About
StrengthSeries Creatine HMB is a creatine monohydrate product made by Transparent Labs. It is formulated to increase strength, improve endurance, reduce body fat and prevent the loss of lean muscle.
This supplement contains three ingredients: creatine monohydrate, β-Hydroxy β-Methylbutyrate (HMB), and black pepper extract (as BioPerine®).
Creatine monohydrate is said to help the muscles produce energy during exercise, while the manufacturer says it includes HMB to help increase muscle strength, build lean mass and decrease fat.
Transparent Labs also says it uses black pepper extract to improve the “bioavailability” of other nutrients in the formula.
StrengthSeries Creatine HMB is – or has been – sold in two flavors: “Blue Raspberry” and “Unflavored”.
DaSlaya –
Straight from the Labs comes a Transparently simple and effect Creatine HMB product!!—-Introduction—-
38 years old and I lift 4 days a week. Creatine is something that I keep in my stack all the time, as I do believe in its benefits and does help me to keep that muscle fullness look. It is one of the most trusted and proven ingredients out there, which is also a perk. I saw that Transparent Labs had a Creatine HMB product, and wanted to give it a shot as I had never really taken HMB before. Plus this was a bounty product, so was a win win! I believe this combo has been around for a while, but was a new concept to me, so lets see how my run went.
—-Ingredient Profile—-
With a name like Transparent Labs you would expect them to have a transparent profile and they sure do here. Each 7.01g Scoop gets you 5,000mg of Creapure Creatine Monohydrate, 2g of Hydroxy Methylbutyrate (HMB), and 5mg of Bioperine for the absorption. Lets talk about Creatine and HMB: [u]Creatine:[/u] As per examine “Creatine is a molecule that can rapidly produce energy (ATP) to support cellular function. It also exhibits performance-enhancing and neuroprotective properties. Creatine is well-researched and remarkably safe for most people.” Creatine Monohydrate is the cheapest and is said to be the most effective. You can choose to load Creatine by taking .3g per kilogram of bodyweight per day for 5-7 days, followed with at least .03g/kg a day for three weeks, or take it indefinitely without a loading phase. 5g a day is a pretty common dosage for most people to see the benefits, but higher doses up to 10g a day may be beneficial for people with a high amount of muscle mass and high activity levels. Personally, I range between 5-10g a day, with my optimal dose being 8g, but I am okay with 5g here. [u]HMB:[/u] As per examine “HMB is an active metabolite of leucine that reduces muscle protein breakdown. It appears to have an anticatabolic role for muscle, but fails to be more effective than its parent amino acid for inducing muscle protein synthesis.” So basically HMB aids in recovery similar to the BCAA powerhorse Leucine, and is said to be more potent per gram than Leucine, but likely not as effective. Dosages for HMB range from 1-3g per day for the purpose of reducing muscle mass losses over time and that is the equivalent of 20-60g of Leucine. Okay, here is my one gripe with this product. If I wanted to supplement more than 5g of Creatine daily, which I typically do the best on 8g a day based on my body weight of 240 pounds, then i could not here, because it would exceed the recommended daily amount of HMB. That honestly is my only complain with this combination, but wanted to put that out early.
—-Taste/Mixability/Dosing—-
[u]Taste:[/u] Nothing here as I got unflavored. It smelled like an old gym bag, which oddly I seemed to like, it seems to be a common Creatine smell at least to me. No weird taste or anything. [u]Mixability:[/u] I found this mixed in great with Protein, BCAA’s or a PWO. It is a fine powder and a small serving which mixes easily and you don’t even realize its in your drink. I always mixed this with something flavored, I never did try it with just water alone. [u]Dosing:[/u] Directions state for 1 scoop following your training session and 1 scoop on rest days. The first couple weeks I took this post workout, but wanting to get the HMB benefits I moved to taking this pre workout. I found this to work better at reducing muscle soreness and DOMS for me taking this pre workout rather than post. Of note, this came in a small bag, which requires small hands once you get halfway done, so I just dumped the Creatine in a Tupperware container. Cute little package and a space saver, but may not be optimal if you have big hands like me.
—-Effectiveness—-
So 3g of HMB as a free acid taken 15-30 minutes prior to working out reduces muscle damage, but taken as a calcium salt (which is whats in here) is not as effective due to its longer absorption, this is taken from Examine.com. I found this product to be more effective at reducing my DOMS when I switched to taking this pre workout rather than post even with only 2g. So really thats just the HMB in here, but honestly I had no DOMS for weeks and I thought it was mostly due to my BCAA drink. I finished this last week and have had a few workouts without this and my DOMS are back, so yeah I can tell a big difference here. As a Creatine product, this is where it falls a bit short in my opinion. At only 5g a day of Mono I do not experience nice muscle fullness as I normally would when I take higher dosages on workout days. To me this is the main benefit of Creatine since it can train my muscles to get bigger. Not having the ability to double dose this to 10g a day really is a limiting factor. But understand that this is all based on your bodyweight, so if your around th 180 pound mark, 5g is all you truly need and this is great, so please keep that in mind. At 240 pounds my needs for Creatine are much more and I believe my sweet spot is around 8g. No this is not a placebo effect, I can tell big differences in my muscles based off my creatine dosages. I thought this was a pretty cool combination at the end of the day. This was a new concept to me, but I think its been around a while. Even if I only got 5g Creatine Mono per day, I still enjoyed this run and it really showed me the benefits you can get from HMB. If 5g of Creatine is what you normally would take, I would suggest you try this guy out.
—-Value—-
I picked this up from Transparent Labs themselves for $39 for 30 servings. That comes out to $1.30 a day. However, you can get 2 bags for $68 ($1.13 per) or 3 bags for $87 (97 cents per). I could not find this for sale anywhere else, as sites such as Esupplements just directed you back to Transparent Labs. So for Creatine Mono which is typically around 20-30 cents a scoop this is expensive, but HMB can be as cheap as 64 cents per 2g. So yeah your paying a bit more for this, but not too much. So average value for this combo, but you can just buy the items seperate for cheaper, but cheap HMB products such as HMB by ON do not contain Bioperine, so its not going to be as effective, so don’t forget that. I say this is an okay value overall, as it does work and is a thought out product with the added Bioperine.
—-Side Effects—-
Nothing at all.
—-Conclusion—-
I wish I could have dosed more Creatine on a daily basis, but for the average person this is a great product. I enjoyed feeling the benefits of HMB and found this to be a fun combo to try out. This turned me on to HMB and I will be looking into that more in the future. So if you want some Creatine and Recovery rolled into one, give this a shot. This is the second product I have tried from Transparent Labs (first being Krill Oil) and they seem to be a pretty decent company overall. I will be checking out more of their products as life goes on.