and exceeds the performance expectations of athletes worldwide.”

Here is the two pre-workout supplements I reviewed over the past few weeks:

AIR SPEED™ has been developed using ingredients clinically proven to support the oxygen carrying capacity of blood, increase lactic threshold, enhance VO2 Max, improve endurance performance, promoted greater gains in lean body mass, support immune system defenses and enhance recovery. The extra oxygen significantly increases the muscles’ energy production and can help improve athletic performance, intensity and duration.

ANNIHILATE™ Strength Pre-Workout: provides the perfect balance of energy, power and pump for an outstanding pre-workout supplement without the crash-like side effects many pre-workout supplements have. At F3 Nutrition, we’ve combined three scientifically designed ingredient blends to enable you to ANNIHILATE™ your workout.

Descriptions and background aside lets get to the review.

The Good:

They work – I took both the Air Speed and Annihilate before training at my CrossFit affiliate, playing football and before long ocean swims. Most times I took the supplements, I noticed a slight increase in energy, motivation and overall performance. While I didn’t notice ground-breaking improvements, I did feel a little more confident and energetic.

No jitters – One thing I hate about pre-workout supplements is the jitters. Feeling like you can’t stop moving or like you won’t be able to sleep that night is terrible. F3 Nutrition pre-workout supplements didn’t make me feel that way, and the boost I experienced felt natural.

Taste – I tried a few different flavors of Air Speed and Annihilate and I didn’t have a problem with either of them. Both supplements were also very easy to mix and quite easy to take.

No crash – I was actually pretty impressed with this. Most energy supplement claims “no crash”, but this isn’t always true. I remember the first time I took caffeine tablets before a game of football. I ended up getting heavy eyes at half time, and felt completely fatigued once the game was over. I never crashed using both F3 Nutrition supplements and didn’t notice any post workout fatigue either.

The Bad:

Tingle – After taking Annihilate I felt my fingers tingle a little bit. It was nothing major, and could easily have been just a personal reaction. It didn’t really affect me much, and I didn’t notice it with the Air Speed.

Too much energy – I don’t take pre-workout supplements too often, so it’s fair to say I felt a bit energetic while taking these supplements. It’s hard to call it a bad thing, but sometimes I actually felt like I had too much energy, and it sometimes distracted me from what I was there to do – train!

Price – Both supplements aren’t that cheap and will set you back a little more than other pre-workout supplements on the market. A tub of Annihilate sells online for $50 for just over 400 grams. A tub of Air Speed will set you back around $45 for a tub just under 400 grams.

Conclusion

Overall, I had a decent experience with both F3 Nutrition supplements.

While I didn’t notice any immediate, noticeable improvements in my performance, I did feel slightly more energetic and motivated while working out.

Specifically, I found Annihilate to be slightly more affective. I noticed more positive effects while using the supplement compared to when I took Air Speed. Although overall, they were both quite similar.

** UPDATED February 20, 2014:

As i’ve been training for an Ironman Triathlon over the past year, I decided to purchase a tub of Air Speed recently to help me push through the long, endurance based workouts. While I didn’t experience any post-workout crash or jitters during training, I didn’t find the supplement as effective as I did the first time I tried it. 

When I initially tested Air Speed and Annihilate over a year ago, I had mostly positive experiences with both of the supplements. My most recent experience with Air Speed, however, wasn’t as positive, and I didn’t feel as though I had as much energy and motivation as I was expecting. That being said, the supplement still worked, and I still felt some positive effects without experiencing any real ‘crash’ after training.

I also found the price of the supplement to be a sticking point. For $50 a tub, I wouldn’t say Air Speed is great value, and for me, there are other supplements I would prefer to spend my money on. However, if you are someone who finds it hard to get motivated for training, and money isn’t much of an issue, then the supplement might be worth considering.