MuscleTech is a great maker of supplements,
no doubt about it. Their fame mainly rides from their best
seller Hydroxycut
that has helped millions lose fat and weight. And all their
other products are nice quality products too, but mostly
over priced if you ask me. Of all their supplements, Cell
Tech and Nitro Tech are the most hyped and over priced.
So, behind all the hype and ridiculous
pricing, does cell tech and nitro tech work? Of course they
work, you'd be seriously mistaken to think MuscleTech would
make something so expensive that doesn't deliver results.
I won't go into Nitro Tech in detail here, since we got
a review of Nitro
Tech here. So many people has bought into the hype of
Cell Tech and Nitro Tech (myself included) - so do I think
its worth blowing cash on? Not really.
This is a 2 part review series of Cell
Tech, in quite some detail.
Cell Tech Taste Review
A quick little blurb about Cell Tech's
taste - it comes in 4 flavors, orange, grape, fruit punch,
and lemon lime. I like orange, so that's the one I tried,
and the taste is actually really good! For those of you
that really care about taste, you should enjoy Cell Tech
taste. Most other people who's taken Cell Tech also enjoys
the taste. Now on with the good stuff.
MuscleTech Cell Tech Ingredients
MuscleTech did put alotta thought into
Cell Tech, and its mix of ingredients. CellTech isn't like
the pure creatine monohydrate powders, but a mix of a lotta
stuff that actually works synergistically together to boost
creatine absorption - I'll get into details about this later.
Here's a list of Cell Tech ingredients:
Serving Size: (two scoops) 98.5g
Each serving provides:
Creatine Monohydrate: 10g
Lipoic Acid: 200mg
Calories: 300
Total Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 60mg
Potassium: 150mg
Calcium: 20mg
Total Carbohydrates: 75g
Protein: 0g
Vitamin C: 250mg
Ingredients: Pharmaceutical-grade Dextrose,
HPLC-tested Pure Creatine Monohydrate, Taurine, Natural
& artificial flavors, Malic acid, Red beet powder, Dipotassium
phosphate Disodium phosphate, Magnesium phosphate, Ascorbic
acid, Lipoic acid, FD&C Blue #2, Chromium picolinate.
With all things put aside, the major ingredients
in Cell Tech are the 10g of creatine monohydrate, 75g of
dextrose (carbs), and chromium picolinate, and it comes
with 300 calories per serving. You'll see in the next section
how this mix helps creatine absorption.
How Cell Tech Works
Now, you know that Cell Tech's main ingredients
are 10g of creatine, 75g of dextrose, and chromium picolinate.
So other than the creatine, what's dextrose and chromium
picolinate gotta do with creatine uptake? Insulin! Everything
has to do with insulin, and the insulin spike the huge dose
of dextrose causes. There'll be a lot more detail about
insulin in part 2 of
this Cell Tech review. (This is actually not very healthy,
you'll see why later.)
You need to understand some basics of
insulin before understanding how dextrose and chromium pico
works to boost creatine absorption. Insulin release results
from the food you eat, and you have a good control of this
by the foods you choose to eat. There are simple carbs,
and complex carbs - actually I think there's something like
5 types of carbs like monosachrides, polysacharides, and
etc... I dunno them all. To keep things simple, we just
say simple and complex carbs.
Carbs are just sugar. Simple carbs are
just sugar, and is absorbed into the blood stream very fast.
Complex carbs like that from rice, bread and pasta, take
time to breakdown, and takes longer to absorb. Dextrose
is just simple carbs - when you take a serving of Cell Tech,
you take in 75g of sugar and 10g of creatine. The 75g of
dextrose requires no digesting and is all absorbed into
your blood stream quickly. When you have all this blood
sugar all of a sudden, it triggers a insulin spike in your
body, and the insulin pretty much force feeds your muscles
with the excess sugar. In the process, creatine gets shoved
into the muscles as well.
The problem with this is that although
insulin is very anabolic, any drastic changes in your body
isn't good for you. Common sense, right? Having all the
blood sugar all of sudden and then the insulin spike isn't
exactly that good for your health. I've read some where
that insulin spikes can be a cause of heart problems, whether
there is any truth to this I have no clue. There's alotta
controversy surrounding insulin etc., and I'm not going
to pretend that I know alot about it. :-)
So where does chromium picolinate come
in to all this? Chromium picolinate helps make the receptors
more receptive to insulin, thus making insulin more effective.
MuscleTech Cell Tech Price Considerations
When I bought my Cell Tech, I got a 4lb
tub, cuz of price considerations, and damn is it ever expensive!!
MuscleTech Cell Tech comes i 3 sizes: 2lb, 4lb, and 7lb.
At retail, their prices are $40, $60, and $80, respectively.
Roughly, a 2lb tub will give you 10 servings, which is just
enough for a one week loading, and that's it! A 4lb tub
will give 20 servings, and a 7lb tub gives 35 servings.
With loading, my 4lb tub of Cell Tech
lasted me about 2 weeks. The first week I took 2 servings
a day, after, it's just 1 serving a day. For the price of
the 4lb tub, I can get a 1000g tub of pure creatine monohydrate
which will last me for who knows how long (don't wanna do
the math). The price of Cell Tech is ludicrous, sheesh!
Each serving of Cell tech works out to
like $2 bucks! If you just use pure creatine, on average,
each serving works out to something like 30 cents! (10g
portions)
Most people should expect to make some
good gains with Cell Tech - it better work for how much
they're charging. You can expect gains in the ranges of
around 10lbs or so in a 2 to 4 week period. Then on the
other hand, there are some, not many, people who doesn't
notice much extra benefit of using CellTech over pure creatine,
I'm one of them.
You can save a good chunk of change buying
Cell Tech online, follow the links below. A 4lb tub will
last you for 2 weeks or so, and a 7lb tub will last you
for about 4 weeks. >>
Click here to purchase MuscleTech Cell Tech Harcore
>> Click here for Micronized Creatine
>> Click here for Optimum Nutrition Creatine |
