Supplement Review: Peak Performance Nutrition (P2N), New Sport Nutrition Line Available on Amazon
Hello and welcome back! We have a LOT to talk about today so I’m going to jump right in. A new line of sport nutrition is now available on Amazon: P2N. This is short for Peak Performance Nutrition. The brand looks like it is focused on hitting the weekend warrior, early adopter, beginning to intermediate exerciser that wants to try some supplements without spending too much money or go too overboard with ingredients. The goal today is to look at every product, see how it relates to others in the market, and also look at the labels to see what’s in them and how effective they may be. The line contains multiple protein products, a pre and post workout, a fat burner, creatine, and branched-chain amino acid capsules. Most of these have some interesting design choices while others seem very very basic. Let’s check it out!
Whey Protein Concentrate
The first product in a line is almost always the protein. It’s the industry standard, the backbone of nearly every brand. If you don’t have a good protein, good luck with the rest. It looks like Amazon knew this going in as their Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC), which is generally seen as the “standard protein” shake looks very interesting and extremely low cost. Coming in at a WHOPPING 30 grams of protein per serving, the serving size here is very very high. This will help appease those who are in the “more is always better” camp. While the data doesn’t show this to be true to a meaningful degree over 25g, the price of the extra scoop size seems to be a non-issue here. In addition to the large dose of whey, Amazon has also added a small amount of creatine, taurine, and glutamine. Creatine is nice (we’ll talk more about it a little later), but glutamine has never really done it for me. The data is extremely mixed, if not highly skewed towards inactivity. In addition, Taurine feels extremely odd considering it is most commonly found in energy drinks. Interesting. One final note about this protein is the calories. With the edition of the extra protein to the serving size, we see the expected increase in calories per serving. Usually sitting at about 140–150 per serving, this product sits happily at 180. Not over the top, but important to some.
Whey Protein Isolate
Despite having a similar name, this is actually a very different product than the WPC. See HERE for more info about protein types/differences. As for the contents of the product, we see a large protein dose similar to the WPC as well as the corresponding increase in calories per serving up to 150 from the industry standard for WPIs which is about 110–120. In theory, if you wanted, you could just under scoop the product by 5 grams and get a couple of extra servings out of the bottle, but that’s up to you. This product also contains a very large volume of minerals compared to other WPIs. While nowhere near their RDIs, calcium, iron, sodium, potassium and more are found in not-so-insignificant amounts in each scoop. Finally, the product contains 1,260mg of Betaine. This is extremely interesting as I have NEVER seen this ingredient outside of a pre/post workout mix, and never in a protein. The dose is about half of where I’d like it to be as much of the data that exists regarding betaine looks at a dose of 2.5 grams, but the data is good and it looks like it has the potential to increase a users strength over time. I’ll take it! An important note for both the WPC and the WPI is the price. Sitting at $16 and $21 respectively, these products are significantly cheaper than the industry standard for these bottle sizes. Pair this with potentially cutting the scoop size to 25 grams and you’ve got one heck of a deal!
Max Creatine
Creatine is and always should be a staple in a product line. We in the business constantly recommend this ingredient due to the vast amount of research there is looking at the effects of creatine and its safety. Once again, Amazon is not only delivering a solid product, but it seems that they are adding more ingredients on top of what is necessary. In addition to the 4 grams of creatine (3g of monohydrate, 1g of HCl), they’ve added 1.25 grams of Betaine similar to the WPI and some other amino acids like Taurine, Glycine, and L-Leucine. I would expect that this product is meant to be stacked with the WPI due to both products containing about half the studied dose of betaine. As for the amino acids, these seem a little out of place to me. The dose is too low to be useful and if you are in fact stacking with the protein, then adding an extra gram makes no meaningful difference. All in all, this is creatine. You get some other stuff, but for the price, you get plenty of it which is good. *One odd note, i believe there is a type on the facts panel. It says the total serving size is 19 grams but then proceeds to list out about 7 grams worth of ingredients. I expect this won’t bother many as a scoop is still a scoop.
Intensity Pre-Workout
Everyone loves talking about pre-workouts. All of them are different, yet they all try to achieve similar goals. A coworker and I recently did a talk about pre-workouts HERE (I time stamped the video to make it easier). As for this product, I find myself in a similar situation to when i reviewed the GFuel and GamerSupps products. I can see what is in the product according to the label, but I can only make educated guesses as to how much of each ingredient there is due to the formulation being hidden behind a proprietary blend. I hate this. There are two blends here, actually, the Sport Performance Blend, and the Sport Energy Blend. The performance blend has creatine, beta alanine, and L-Arginine Alphaketoglutarate (AKG). I’m not sure why they put creatine in their pre-workout when they already have an extensive creatine product. As for the beta alanine, I think the dose is probably about 1.5–2 grams which is fairly reasonable considering the target audience of the product. Finally there’s the arginine AKG. this form of arginine is not very well studied but the idea that the AKG group on the arginine allows for good absorption of the amino acid so that it can then enter the bloodstream and activate the nitric oxide signalling pathway. This leads to greater vessel dilation and better blood flow. I’m not sure that users are getting a sufficient dose to achieve this here, but oh well.
