The Performance Lab line returns with a carbohydrate supplement, offering up the most important short-term energy nutrient.
We’re going to take a look at what this product does, how it tries to stand out from the market, and whether or not it succeeds.
Let’s dive in, outline the product, and get a feel for what we’re looking at!
Table of Contents
About Performance Lab Carb
This product is marketed as the definitive carbohydrate supplement. Boasting a formula that absorbs fast but releases energy consistently.
It’s an entry into the workout carbohydrate supplement market by ‘Performance Lab’. A brand that’s become known for its clean, premium quality supplements – clean from any allergens, GMOs and comes with the added bonus of being vegan-friendly.
The whole point of the product – as outlined on the website – is ‘performance-enhanced muscle fuel’.
This is going to be how we evaluate the product; how well does it offer muscle fuel? How suitable is it for various uses? Does it improve performance?
These are the crucial questions you’re here for, so they’re going to form the basis of our review.
Performance Lab Carb Supplement Facts
This product uses two scoops per serving, which is a 50g serving overall. As a result, you’ll receive 20 servings in 1 full container.
We’re really impressed by Performance Lab Carb’s Supplement Facts. It’s the cleanest we’ve seen of any carbohydrate product – and it contains the advanced ‘KarboLyn’ which is much more superior to the usual Dextrose supplements out there (we’ll expand on this below).
Even all of the flavoring is 100% natural. Mainly from Cacao powder, organic ceylon cinnamon powder and Monkfruit Extract, making Performance Lab Carb the best tasting carb supplement out there too.
Directions for Use
You can use this product before, during, or after a workout. Like other carbohydrates, it offers energy to prepare for a workout, replenish your energy stores throughout, or contribute to recovery and growth.
The important part is that you mix 1-4 scoops with water to achieve a consistency you like. From there, stir until it’s a single texture and drink.
You can combine with caffeine before a workout (such as a pre-workout supplement), electrolytes and/or BCAAS during a workout, or protein/creatine/electrolytes afterwards. There are a lot of choices here; the basics are just mixing this product with water. Easy.
The Performance Lab website recommends tailoring your intake of Carb to your goal. So, for strength, you would take Carb 2-3 hours before competition or training for two-plus hours of muscle energy. For endurance, you could sip during training, or take it within 30-minutes post-workout for recovery.
What is in Performance Lab SPORT Carb?
There are four key ingredients in this product that make it work. It’s simple, but it’s effective, so we’re going to look at each of them in depth. Before we start, here’s what to expect:
- KarboLyn: the carb source, it’s going to be a big deal, the main ingredient.
- Cinnamon: a cool herbal extract that improves insulin activity
- Pink Himalayan Salt: the electrolyte source for the product, keeping the muscles healthy
- Coconut Water Powder: hydration aid and general digestibility benefits
Beyond these, you’re going to get some other stuff that just doesn’t matter much. This includes sweeteners like monk fruit extract and stevia. There’s also cocoa powder, depending on the flavor you’re looking at.
We’ll include an image of Performance Lab Carb’s Supplement Facts label before taking you through a full analysis of its ingredients:
*To learn more about Performance Lab Carb’s Ingredients
Visit: www.Performancelab.com
KarboLyn
It’s carbs, but not the kind you’re used to. This is a fast-absorption but slow-release energy source that comes with all the benefits of a rapid-intake carb but none of the crashing.
The focus of this compound is providing the weight of the carbohydrates in the product. At 40g per scoop, it’s 80% of the product and 85% of the carbs. The overall result is that this is the main ingredient in the carb supplement.
What is it?
KarboLyn is a bioengineered form of carbohydrate. It’s a patent-pending solution and offers a new approach to carbohydrates, designed to be the right molecular size to be absorbed optimally. It has huge water-affinity and passes through the stomach faster, offering rapid uptake into the bloodstream.
The absorption alone isn’t special – sugar will absorb rapidly. Rather, the combination of rapid-absorption and sustained-release is what supposedly makes KarboLyn special. While it absorbs like sugar, it persists like a starch (but without the loading period).
This is combined with the solubility in water and the overall osmolarity. It Improves uptake of water and other nutrients through the intestinal wall. This is useful for more than carbs; it improves the uptake of anything it’s co-ingested with.
Why do workout carbs matter?
The main purpose of this compound is to offer a workout carb that doesn’t produce a crash, but also doesn’t take hours to load to the muscles.
We already know from the research that carbohydrate availability is one of the keys to good performance. It improves mental awareness and combats perceptions of fatigue, while also providing energy to the muscles themselves.
