January 3, 2000 (Mesomorphosis, Volume 3, Number 1)
by The Sandwich
There are numerous books and "articles" about supplements, but very
few of them are unbiased and truthful. Some of them are even
advertisements in disguise. In an effort to bring you the straight
facts, I conducted a very detailed interview with none other than
Will Brink,
one of bodybuilding’s top, most-respected (and honest) gurus.
As you know, supplements, to the bodybuilder, are very important.
Some bodybuilders do not think twice about spending $250 a month on
supplements, while others only use protein powder or a multivitamin. In
any event, supplements are used by nearly every person who bodybuilds,
but there still is a lot of confusion out there, and getting the answers
is sometimes hard to come by. That is why I conducted this interview
(plus, my car payments are past-due).
I think that nearly any question you have about
supplements
will be answered in this interview. Anyhow, I’m not too good with these
intro’s, and there is a lot of information for you to digest, so lets
get to it. Enjoy!
Sandwich: Where were you born and
what is your age?
Will Brink: I was born in Boston. I am 34.
Sandwich: What did your parents do
and where did you live most of your childhood life?
Will Brink: I grew up in Brooklyn NY. My father was a famous
violinist who founded several orchestras in the Boston area and was a
world renowned musician in his day. My mother was a waitress and the
manager of a small restaurant in Brooklyn. My mother and father were
divorced when I was 5, so I ended up in Brooklyn where my mother’s side
of the family was.
Sandwich: What did you want to be
when you grew up?
Will Brink: A fire hydrant.
Sandwich: What kind of child were u
and how was your childhood, growing up and junk?
Will Brink: My childhood was pretty stressful growing up poor,
white, and skinny in Brooklyn, NY. I was in trouble most of the time for
various things.
I was a smart kid, maybe too smart for my own good and pretty much
kept to myself, though I did have some close friends. I was lucky I got
my stuff together when I got a little older and stayed focused long
enough to get through school. A good education is a very important
thing.
Sandwich: How and when did you become
interested in bodybuilding?
Will Brink: Not sure really. I think for most people, it's not
like you wake up one morning and say " I am interested in bodybuilding."
My first introduction to weight training was by my crazy grandmother who
was looking to keep me out of trouble and give me something to do. I was
14 years old and doing nothing with myself of any worth. My grandmother
was way ahead of her time and a big believer in exercise, so she got me
a membership to the local gym. I really took to it and I believe in many
ways it changed my life in directions I will never fully know.
Sandwich: What type of education do
you have, and how did you get involved in studying bodybuilding,
ergogenics, and things?
Will Brink: I have a degree with a concentration in the
natural sciences from Harvard University and a two year degree from
Keene State College in NH. I am sort of a chronic student. I have gone
to five different colleges and have enough credits at this point for two
masters degrees at least. I always went to school just because I liked
to learn. It didn't occur to me until years later that some of it should
be going toward a specific degree of some sort. An advisor I was talking
to looked at my transcripts and noticed I had tons of classes under my
belt but no degree. She talked me into focusing on the natural science
concentration to get the piece of paper. If I had stayed focused on one
school and one topic, I would probably be a Ph.D. by now. Oh well.
Sandwich: What made you want to start
writing articles?
Will Brink: People kept telling me I should. I was a private
trainer in the Boston area and had a good reputation for getting
bodybuilders into shape. I used to do some local seminars and people
kept telling me I should send in some articles to the bodybuilding
magazines. They felt I had a lot of knowledge I should share with
people, so on a whim I sent in an article. The rest as they say, is
history. At least history for me.
Sandwich: At what age was this, and
whom did u send it in to?
Will Brink: Well let's see, it was like ten years ago, so I
was around 23-24. I remember the article well. It was called "How to
make constant gains and avoid burnout" and was published in MuscleMag
International. I wrote many training articles before doing nutrition
articles in fact.
Sandwich: Please list all of the
magazines you current write for and how a reader should go about
contacting you.
Will Brink: I have written for Muscle Media,
MuscleMag, Muscle n Fitness, Lets Live, Life
Extension, Inside Karate, Physical, and a bunch of
others I forget. These days I am found mostly in MuscleMag as I
have monthly column there. I have been writing for years and also do
another column in Physical magazine, but I do pop up in other
publications. I can also be found on various internet sites such as
Mesomorphosis.com, QFAC.com,
MedLean.com, LEF.org, as well as others
I can't think of right now.