As for the Energy blend, I would expect that there is a gram of taurine and 150 milligrams of caffeine. Taurine has never been high on my list of amazing ingredients, but it won’t hurt anybody. As for caffeine, if the target consumer is a moderate exerciser with little experience with pre-workouts, this dose should be just fine.
XTR Recovery Post Workout
Complexes and Matrices galore! Three different blends in this one, but I don’t think the problem is quite as bad as the pre-workout. This product looks to be something you drink immediately after your workout to help you recover lost electrolytes and kick start the muscle building without the calories of a protein shake. Now, this is not a total replacement for a protein shake, but it’s a good start. Five grams of Amino acids is pretty standard for our industry so no qualms there. It’s actually pretty cool that they’ve added some of the other essential amino acids like threonine and phenylalanine since we’ve seen some good data for them recently. The Muscle Recovery Matrix is good and bad. For the life of me, I cannot figure out where the love for glutamine started. There’s anecdotal evidence in half the articles you’ve ever read, but when it comes to hard data, glutamine does not stack up. Carnitine, however, has good data supporting its use in a product like this as it can help with that post exercise soreness that we all know and love. Finally there is the Nitro-Amino Matrix. This is just more taurine which is fine, albeit I’m not sure what it’s here for, and then some minerals for hydration support. *One note on this facts panel. You’ll see the sodium and potassium listed twice, both in the “B2” section at the top of the label, and the “B3” section down below. This is technically not correct according to FDA labeling regulations as it implies additional ingredient volume. Don’t be fooled.
Pro Burn Thermo Caps
Okay so this one is complicated. I like that we actually got a fully disclosed label on this product which now feels odd, considering that it goes against other products in the line, but I’ll take it! This is a thermogenic which is an FDA approved way of saying that this is supposed to help you lose weight. As with all products in this category, I have to qualify ANY weight loss claims with the statement that this will not work at all if you do not adjust diet and activity level. This is not a weight loss, magic pill. This is an energy supplement first and foremost. There are three different stimulants in here along with a true thermogenic and some other “fat burning” ingredients.
The stimulants here are caffeine, the bitter orange which provides synephrine, and the yohimbe bark extract which contains yohimbine. You all know caffeine, but the synephrine and yohimbine in particular do not agree with everyone’s stomachs so please try half a dose first to see how it feels, then go to a full dose. The capsimax is an extract of red peppers and has been shown to increase body temperature which can indirectly increase resting metabolic rate. The CLA has been shown to help improve body composition over a long period of consumption but only at doses of 3000 milligrams per day and above so only taking 500 milligrams seems a little slim (ha). Finally the carnitine. We talked about this ingredient above has being shown to improve soreness post-workout. The true use for carnitine in the body is to help shuttle fats into mitochondria for metabolism. Long chain fatty acids are normally too bulky to move themselves so they need a carrier. The bro-science here is that consumption of more carrier protein leads to more fat burning. I’ve read quite a few studies looking at carnitine and the data is far from conclusive. Finally is the glycerylphosphorylcholine (longest word of the day). This is a prerequisite to a major neurotransmitter in the body called acetylcholine. The dose on this one is also really small compared to normal which is usually 300 milligrams so I’m not sure of its purpose here.
Pro BCAA Capsules
Finally we come to the last product in this line: the BCAA caps. These are a super simple product containing only a single gram of branched chain amino acids per serving. They are delivered in the industry standard 2:1:1 ratio meaning there is as much leucine as the other two amino acids combined. This ratio has become the standard due it it being the ratio found in whey protein which we know to be extremely effective at muscle building. Do not take this product expecting to immediately see big muscle gains, the dose just isn’t big enough. In fact, if you are eating a balanced diet and hitting your macronutrients correctly, you should have no use for this product whatsoever. That being said, if you really feel like you need that extra gram of BCAAs, I’m sure this will do fine.
Conclusion
So there you have it! The line is fairly straightforward and geared towards those who may be slightly newer to the supplement space. Besides the large protein dose, none of the ingredients are overwhelming. There are plenty of stimulants in the thermogenic, but remember to try a half dose first and then move to a full dose later after you’ve established tolerance. As with other product lines, I am firmly against the proprietary blend method of labeling. It has no use in this day and age and does nothing but keep the consumers from knowing exactly what they are consuming. I think it’s a poor business practice and will continue to advocate against its use. The big kicker with this whole line is price. All of these products are well below market averages so that is a huge selling point for many. Stack that on top of the prime shipping which many people take advantage of and you have a great value proposition. If you have more questions about ingredients or specific products, please leave a comment here or shoot me a note on social media. I’d love to talk to you more about your thoughts! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time!
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*The opinions stated in this article are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