Supplementing a carbohydrate like SPORT Carb offers a chance to load carbs before exercise, replenish them rapidly when they’re used up during a workout, or contribute to glycogen supercompensation after exercise.
Glycogen supercompensation is what happens after exercise: you’ve shown your body that it needs carbs, so it stores more carbs in the muscle than you had before you exercised. This, combined with carbs as an immediate energy source, is why they’re so important for recovery and muscle growth.
The result
Between these key benefits, you’re looking at a higher quality of carbohydrate than you’d get from a common carb supplement. Things like maltodextrin, dextrose, etc. would either have a slow absorption or a crash.
Beyond this, they’re simply lacking in the key benefits that come from increased osmolarity. There’s no crash with a KarboLyn product, too, so you can load it earlier and have it sustain throughout a workout – or during a workout and have it sustain throughout/into recovery.
Cinnamon
This is a great synergist for carbohydrates, as well as being a great all-purpose health compound by itself. We’re going to look at both parts, since cinnamon is the main non-carb compound in this product.
Cinnamon Improves Carb-Uptake
The main role of cinnamon in this product is to control the insulin response to your carbs. It’s important because insulin shuttles carbs into muscle cells – which is where they’re needed to produce energy.
This is important for two reasons; firstly, it improves the carb-uptake. Clearly, this is a huge deal for this product since everything about it is geared to helping you improve performance with carbohydrates. Cinnamon makes this easier and more effective.
Second, it controls the release of carbs and reduces the insulin-resistance seen in pre-diabetes and diabetes. If you’re taking in 50g+ of carbohydrates in one go, it’s always useful to control the effects. Cinnamon does exactly that and helps reduce the risk of ‘crashing’ even further.
Cinnamon: the anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory nutrient
The other benefit of cinnamon in this product is the general health and wellbeing it brings. This is why cinnamon is so popular in traditional medicine, because it contributes more than just blood sugar control.
On top of direct glucose metabolism benefits, it’s also an anti-oxidant compound and anti-inflammatory. These are beneficial for dealing with some of the negative effects seen in poor dietary choices, as well as improving general immune system stress.
Reducing the risk of inflammation has become a bit of a hot-button topic, but cinnamon actually does have general health benefits. Controlling inflammation isn’t all there is to health and wellbeing, but it’s one factor and Ceylon cinnamon is one of the best compounds you could get with carbs.
Clearly, the use of Ceylon cinnamon in Performance Lab Carb is well thought-through and it provides a great synergist. We really like this combination and, crucially, it distinguishes this product from other KarboLyn sources on the market!
Pink Himalayan Salt
The main benefit of this compound is its contribution to your overall electrolyte intake. It’s one of the compounds that makes for a more versatile product; these are almost always going to be beneficial to your overall performance and recovery.
Electrolyte intake before, during, and after a workout is beneficial. At any of these stages, it ensures that your overall muscle salt content is at healthy levels, promoting performance or assisting with recovery and mitigating muscle damage.
Electrolytes are used in the muscle for proper contraction; they’re one of the signaling methods your body uses to transfer nerve-impulses into muscular change.
The problem is that you sweat out electrolytes during exercise and you’re going to have residual build-up. Exercise is stressful on the muscles and the chemical changes you endure during exercise are going to require electrolytes to re-balance and establish muscle health/recovery/growth.
For example, excessive build-up of calcium ions in the muscles is one of the key factors in muscle damage. Improving the chemical environment of muscles like this is one of the best ways to keep them healthy.
On top of this, electrolyte intake is a key player in the uptake of water into the organs and muscle cells. This is a huge benefit and the Himalayan pink salt is only going to help keep you healthy and hydrated, as well as performing to your best.
This is especially important when combined with the next compound in SPORT carb…
Coconut Water Powder
This is the hydration compound and it’s a good little addition to the product. We’ve already discussed osmolarity of KarboLyn and pink Himalayan salt, and this product contributes to the overall picture.
It makes the whole product more water-soluble and improves hydration. When you’re mixing this product with water or other fluids, it’s going to assist the speed of absorption – an important benefit combined with KarboLyn.
Improving hydration is a great benefit and contributes positively to everything else this product is trying to do. The synergy of these four ingredients make for a great product that does a lot with very little complexity; it’s simplicity but done really well!
