Wanted to share our latest YT video that looks into studies for all of the 48 ingredients in AG1’s proprietary blends.
We have gotten tons of athlete questions about this for a while now, and I have frankly felt almost guilty for not taking it in since I was surrounded by so many positive narratives about greens powders, so I decided to look into (a LOT of) research on the topic.
I think a key thing to point out is I can’t see any reason why taking greens powders would hurt you. On the contrary, it seems they could only help. But the cost of them simply forces an analysis of the benefit, and in terms of improving athletic performance, it seems mostly unfounded.
Also, if you can find studies that contradict the findings shared in this video, please share them below!
Hope y’all find this helpful, and if you do, sharing this video is a big help for us. That helps us reach more athletes and get more people to sign up for TrainerRoad, which allows more hiring, which allows more development of awesome features . We don’t have investors, so while we don’t have a big marketing budget, we do get to decide what we do with our revenue, and all of it goes back into hiring great employees to build a great product.
This was an amazing and much needed video. Thanks @Jonathan! Notwithstanding that the focus here was on cycling performance benefits (and lack thereof), I’ve become generally skeptical about health products making dubious claims and being marketed through influencers. AG1 is especially bad because they’ve secured influencers who have credentials and appear otherwise credible.
If I was feeling especially spicy, I’d love a crowdsourced list of cycling-related companies whose products do not at all live up to their marketing. AG1 and other greens powders are definitely on the list.
My favorite AG1 sponsorship is the podcast Hardlore, which is just some punk/hardcore guys talking about how it helps them not feel terrible while on tour. I haven’t watched the trainerroad video, but this seems like a better application for AG1 than expecting gains when you’re already living a healthy lifestyle.
I like greens powder drinks but acknowledge it’s a combination of placebo + drinking liquid first thing when you wake up is a good habit regardless. AG1 is way too expensive for placebo + multivitamin level benefits but there are other brands out there that are more reasonable.
Not reasonable enough that I’d stick with it indefinitely, but whenever I get my Feed credit I’ll usually buy a bag of Huel Daily Green’s for ~$25 (after the credit) and for less than $1 a serving it is an acceptable ROI for me for real/imagined benefit.
A tangential but related factor could also be that I don’t drink coffee, so having a morning greens drink fills some sort of morning ‘time to start the day’ ritual niche for me.
And those fruit and vegetable capsules being hawked on every channel all the time are junk too. Anything that is in a capsule has got to be suspect. There are little to no regulations on that industry, which AG1 operates in too, so anything goes. Yeah, taking THREE capsules a day is just what the doctor ordered.
Glad I saw this. I was about to go in on that. I was quafing ‘watercress water’ at a ultra-resort that was claimed to be outstanding for ‘general health’. It was their ‘secret blend’, not available in stores. and it didn’t taste so bad, but I like the comment ‘licking the bottom of your mower’. If you mowed whatever watercress is all day, I’m sure it would be similar.
The problem with these scatter shot additives is that users can have reactions to them. Just one example: I seem to react to anything containing guarana, found in a lot of trendy ‘sports/energy drinks’. This article has a whole lot of 'may’s for possible benefits. Yet the side effects are real. I get palpitations, nervousness, stomach issues, etc… Hard pass, and it’s just one of so many marketed as being beneficial.
Glad I found this thread, it’s saved me money and time.
There always seems to be a serious lack of real evidence for most of these supplements. And given the cost and potential side effects it makes little sense to me unless there are some good studies to prove the benefits.
You could put just about every green powder or veggie/fruit capsules into this category. AG2R, Balance of Nature, Juice Plus, Juice Festive, et. al. don’t have enough of anything to move the needle in a scientific study.
I would like to see a study of all of these and their impact on gut biome as that’s the only place that stands a chance at measurable impact…maybe? Manufacturers are unlikely to fund this because who’s going to fund research that points out thier product is bunk?
I think this area of research (gut biome) is also immensely complex and depending on study design, can be very hard to achieve any sort of useful insight. I saw this very thing noted in multiple studies looking into the effect of pro and prebiotics when researching for this video.
When I got hit with the side effects of the guarana, I was really thrown for a loop. I had a damned time finding out what was causing it. I was just a mess with sudden palpitations, sweating, and the stomach issues. It felt like I was having some kind of panic attack like I’ve never had before. No one had a clue. It took a couple days to get back to ‘normal’, and it became more obvious what caused it. Yeah, nice feels…
. We don’t have investors, so while we don’t have a big marketing budget, we do get to decide what we do with our revenue, and all of it goes back into hiring great employees to build a great product.
