Okay so I just wanted to make this post to log my personal experience.
I’ve been lifting for a number of years, but only recently came across and started reading articles on T-Nation. I went through and read everything I could and decided to give Biotest a try. I ordered some protein and had good results.
They seemed to be pretty honest, but I�??ve always been a skeptic of natural test boosters. So, I decided to go ahead and prove to myself they were crap so I could stop considering wasting my money on them. In addition I�??m 25 years old so the common advice is that you are wasting your money at that age anyway.
I�??m an engineer and I love actual measurable stats, so I ordered 2 Opti-male saliva testosterone checks and all the testosterone supps Biotest sells. This is what one article called the �??nooki�?? stack. It consisted of 3 REZ-V tabs in the morning, 2 Alpha Male tabs after about an hour at work on an empty stomach, 3 more a couple of hours after lunch on an empty stomach, and 3 ZMA pills about 45 minutes before my bed time shake and hitting the sack. They all work through different means, so they should all work well together, right.
I did the first testosterone check the day I started the regimen, before the first dose of REZ-V and the second the morning after I took the last ZMA. I tried to be fair and not change my diet and exercise from what I was doing before I started. The cycle lasted 3 weeks (it takes one bottle of each with ZMA left over). Here were my numbers, note I only had testosterone tested and the saliva test is only unbound testosterone not total.
Before: 72 pg/ml
End of 3 weeks: 105.2pg/ml
The before is below what is normally considered optimal, especially for someone who is serious about strength training. The after results amazed me at near a 50% increase. That would put me right at the top end. I also experienced some good performance gains and set PRs in bench and squat and gained 4 pounds, which is a big deal when you�??ve trained as long as I have.
I guess my real end point is don�??t buy into everything people tell you or you read. Everyone is different and you need to take the time and energy to prove things out with your own body. Natural test boosters worked really well on me at 25 years old (helps to make up for my lack of response to creatine).
It cost me 80 bucks to run the tests, and I may try to narrow down the variable more in the future, but it was worth it to prove what worked.