About
1Up for Men is a pre-workout manufactured by 1 Up Nutrition. It is designed to increase energy, focus and endurance, while also enhancing muscle pumps.
The pre-workout contains a host of common ingredients. Citrulline malate, beta-alanine, L-norvaline and agmatine sulfate are all said to increase muscle pumps and raise endurance.
L-tyrosine is a non-essential amino acid that is said to improve focus under stress, while caffeine is a well-known stimulant which could improve energy, attention, motivation and endurance. Meanwhile, L-theanine is thought to work synergistically with caffeine to induce a “calm alertness”.
1Up for Men is – or has been – available in seven flavors: “Dragon Fruit Mojito”, “Raspberry Sorbet”, “Blue Raspberry”, “Green Apple”, “Key Lime Ice”, “Island Mango” and “Candy Watermelon”.
Unheard0f –
“It Could Probably Raise Me From the Dead”
—-Introduction—-
I’ll just admit it now, I’ve been staking out the 1-Up Nutrition website for quite a while now. I’ve done my fair share of adding products to the cart, filling out all necessary checkout information, and as soon as payment pops up I change my mind & pretend I was never even there. See, I’m a broke mid-20’s male who just doesn’t get many chances to dish out good money on supplements. Conveniently one day I was lifting with a friend who uses 1-Up, he spent a solid 5 sets talking up their BCAA’s and how the pre-workout could probably raise him from the dead. Some time later as we were hogging parking lots just talking about nonsense, he reaches into his trunk and throws me an open bottle of 1-Up Pre-Workout, saying how he’s only used a scoop of it and I can take it since he was leaving for vacation and had more at his house. Get yourself some good friends, folks. 1-Up All-in-One Pre-Workout is exactly what it claims to be, all-in-one. It delivers high end energy, backs up all that talk with a good pump & endurance complex, with the cherry on top being the extremely effective focus complex. I stayed hesitant to make all these claims leading up to the end of my first week with it but this effectiveness carried all the way through until the last scoop, which is when I found myself staring at the bottom of an empty bottle wishing more would magically appear in front of me. With all these good things to say though, what exactly are all of these transparent complex’s made up of? Let’s dig a little deeper.
—-Ingredient Profile—-
Right off the bat one will notice the completely transparent ingredient label consisting of two complex’s, the ‘Pump Volumizer & Endurance Complex’, and ‘Energy & Focus Complex’. 1-Up deserves major points for breaking down every single ingredient individually, utilizing a half-scoop and full-scoop dosing chart. Half-scoop did the job for the first few days but the full-scoop really brings the noise, and is a noticeable jump compared to the half-scoop. The ‘Pump and Endurance’ blend is jam packed, featuring a full 8g of Citrulline Malate, 3.2g of Carnosyn Beta Alanine, 1g of Agmatine Sulfate & 200mg of L-Norvaline. The 8g of Citrulline Malate combined with Agmatine and L-Norvaline bring the pump fast and does a really great job of keeping it around. This is my first time using a product featuring L-Norvaline though, being a water dissolvable amino acid in the same family as the more popular Valine, it’s a unique addition to this already packed complex. To say it’s effectiveness added anything on top of the other ingredients is hard to say, but my pump was incredible time & time again so it must’ve been doing something! Our second complex is the locked & loaded ‘Energy & Focus’ blend, packing a huge punch with a 500mg Caffeine Complex. Instead of opting just for the Caffeine Anhydrous, which makes up for 400mg of the blend, we also get 50mg of Di-Caffeine Malate & 50mg of Caffeine Citrate. After all of your stimulants comes a well put together focus blend made up of Higenamine HCL, Hordenine HCL, L-Theanine, DMAE, N-MethylTyramine HCL & Rauwolfia Vomitoria Extract. If you genuinely find yourself having a hard time mentally dialing in at the gym, 1-Up covers all of it’s bases when it comes to focus. Within the half hour after taking, I noticed a huge change in my mood and motivation, as well as the ability to really focus on my mind-muscle connection, which is something I always find myself struggling with. —-Taste/Mixability—- I constantly find myself comparing every Blue Raspberry supplement I take with Cellucor’s Icy Blue Razz, being as that was the first pre-workout I ever used and the one I bought endlessly for the first few years of training. 1-Up’s Blue Raspberry is really good, a little sweeter than most I’ve tried & a little tart, but I enjoyed it. I would sip on it during my drive and genuinely enjoyed it rather than what I usually do with most, which is down it as fast as I can to get it over with. I had almost no issues with mixability, with the exception of the few times I used a shaker without a mixing ball where I found a few small spots of powder clumping to the bottom edges. I blame that on more of using a damp bottle rather than an actual issue with the product. It always mixed smooth and never once did I find myself swallowing chunks of powder, not even after letting it sit in the water while I prepared to leave for the gym.
