No bull.
If you were looking to sell a pre exercise product (or, indeed, any exercise product,) and wanted an effective animal mascot, chances are the hulking cattle bull might be near the top of your shortlist.
Formidably mean and muscular, the bull has long been a bye-word for staunchness, strength, and sexual virility (they don’t call it ‘the horn’ for nothing, you know..)
With this in mind, it makes sense that Betancourt Nutrition would opt to have one charging from the B-Nox Androrush label (as well as all of their other products.)
Previously referred to as ‘Bullnox’ Androrush, Betancourt say that it’s the first nitric oxide (NO) based pre-workout that also offers a special t-boosting blend to promote workout aggression and pumps.
Let’s grab this fella by the pointy conical things, then, and see what it’s made of…
B-Nox Androrush comes in seven flavors: Strawberry Lemonade, Orange, Watermelon, Green Apple, Grape, and Fruit Punch.
Let’s see how it scores, then we’ll look at the ingredients in detail.
Androrush is composed of several proprietary blends (focusing on strength, endurance, anabolic solidification and endocrine ignition.) This means that whilst all ingredients are listed, specific quantities aren’t.
Many pre workout makers will claim that this is to protect their unique formulas from being copied. The suspicion, though, is that it hands them the perfect opportunity to under-dose expensive ingredients and load their products with dubious fillers.
In terms of what you get, Androrush is a real mixed bag, from the good (creatine, BCAA, beetroot extract,) to the bad and the just plain puzzling (beta alanine, glutamine).
It’s all pretty academic, however, when you just don’t know the doses.
Prices for B-Nox Androrush vary, with the average between about $40-45 (£30-35) for a thirty five serving container. Not extortionate, but hardly cheap either. A middling score in this round.
Information on professional bodybuilder Jon De La Rosa and other athletes can be found on Betancourt’s website, and interesting though it is, it doesn’t tell us much about the company’s products.
User testimonials generally hold more currency, and those for B-Nox generally seem positive (with a handful complaining about crashes and headaches post use.)
There are several user testimonials on Betancourt Nutrition’s website, which, as you might imagine, are pretty glowing.
To be fair to them though, they have allowed a few poorer reviews to remain on their Facebook page – something many other companies would probably edit. Hats off to them for the honesty.
All of Betancourt Nutrition’s products are made in their own cGMP (certified for Good Manufacturing Practices) facility, which they proudly boast stands at over 200,000 square feet.
In spite of this, some of the claims the company make are to be taken with a pinch of salt. They say that all of their ingredients are ‘proven [and] research supported,’ but a quick glance at the product under review here disproves this.
It’s suggested, meanwhile, that you have ‘less chance’ of the jitters using B-Nox Androrush – but with helpings of caffeine, theobromine AND guarana, that seems a mite unlikely.
On top of this no company that uses proprietary blends scores well on our trust rating, so a 7 is as good as they can expect here.
Betancourt is one of the bigger names in this market, and it shows. Their online presence is suitably slick, they have a raft of celebrity athlete endorsements, and their products are readily available from a number of reputable outlets.
Founder Jorge ‘Chic’ Betancourt was a big name in bodybuilding himself in his day, and he seems to genuinely care about the company’s reputation and the quality of the products released under his name.
Dissolve one scoop (18.1g) in water 20-30 minutes before working out. Betancourt advises doing this on an empty stomach.
The product is readily available on Amazon, eBay and direct from the company’s own website.
It’s possible. With caffeine, theobromine and guarana all together in the same product you might get the side effects associted with excessive caffeine. So jitters, nausea, anxiety, dizziness.
Beta alanine is well known to cause problematic side effects in the form of itching and pins and needles.
From the Latin for ‘bull,’ this organic compound is found in high protein foodstuffs like red meat and fish. Essential for cardiovascular function, taurine is a common additive in energy drinks.
The good news is that it yields anti-oxidant properties post-exercise, as well as being an inhibitory neurotransmitter (in other word, it lowers the onset of pain and fatigue.) It’s thought to lower cholesterol, and it may even help to burn fat.
The flip side is that even in the case of an intensive meat-eating regime, no more than 200mg of dietary taurine per day would be expected in a healthy individual. Any excess amounts are simply excreted via the kidneys. That’s right: most of the 1000 to 2000mg hit you get in that energy drink just gets pee’d away.
Not much wonder, then, that research has shown that doses of between 1000 and 1600mg had no effect on strength training whatsoever [1].
As a proprietary blend, there’s no telling how much or how little taurine you’re getting in Androrush.
Like taurine, Beta Alanine is found in high protein foodstuffs. Unlike taurine, it doesn’t boast many conclusive benefits.