Most people contact me through my web site which is
www.BrinkZone.com, but I still
get letters by snail mail also at PO Box 480, Newton MA, 02459.
Sandwich: What kind of personality do
you have; what kind of person are u?
Will Brink: I am what I like to call a 'type AAA personality.'
I take the type A to a new level, so I thought type AAA was a good way
of explaining me personality tendencies.
The Sandwich: You are one of the
leading authorities on supplements, so I thought we could talk about
this topic since a lot of confusion is prevalent amongst many readers
right now.
Will Brink: Most of the confusion is a function of marketers
baffling people with BS either intentionally or due to ignorance of the
product they are trying to sell people.
The Sandwich: I'll name off a list of
supplements and will ask for your opinion on it, ok?
Will Brink: Do my best.
The Sandwich: Here goes: what do you
think of creatine?
Will Brink: Best invention since the clitoris.
The Sandwich: I know the topic has
been beaten to death, but I wanted to get your input on what you think
is the proper way to use this stuff - the doses, how to mix it, and so
on.
Will Brink: Yes, It has been beaten to death, but people don't
seem to get enough of it. Not sure what I can say that people will find
all that interesting or useful at this point about creatine that has not
already been said. It's pretty simple straight forward stuff. I don't
get married to a nutrient. I look into it, try it, and make a conclusion
on it. I don't spend the rest of my life married to that one thing
looking for some way to get one extra molecule of it into a muscle cell.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it's not my bag, unless
I really find the compound interesting.
Creatine is not one of those compounds.
The Sandwich: You were also the first
expert in the industry to blow the lid off one of its most well-kept
secrets: Creatine purity. What brands, that u know of, are pure and meet
label claim?
Will Brink: I have never divulged that information because I
didn't want to punish companies who did use the good stuff but were left
out and I didn't want to accuse anyone of anything. And, no one would
publish the article if I had named names I assure you. When I wrote the
second article on the topic, with
all new tests, no one would take the article even without any names of
companies being mentioned in fact. This will be the first time I have
ever mentioned any name brands to anyone. For example, to the best of my
knowledge, companies such as Prolab, Biochem, Athleten Gold, ProSource
and others use what I consider to be the good stuff, which is the
creatine made by the large German company. However, there are many
others at this point who use it also, so I find it potentially unfair to
just list a bunch of companies. Also, since I wrote that article, many
companies have switched over. It's really makes more sense for people to
call the companies they buy creatine from and find out instead of just
following some list of companies I mention in some interview.
The Sandwich: In an effort to
capitalize on the sudden boom of the creatine market, several companies
have tried combining creatine with other products to allegedly increase
its effectiveness. What do you think of creatine mixed with dextrose,
such as EAS' Phosphagen HP and MuscleTech's Cell-Tech?
Will Brink: The idea of combining creatine and dextrose was
born out of some of the early research that showed the uptake of
creatine was improved in the presence of insulin. No shock there. I have
been recommending people to combine creatine with a glucose (dextrose)
mixture for years. I always recommended higher amounts of glucose, like
75-100 grams post workout with the creatine and some research suggests
the lower amounts of sugar don't cause a sufficient insulin spike to get
the effect you want, though I don't see why people would pay for the
extra sugar in some sugar and creatine products. However, there are many
issues here, such as, it may not be the best idea to keep hammering your
pancreas with large amounts of glucose not to mention it might make you
fat over time, but some of that would depend on when a person used took,
in conjunction with how many calories, and other variables.
The Sandwich: What do u think of
Labrada's Creatine Cooler, which does not contain an insulin-spiking
agent, such as dextrose. Instead, it has some insulin-sensitivity
increasing agents, like a-lipoic acid, taurine, chromium, and magnesium.
Will Brink: I like the concept but there is no direct data to
show it will increase creatine uptake above creatine without those
nutrients or creatine combined with dextrose. However, it may be a
healthier strategy over the long run to try and improve insulin
sensitivity with certain nutrients rather than blasting a bunch of sugar
into people. So, the jury is still out for me on that issue. Me, I would
take the Labrada product and dump it into some Ultra Fuel after my
workouts.
