Anyone ever use Optygen?/HP?

Haven't used it, or even heard of it until now but if it actually did what they claim it does on their website I suspect it would be a banned substance.

This is not a banned substance. At least one current Tour de France rider is featured on the website or similar promoting usage of this item. There are studies on the website giving credit to usage of this product but .....

The previous poster was not saying that the product was banned but rather IF it worked the way it claimed, it would be banned.

Shane

I perdonally don't use supplements but try to stick to a healthy diet and training program. i did find this:

Rhodiola rosea is an herbal supplement purported to improve resistance to stressors and to enhance physical performance, potentially by improving adenosine triphosphate (ATP) turnover. Phosphocreatine (PCr) kinetics serves as a reflection of ATP turnover. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effect of R rosea ingestion on human skeletal muscle PCr recovery after exhaustive exercise. Twelve resistance-trained men, aged 19 to 39 years, completed incremental forearm wrist flexion exercise to volitional fatigue, once after ingesting 1500 mg R rosea per day for 4 days, and once after ingesting an equivalent placebo dose. During exercise and recovery from exercise, muscle phosphates were examined using phosphorus 31 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. [PCr] during recovery was fit with a monoexponential function, and the resulting rate constants (k) were compared between groups. Rating of perceived exertion per stage and time to exhaustion were also compared between groups. For R rosea, k = 0.3744 ± 0.1532, whereas for placebo, k = 0.3956 ± 0.2238. Although rating of perceived exertion significantly increased within groups as workload increased, it did not differ between conditions, nor did time to exhaustion (R rosea, 10.71 ± 0.54 minutes; placebo, 10.48 ± 0.68 minutes). Estimates of [PCr] at time 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes of recovery were nearly identical between groups. In summary, there were no significant differences between groups for any of theparameters measured. Based on these results, we conclude that R rosea ingestion does not improve ATP turnover during or immediately after exercise.

They just reformulated it and took out Cordyceps and put in siberian ginseng.

I really liked the old formula - I have exercise induced asthma and found the formula helped my breathing. I have NOT gone to measure gains before and after so cannot comment on that.

I did try the new formula and found I had some blood pressure spikes, felt agitated - some of which ameliorated over time but then I had to get the cordyceps by itself for the lungs so not happy about the new formula.

I tried it last year for the first time based upon recommendations from the leader of my tri club and another member who is an ER doctor. First bought the regular Optygen (due to the cheaper price) and then later 2 bottles of the HP. Felt I had better/more tangible results from the HP, I tried two product another brand (Millennium) which also used Cordyeps which again were cheaper then 1st Endurance. The first seemed to give me some positive results but was not on par w/ the HP experience I had last year. I figured I'd give it a fair shake and reorder a second bottle so I'd have a fair 2 month comparison to the HP last year and accidently reordered a different product (similar to the non-HP version of Optygen). Felt the second product did virtually nothing for me, so I decided to return to Optygen HP again. I happened to read last week that First Endurance changed their HP formula and dropped the Cordyceps, which is the ingredient that my tri team had talked about and I hear Rich Roll talking about alot, so wasn't sure which version I was going to get in my order (or hoped I would get when it came), From my limited experience, I can say that it is one of the few supplements I feel as given me a nice positive training effect as far as endurance and recovery.

I used it for 3 months straight while training and did NOT see any difference. I did not feel any difference either. It might work for some people and give them what they are missing or looking for but for me, it wasn't worth the money.

I do use other First Endurance products though in the hydration line and like them.