I’ve been long asked by people to do supplement reviews, but usually stay away from them because they’re to me, they’re very YMMV (your mileage may vary). Big case in point, I’m allergic to whey, so I can’t even review protein that isn’t fish, egg or beef based. That being said, I have to write this review very subjectively. Personally, I have a high caffeine tolerance and get withdrawals if I don’t even drink the stuff (think, crackhead). I’ve been better lately about substituting my energy drinks with coffee, but I still from time to time put those away like water. For a long time I wanted to see what was up with the #twoscoops thing on Instagram and I jumped at the opportunity to try out XWerks’ pre-workout, Ignite.
The first thing you’re going to notice with XWerks is that for some reason, the powder for the orange flavor is brown. Not to mention that it smells like puke. Seriously, don’t smell it. I’m a big advocate on not taking supplements for the taste, but XWerks only just smells bad. Taste wise, I wouldn’t say it’s delicious, but it’s not nearly as bad as it smells; not overpowering and goes down really well. The serving size is one scoop, but I would test out a half a scoop to assess your tolerance. I’m no scientist or nutritionist, but the blend that Ignite uses should give you energy, while helping you focus and keeping the lactic acid at bay a little longer. A grande coffee has more than the 150mg of caffeine found here. You’ll still get the creepy crawly feeling from the beta-alanine, but some people kind of like that, myself included. At $50, it’s not exactly the cheapest supplement, but who can put a price on performance?
If you aren’t familiar with the Anderson family, they’re just about a bunch of fitness monsters that all seem to take Ignite. I would take whatever they’re taking if it got me anywhere close to their level. Unlike traditional pre-workout powders that aren’t exactly made for high-intensity workouts, XWerks’ Ignite was designed specifically to be used for metabolic conditioning. If you’ve ever taken traditional pre-workout before a WOD, when your heart rate spikes, you know the feeling of hitting the wall pretty hard. Which in turn causes you to waste precious time that should be spent working, resting and letting your heart rate drop down. For me, this only happened sometimes with XWerks. I took Ignite before 15.5 and was able to will myself through it, but spent a good 30 minutes on the ground afterwards; lactic acid all up in my quads, but I’m sure it was the combo of movements. Certain movements jack me up worse than others, anything with running or burpees pump my heart rate up, so I tried to only go half scoop on those workouts. There are days where I don’t want to do anything at all; on those days I have to go full scoop. I was fine (fine as in my heart rate stayed pretty manageable) when I did the deadlift/box jump workout from regionals in 2013. I love this stuff for heavy strength days, it gives me just what I need to lift when that’s all I’m doing.
The best thing I ever did was quit taking pre-workout supplements. Early in my CrossFit days I took them religiously until a coach told me the ill effects of taking them before WOD’s. XWerks gives me the necessary kick in the pants to do pretty much any workout, you just need to manage how much you take; I don’t know if I could actually handle #twoscoops. Like I said, supplements are YMMV, and that’s no difference in the case of Ignite. Personally, I’d use it for days where I’m just lifting and just do half scoops for WOD’s. Try it out, it’s certainly better than a lot of the junk out there (C4). Just look at the hashtag “#twoscoops”, there are tons of athletes out there that use it with positive results! If it doesn’t work out for WOD’s, it’s still awesome for strength days.
My suggestion, try it out, they have a 30-day money back guarantee; best case scenario is that it works for you!