The Sandwich: Perhaps the most
innovative creatine product of late, I think, at least, is the
effervescent creatine line. I know everyone from small, garage companies
to big-wig corporations like Twinlab have this product in their line.
What do u think of it, boy?
Will Brink: Boy? Who you calling boy? I will say the people
and companies who market effervescent creatine talk a good talk and make
some interesting points. How all this will get hashed out in the real
world and in the scientific literature has yet to be determined. I have
not personally used the stuff and have gotten very little feedback on
it, so it's hard to say.
There has not been any large studies done on it either. One small
study seemed to show some promise, but that's about all we have to go
on. There are many questions that can come to mind. Does a product
justify its price?
For example, say the effervescent creatine is found to be say 20%
more effective than standard creatine monohydrate but costs 50% more per
dose.
Is that worth it? Perhaps, but that's for each person to decide.
Also, even if effervescent creatine is not superior to regular creatine,
it may be much more palatable to people and therefore is still a product
some people will find useful. Not sure, but those are some of the things
I would think about. I guess in the long run, what we need is a decent
sized study that directly compares creatine monohydrate vs. effervescent
creatine vs. placebo and control, and see what the hell happens. Which
group will gain more strength, bodyweight, or increase performance? Or,
which group has more non-responders? One claim of the effervescent
creatine camp is it works on a much higher percentage of people than
regular creatine, that is it has less non responders, and that may be
true. We will see.
The Sandwich: Oral "Growth hormone"
products have gotten some success recently. What is your opinion of
these oral growth hormone products?
Will Brink: Well there are several different kinds of oral
growth hormone, or growth hormone promoting, type products on the market
that range from amino acid mixtures, to supposed peptides, to actual
homeopathic GH. I consider all of them pretty much a big waste of time
and money so far.
Honestly. I have never been very impressed with the results people
get from actual injections of GH, so these products don't exactly get me
excited.
There are several points to consider, but let's get to the important
points.
First, you have to show that any of the above products actually
increase GH levels in healthy young athletic people at the doses used in
the products being sold and show it can be done orally. However, it's
one thing to show that some product increased GH levels-and I am not
saying any of them do-for some period of time but an entirely different
thing altogether to show the increase actually effected muscle mass or
decreased bodyfat. I mean, who gives a rats ass if it's shown to raise
GH if it has no effect on muscle mass or bodyfat levels? This is the
same comment I had on the andro products when they first came out. They
may or may not be shown to spike testosterone but will that spike
actually lead to increases in muscle mass?
Is that not why anyone takes these bloody products? The bottom line
here is I have yet to see any proof what so ever that any oral GH
product increases muscle mass or reduces bodyfat and so I would pass on
such products if it were my hard earned money. It's not even that some
of these products might not turn out to be of some use to older
individuals with low GH, assuming any of the products truly effect GH
levels enough to have an effect, but in healthy young men with adequate
GH levels, I don't see it happening. There is no science to show such
products have any effect on the muscle mass of healthy weight lifters it
at this time. Don't get me started!
The Sandwich: Ever since the
spotlight shined on Mark McGuire, androstenedione has joined him on the
center stage. I, personally, think its worthless, outside of a libido
enhancing supplement. Do you agree?
Will Brink: I don't even know if it's useful for libido
either, but who knows. With all the tookie McGuire must get, why would
he need andro anyway! When androstenedione first came out, I was one of
the only people who really put the breaks on it with a lot of questions
I had, some of those questions I mentioned during my GH rant!
The Sandwich: While androstenedione
may not be effective in building mass, what do you think of the more
direct precursors, such as Androdiol (4AD) and norandrodiol (a.k.a. nor
4AD)?
Will Brink: At the moment, I have a lot more faith that 4AD
and some of the nor products could turn out to help people add muscle,
but at what dose? I have the feeling it's going to be in the multi gram
range as opposed to the 100 milligrams or so found in the typical andro
product. There is some research recently done that did find 4AD
increased strength in weight lifters and that info will probably be out
by the time people read this, so there is some interesting studies being
done. We still don't really know what the long term effects of such
products is both positive or negative.