To Buy or Learn More, Visit:
» www.PerformanceLab.com «
Performance Lab Carb Formula Analysis
This product definitely works – more specifically it makes a great pre-workout, intra-workout, or post-workout choice. This is awesome and the versatility of it extends to the benefits, which could be preparation, maintenance, or recovery.
Carbs are amazing, and this is one of the best examples of a carb supplement. If you apply it properly, this product can do great things for your training and results. The formula does all the things we’d want from a carb product and is well-structured.
The overall vision of the product is one of the things we love. Everything has a role and it is designed with a clear idea of what it’s trying to offer your training experience.
On top of all of this, we like the ‘clean label’ approach that Performance Lab has built their brand on.
The general idea is to cut out anything unnecessary and swim against the current in the supplement industry: no GMOs, soy, totally vegan, produced in a ‘good manufacturing practices’ facility, no common allergens.
This is what we’d like to see from all supplements, but at the moment we’re just glad Performance Lab are doing it. It’s a great investment in your peace of mind, and it reflects some genuine concern for your wellbeing as a customer and a health/fitness enthusiast.
Performance Lab Carb Benefits
The benefits depend on when you use it and how. The overall benefits are the mental and physical performance boosts you’re going to experience with a good carbohydrate intake/supplement.
The benefits pre-workout are preparation and improved effectiveness of a pre-workout. Caffeine and carbs together produce amazing results that are better than either one used individually. For this, Performance Lab have released an ‘advanced stimulant’ which you can check out here: www.performancelab.com/products/stim
Or if you want to stay stim-free, you can combine it with Performance Lab SPORT Pre-Workout, an effective quality stimulant-free pre-workout.
During a workout, the combination of carbs and electrolytes is a great choice and could be mixed with a high-quality BCAA (the Performance Lab range has one of those too) or an independent electrolyte source.
The post-workout benefits are most pronounced when mixed with protein. Combining carbs and proteins after a workout – especially with the electrolyte content – can boost recovery and growth. Which is probably why Performance Lab has also released Performance Lab Protein at the same time as its Carb supplement.
The benefits are wide and varied and it’s all about how you use it. You can get a ton of value from this product as long as you understand what you want to do with it and how it fits into your own diet.
Of course, you can take Performance Lab Carb individually too.
Who Takes It?
Pretty much anyone; it’s got a wide range of benefits. Whether you’re dieting down and want to get the best kind of carbs for energy, or you’re trying to gain weight without insulin resistance and sugar crashes, this is a great choice.
Equally, it fits your needs before, during, and after a workout. There isn’t a single person out there that couldn’t benefit from cleverly implementing this product in their diet and workout routine.
The only people who aren’t going to benefit from this product are simply those who can’t afford it – or are looking for a simple ‘slop’ carb. We understand, but the premium price tag is the result of a premium product – especially if you’re prioritizing performance.
Any Side Effects?
Not likely; this product is almost entirely a form of superior starch, but it’s still a food extract.
You’re not going to have a significant reaction to this product unless you already have a pre-condition regarding starches or carbs more generally.
Talk to your doctor if you have concerns. But you’re likely to be fine if you’ve eaten potatoes, rice, or corn without problems.
Ultimately, we didn’t experience any side effects after taking 3 full containers.
Performance Lab Carb Summary
Pros:
- Great combination of ingredients
- Versatile; effective for any goal and pre/intra/post-workout nutrition
- Great product structure
- Clean label is really nice to see
Cons:
- A touch expensive compared to lower-quality/economy options
- You can only buy from their official website: www.Performancelab.com
Performance Lab Carb Price & Buying Info
The best price for Performance Lab products is the official site: www.PerformanceLab.com
This offers the best price and peace of mind, coming straight from the manufacturer. Just so you know, Performance Lab products are not available elsewhere (not on Amazon, GNC or any other online retailers).
The Performance Lab site also details some of the things we’ve been talking about today, so you can look through the product information for yourself.
We fully recommend this product. So if you’re looking for a carb supplement, head over to the site and check it out for yourself.
Performance Lab Carb Review: Final Word
Quality ingredients, a clear vision and a super-clean label…these all add up to the best carb supplement available on the market today.
True, Performance Lab Carb has a premium price tag compared to some of the more bog-standard carb supps available. But we think it’s worth the investment.
We hold our hands up and say that we’re big fans of Performance Lab SPORT Carb and we think you will be too. So we don’t hesitate to recommend it; the way it helps you recover after a workout (when taken afterwards) or fuel your workout (when taken before) is priceless when you’re working towards your fitness goals.
*To Buy, Visit: www.PerformanceLab.com
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