Nighttime Recovery Review
Here is a repost of Part 1 and Part 2 of a review I did on AdvoCare’s Nighttime Recovery product, back in 2012.
Part 1
Quick introduction to our thoughts and experience with AdvoCare supplement Nighttime Recovery.
Stay tuned for the detailed product review in a future post.
Part II
Nighttime Recovery has a number of ingredients in it. But, I’m pretty confident that, like most multi-ingredient supplements, many of them are there simply to support the effects of the primary ingredients.
So, I’ll be focusing on those primary ingredients.
Zinc & Magnesium – Quite some time ago, a supplement came out called ZMA which was a unique combination of particular forms of the minerals zinc and magnesium. While it was initially touted to be a testosterone boosting supplement, that was never really proven. What almost all users did report however, was incredibly deep and restful sleep. While zinc and magnesium may not exhibit any direct benefits towards recovery from hard training, deep sound sleep does.
Deep, restful sleep. How important is that? Well…Erythropoietin is a hormone that is produced by your kidneys. It stimulates the production of red blood cells by your bone marrow. Red blood cells deliver oxygen to every cell in your body. Red blood cells also carry carbon dioxide (waste) away from every cell in your body. If you get enough sleep each day, your body will produce all the erythropoietin that you need. Growth hormone is released by your pituitary gland in episodic waves, about once every ninety minutes, with the strongest wave coming approximately one hour after you fall asleep at night. Growth hormone stimulates growth and reproduction of your cells. When released by your pituitary gland in amounts that are in line with your physiological needs, growth hormone can help keep your muscles and bones strong.
L-Arginine & L-Ornithine – A number of studies exist (here is just one that I found) demonstrating the positive effects this combination of amino acids has on strength, lean body mass and recovery from training. And, plenty of studies show the positive effects that L-arginine (here’s one) and L-ornithine has on Growth Hormone output during sleep.
Maca Root – Maca Root is an herbaceous biennial plant or annual plant native to the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia. This species has been used by the Andean people for two thousand years. And, while not a lot of peer reviewed studies and literature exists (that I could find), maca has been an important traditional food and medicinal plant in its limited growing region, where it is well-known and celebrated. It is regarded as a highly nutritious, energy-imbuing food, and as a medicine that enhances strength, endurance and also acts as an aphrodisiac.
Summary
Like I said before, there are other ingredients in Nighttime Recovery, but I believe they are more supportive in nature than primary. I am very familiar with the known effects of the zinc/magnesium combo as well as the arginine/ornithine combo. Maca root was new research for me.
What it boils down to for me are 2 things:
1) The combination of these particular ingredients is a good combination for deep sleep and positive influence on all sleep related recovery processes and adaptations to stress input (training), including hormones. In other words, they make sense to me.
2) The anecdotal research (user feedback) from EVERYONE in our old gym, CrossFit Champions, using Nighttime Recovery is that this product is nothing short of miraculous in its ability to speed recover. Personally (and I speak for Pam here too), I have been completely astounded by how NOT sore and NOT wasted I am after hard days of training, often 2x/day. I can honestly say that I have been able to train harder for a consistent, longer period of time since taking it.
Like I said in the video on Part I of this review…at we are pretty much calling it The Magic.