Perhaps at the highest doses, say 2000- 4000 milligrams day, 4AD or
nor-diol, may be similar to a very mild stack of some mild anabolic
steroid, and I doubt the long term negative effects will ever turn out
to be all that bad either. However, the cost to benefit ratio of such a
strategy is questionable in my view. 2-4 grams a day of 4AD gets real
expensive real fast.
The Sandwich: Which brands do you
recommend? I know anything made by LPJ Research, Pat Arnold's company,
is good.
Will Brink: Don't forget,
LPJ produces and sells andro
products to many companies at the wholesale level, so there are
companies using the LPJ product. Personally, I would avoid anything out
of China and stick to the LPJ stuff.
The Sandwich: There seems to be a
myriad of andro products on the market, such as the ones we just
discussed. Some of them aren't effective though, and one of them seems
to be 5-AD.
Will Brink: Worse than that, some research suggests 5-AD is
estrogenic and I have gotten a lot of first hand feedback on that. For
example, one large bodybuilding supplement company I consult for who
sells all the different andro products told me that they get tons of
phone calls about 5-AD. The guys who answer the phones at the company
told me the vast majority of complaints are always about 5-AD causing
gyno in people. They had a good laugh over that I recall. And no, I wont
say which company that was. Not good mojo for 5-AD.
The Sandwich: Oral cyclodextrin-based
andro products have made their way to the market by way of Pat Arnold,
the brilliant chemist that brought all of the rest of the andro products
to fruition. Is this stuff worth the money? Its pretty expensive.
Will Brink: I can't make the judgment for people what is worth
the money or not. Some people feel creatine and a multi vitamin are too
expensive but don't mind dropping eight bucks a drink in some stupid
night club. My job is not to tell people what is worth it or not worth
it, because it's a relative term really. My job is to tell people
whether or not I think the compound in question does something
worthwhile to their goals of more muscle, less bodyfat, improved health,
or what ever. Whether or not my assessment of that product makes it
"worth it" is up to them. Personally, I consider the andro products a
waste of money for me as I just don't see the positive effects I would
want at the amount of money it would cost to actually get the stuff to
do anything, assuming it will do anything at all. Hey, some guys swear
up and down some of the andro products work for them so in that case,
whether placebo effect or not, I guess it's worth for them. I have also
seen guys inject corn oil thinking it was testosterone cypionate and
claimed they gained ten pounds of muscle. Of course, I knew who the
scumbag was selling corn oil to people and knew better.
The Sandwich: Some brands have the
ineffective cyclodextrin while others have the more potent one. What can
you tell us about them, and what brands should we be looking for?
Will Brink: Honestly I have not spent a lot of time looking
into the latest greatest delivery system for a compound I am still not
sure does anything. The issue as I understand it goes like this. Pat
uses a form of cyclodextrin, I believe the
hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HPBCD), that he believes is the
superior form of cyclodextrin. Others use another version called
beta-cylcodextrin (BCD) which they claim is as good as the HPBCD
version, and often claim that the HPBCD version is potentially toxic and
not approved for human use. Pat maintains both points against HPBCD are
total BS and the reason people don't use his version more often is
simple cost.
HPBCD is supposedly up to 40 times more water soluble and the ability
of cyclo products to make steroids water soluble is what makes
cyclodextrins useful. So, if HPBCD is that much more water soluble than
BCD... According to Pat, Joseph Pitha, the holder of numerous patents on
cyclo complexes reported that he found HPBCD complexed testosterone to
be highly effective sublingually while BCD he found to be ineffective.
Knowing Pat as I do, and knowing how thorough and honest he tends to
be, I would trust Pat's judgment on this issue, but I have not spent
much time on the matter. Cyclodextrins have been around quite a while
and greatly improve the absorption of certain compounds if produced
correctly.
Several small studies recently done appear to show the cyclo-andro
products do raise testosterone higher than simple oral andro products,
so this may very well improve the efficacy of the andro products in
general. A few cyclo andro drops before a workout may be just what the
doctor ordered for a bit more intensity and aggression, but I am
reserving my judgment until we know more.
Next Issue: Picking Brink's Brain
II: Will Brink's honest opinion of Alpha Lipoic Acid, Liquid Creatine,
Fat Loss Supplements, Protein Bars, MRPs, including Triax, HPDx and the
innovators behind them!