Photo: © First Endurance
By Tony Hawke
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Does it really work? I think so, but as I don't have access to a human performance laboratory so I am unable to give any hard numbers on performance, I'll just give a subjective review. I only had a single bottle, so the test period was only 3 weeks, hardly long enough to really form a thorough opinion. I decided to take it in the lead up to doing a 24hr race solo - maybe not such a good idea in hindsight.
Week 1: Six capsules per day. No noticeable effects aside from the annoyance of having to remember to take six capsules every morning.
Week 2 and 3: Three capsules per day. Recovery both during and after training sessions was noticeably faster. Average speeds over training sessions were higher.
During weeks two and three I did no intense rides of over two hours length as I was tapering. Race day came and I was feeling confident. Three laps in (laps were approximately 18km with 300m climbing,) however, it was a different story. Random muscles in my legs started to cramp. By the end of the fifth lap, every muscle in my legs was cramping, as were my abdominals and my stomach. Race over.
Was this related to my use of Optygen? Maybe, maybe not. The next day, I did a final lap so that I would officially finish and felt fine even though I was pushing much harder than I had been the day before. My performance does raise a few questions. How does taking a product like Optygen affect fuelling strategies? Does the move over to burning more fat put different demands on the body? Does the body's use of water change? How do the effects of Optygen change over the course of a long race like a 24hr?
I believe that for this kind of product, documentation is extremely important. Unfortunately, Optygen is sorely lacking in this department. The only documentation we received with our bottle of Optygen was a photocopied certificate of analysis, a brochure and the label on the side of the bottle. I'm not exactly sure why they bothered with the certificate of analysis and the brochure is simply a condensed version of some of the material on First Performance's web site. The label on the bottle has an even more abridged version of the marketing material and an entire two lines pertaining to the use of the product - take six capsules per day in the seven day loading phase and then three capsules per day thereafter. A product that affects the body as strongly as First Endurance claims Optygen does, should really include the same kind of information that you find when you purchase medicine from a pharmacist. Topics covering before use, side effects, using Optygen with other products would be a start to providing the kind of information an athlete and their coach need so that they can safely use this product. First Endurance's website does provide abstracts from three papers on the subject of the ingredients used in Optygen as well as quite a number of references to other papers. Why aren't the full texts of these papers on the site? Of the three abstracts, I was able to find only one outside the First Endurance site. A simple concise guide to the product aimed at someone with a moderate understanding of sports medicine would be much more useful.
So, what conclusions can I draw from my test of Optygen? From my short test period, Optygen does appear to have a positive effect on both performance and recovery. What lowers my opinion of this product is that it has a large abundance of marketing material, but no clear, concise material on what the user should expect, nor any precautions or even a recommendation to use it under the guidance of an experienced coach. Worse than this is the complete lack of any credible studies on it's effectiveness. Sure, Supplementwatch may have suggested that it may have a good chance of doing something, but that was an opinion based only upon the high concentrations of active ingredients. If, however, you think that you know your body well enough to tell what its doing and how it may have changed after taking a supplement such as Optygen and you are willing to spend US$50 per month on a supplement, then Optygen may be an option for you.
Recommended retail price: US$49.95 for 90 capsules
Pro: Speeds up recovery
Con: Very little information on contents
More information: First Endurance website
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