—-Effectiveness—-
1-Up plays no games when it comes to covering all of it’s bases, the consistency of it’s effectiveness throughout the 25 servings is awesome. I’d drink it on my way to the gym, and would start lifting anywhere from 25-30 minutes after finishing it. Believe it or not, this doesn’t kick you in the butt like a lot of pre’s do, instead the energy delivery is smooth. I would feel the itch & alertness begin to kick in during my warm ups, allowing me to finish them without going crazy and ease into my first exercise. It was about this time the energy hit it’s peak, and it lasted well over 3/4 of all of my workouts, including leg day which always drains my energy as quickly as I drink the pre-workout. It was about the 75-minute mark where the energy would seem to drop off a little bit, but all while still keeping me alert and awake enough to finish the workout with zero issues. I was most impressed with how much clean energy carried a good chunk of the day following a morning workout, getting me through lunch and the first few hours of work with no noticeable tiredness or need to reach for the nearest energy drink. 1-Up’s ability to enhance focus & pump though is where I’m impressed the most, since I’m a firm believer that the two go hand-in-hand, I could always guarantee that my pump would blow up within the first few post-warm up sets. Combined with a well thought out warm up and exercise selection, 1-Up delivers blood flow quickly, and keeps it around the entire duration of the workout. I’ve tried a few other pre-workouts where I would notice a drop off muscle fullness eventually, but I never found that happening until a good while after my workout. I thought maybe it was just me keeping the volume high & the rest low, but one workout without using 1-Up quickly debunked that though. I typically struggle with focusing in enough on my mind-muscle connection as my mind seems to wander around quite a bit, but there was a noticeable difference in my ability to focus using this product. I felt mentally prepared for whatever the workout was going to hit me with & never noticed my mind wearing out as the workout reached it’s final stages. On a few occasions, I felt good enough to extend my workout’s by a few sets or even a few exercises if my training partner felt the need too, which is something I usually decline doing since I’m always so drained by the end of training. I’d say I enjoyed the product more for these cognitive effects and it’s ability to increase blood & nutrition flow very quickly, more than I enjoy it as a stimulant. Typically I would judge a pre-workout based on how it physically kicked my butt in the gym, but 1-Up delivered a full package with just enough of everything to make me very happy.
—-Value—-
As I said earlier, I staked out 1-Up’s website on multiple occasions waiting for the day I completed that checkout process. 1-Up Pre-workout runs your pockets for a hefty $54.99 regular price, but I noticed a lot of 10% coupons floating around the site which knocks it down to $49. At only 25 Servings if using full dose, you’re paying more than $2 per serving if you’re unlucky enough to not have a discount code. Half a scoop brings the product up to 50 servings which is more than suitable for your average gym-goer not looking to stim up like a mad man, and makes things a bit easier when it comes to that price tag. There are plenty of pre-workouts who will pack the punch and deliver a good pump for much cheaper than 1-Up, which makes it hard to say if the product is worth grabbing month after month without wearing out your wallet. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone in any sort of contest prep or extreme caloric deficit, as it’s strong enough to really help fight the negatives that come along side training during those times, but it’s worth a bottle or two if you’re looking to try out something new from a relatively smaller brand.
—-Side Effects—-
No side effects were found personally by me, but I must say that L-Norvaline has been reported on a few occasions for raising blood pressure. Most nitric-oxide based ingredients aren’t recommended for somebody dealing with blood pressure issues, but the few articles I read on Norvaline really made it a point more than I’ve noticed when researching most N.O. ingredients.
—-Conclusion—-
1-Up really surprised me here, I can’t come up with a single negative experience over the 24 days I used the product. The price is pretty hefty but much like the packaging claims, it’s an all-in-one pre-workout that executes extremely well. If you can handle the 500 total milligrams of caffeine that come with the full scoop serving, there should be no reason not to have some incredible training sessions while using 1-Up. If you are hesitant about dishing out the cash, you can request sample packs via the chat option on the brands website, which I did to try out some of their other products which I hope stand up to the same effectiveness as their pre-workout. In the famous words of my friend who makes enough money to give this stuff away, “it will raise you from the dead”.