Although it’s found in plenty of pre-workouts, there’s not any research out there suggesting it improves muscle performance or raises the fatigue threshold.
What it definitely does do is induce some pretty wild pins and needles in doses of 1000mg and over. With the unknown quantity in B-Nox Androrush, that’s a chance you’d just need to take.
One of the mainstays of the pre-workout stable, and for good reason. Given the right doses (somewhere around 200-250mg,) caffeine will improve endurance, bolster athletic performance, and heighten focus.
Much more than that, however, and it has the tendency to cause jitters, headaches, and upset stomach. None of which will do much for your workout.
Sadly, there’s no way of telling if B-Nox got it right with the dosage on this ingredient. (Caffeine is also better paired with l-theanine, which helps to further boost its good properties whilst reducing jitters.)
Chemically similar to caffeine: both are xanthine alkaloids, both can be found in chocolate, and both have comparable effects on the body.
As well as being a stimulant, theobromine is a vasodilator – this means that it encourages the blood vessels to open wider, allowing more oxygen rich blood to travel to working muscles.
Although this is arguably exactly what you might want from a pre workout product, as ever the dosing is vital. It doesn’t take much theobromine (around 800 to 1,500mg) to induce sweating, trembling, severe headaches and mood swings [2].
As with other proprietary blends, B-Nox Androrush leaves you in the dark on this ingredient.
This high nitrate foodstuff extract is a natural NO booster. Doses of between 200 to 300mg will improve muscle oxygenation and athletic performance.
Do you get enough of it in B-Nox? Your guess is as good as ours.
Glutamine is a conditionally essential amino acid found in protein rich foods. Although it’s the most abundant free amino acid found in the body (amino acids can be thought of as the building blocks of protein,) this isn’t a good addition to B-Nox Androrush.
Having many uses in the field of medicine, there’s little clinical evidence out there that it will improve athletic performance when supplemented.
BCAA – Short for Branched chain Amino Acids. Composed of three amino acids: leucine, isoleucine and valine. BCAA is believed to prevent protein and muscle breakdown during exercise, whilst it has been shown to have anabolic effects on muscle tissue, both resting and post resistance exercise [3].
One of Androrush’s better ingredients.
Another good ingredient, and one of the most commonly used in pre workouts. Which is easy to understand when you consider the depth of peer reviewed research that shows it works, recycling cellular tissue and boosting endurance and strength.
With the ideal serving around the 1000mg mark, however, the problem with Androrush is you can’t be sure you’re getting enough.
A precursor to the neurotransmitters noradrenaline and dopamine, l-tyrosine is thought to reduce stress and fatigue. Most research indicates that it is only really beneficial in highly stressful environments (derivatives are often prescribed to soldiers in combat.)
Not the most effective ingredient for a pre-workout formula.
Derived from a plant extract, guarana contains more caffeine per weight than coffee beans. Although this might at first seem like a good thing (given caffeine’s proven benefits,) once again it’s all a question of dosages. Remember, around 200-250mg is best.
There’s no way of telling precisely how much high-caffeine guarana you’re getting in B-Nox Androrush, but chances are it’s too much, especially given the presence of caffeine and theobromine in this list already.
The extract of a South American vegetable related to the radish. This has been cultivated as a foodstuff and herbal remedy for centuries, and is currently used for a number of applications, from treating chronic fatigue syndrome to infertility.
Although its probably been included because of its links with improved athletic performance, there’s no documented evidence that Maca extract will actually provide this.
Another age old herbal remedy with a seemingly endless list of applications – none of which particularly hold up to much scientific scrutiny.
To be fair, there is some evidence that it can be used to treat osteoarthritis, but it’s still not likely to be of much use in a pre-workout supplement.
Black Pepper extract listed here under it’s trade name Bioperine. Better known as a table condiment, black pepper extract’s active component, piperine, can increase the absorption rate of other supplements and substances.
Although piperine’s affect on bioavailability can be beneficial, it can also actually inhibit uptake, and might even render some ingredients useless.
Because of its potency in this regard it is crucial to know how much is in the formula. In this case, we are left guessing.
Much like the raging beast on its label, Androrush definitely has its strengths. There are some good pre workout ingredients stuffed into this paddock.
Sadly however, there’s also definitely some bull. The proprietary blend approach is a major let down – you just don’t know what quantities you’re really getting, and in any case, with some of the ingredients any at all would be too much (not to say useless.)
You might achieve some reasonable pumps with this product, but it’s all a bit bull in a china shop for our liking – the smart money is on products with a similar (if not better) ingredients list, with quantities all properly documented.
[1] – https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-1024/taurine
[2] – https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search2/r?dbs+hsdb%3A%40term+%40DOCNO+7332#permalink
[3] – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16365096
