Nootrobox SPRINT Review Summary
Not a complete nootropic stack, but it was never intended to be.
Nootrobox explicitly say it is a take as needed booster supplement, designed to accompany more complete herbal stacks like RISE.
There are a few problems with the dosing in my opinion, but it certainly seems safe and it should work as an accompaniment product if you are in serious need of a quick boost.
Ideal for people looking for some help staying focused through a long night of work!
Where to buy Nootrobox SPRINT
Buying from Nootrobox means you can get good discounts on multiple purchases.
Full Nootrobox Sprint Review
To begin my Nootrobox SPRINT Review, I’d like to focus on Nootrobox as a company.
Nootrobox are easily one of the most widely known nootropics manufacturers in the world today.
They are regarded as forerunners in the burgeoning nootropics industry, being one of the first companies to really grasp the potential of natural nootropic stacks as consumer products.
They have been very vocal about the quality of their products, and they have been featured by major magazines and blogs on a regular basis.
They have three leading supplements: RISE, YAWN, and SPRINT. I have already reviewed Rise on this site, and my experience was a good one.
Each of them is designed to augment your brain in a very particular way. They are each designed to enhance a particular part of your day.
As the names would suggest, RISE is designed as a daily replacement for coffee. It is supposed to help you spring out of bed, dispelling brain fog and allowing you to get a jump on your day.
YAWN is designed to aid restful and deep sleep.
SPRINT, as you may have worked out, is designed for those times when you need an extra boost to get through a complicated and draining portion of your day.
Since Sprint is offered as a complimentary product to Rise, I thought it was high time that I looked into it myself.
Here is a full review of Nootrobox SPRINT, what it does, and what it can do for you.
Nootrobox SPRINT Ingredients
Like its Nootrobox “sisters”, Nootrobox SPRINT has a simple yet well selected formula. Here’s a list as it’s displayed on their website:
As I said, Nootrobox SPRINT has a very simple, understated formula. SPRINT has very few ingredients, although they are all certainly useful ingredients for various reasons.
Here is a quick overview of what each of Nootrobox SPRINT’s ingredients do (leaving out the B vitamins). Since they are almost all highly common nootropic stack ingredients, I have dealt with them repeatedly in previous reviews, and on the dedicated ingredients page. I won’t go into too much detail on those ingredients here:
Glucuronolactone (185mg): This is probably the only ingredient that could leave even seasoned nootropics users scratching their heads. Glucuronolactone is a naturally occurring chemical compound that is widely used in energy drinks. This is in fact a poorly understood compound; very few clinical studies have been done on it, and to my knowledge, none have been done on its effectiveness as a nootropic agent.
Basically, glucuronolactone is what gets created when we convert glucose in the liver. Its other mechanisms in the body are well beyond y understanding – not because of their complexity, but because I can’t find a reliable source on the matter.
Inositol (185mg): Inositol is a collective name for a number of molecules. When we see it listed in an ingredient list, we can be fairly sure that it is referring to my-inositol. Inositol is a very impressive anxiolytic. Its ability to help reduce anxiety and alleviate stress has robust support from scientific study. In one double-blind study, researchers observed that Inositol reduced the number of panic attacks experienced by patients by 4 in a single month.
L-Theanine (200mg): An amino acid naturally found in green tea. L-Theanine promotes relaxation without eliciting feelings of sedation or drowsiness. It actually improves focus and, like caffeine, reduces the perception of fatigue or anxiety. It works very well alongside caffeine, with each compound complimenting the effects of the other.
Caffeine (100mg): We all know loads about caffeine, but at the same time, most of us know nothing. It is a powerful stimulant with effects that can be quite contradictory, and even downright dangerous if taken at high enough doses. It is a standard ingredient in stacks designed primarily to enhance mental energy and focus in the short term. It is, above all else, a very fast acting stimulant after all.
-The Top 3 Nootropic Stacks 2017-
Nootrobox SPRINT Formula Review
The first thing to discuss is undoubtedly the glucuronolactone.
Several studies have been done on the efficacy of energy drinks on cognition, and these are often used by the manufacturers of said drinks to support the notion that glucuronolactone is an effective nootropic.
However, none of these studies have controlled for taurine or caffeine. I would therefore put my money on all the “cognitive benefits” being down to the presence of those two compounds.
We can therefore ask ourselves why Nootrobox SPRINT contains this stuff. This is a company at the cutting edge of nootropic supplements, and they are a well-respected, serious manufacturer of high quality products. It isn’t like them to just throw in ingredients without there being a good reason for doing so.
It seems to me that the inclusion of glucuronolactone has more to do with marketing than with delivering an effective nootropic ‘boost’ stack.The same thing is done by companies that make energy drinks. Putting glucuronolactone on the label makes people feel like they’re buying something a bit more exotic than just caffeine and sugar. This is understandable but pretty naive, not least when you consider how strong caffeine can be at high doses.
In any case, the dose included in SPRINT is fairly low and should not cause any unwanted side effects in the vast majority of users.
The next thing to discuss is Inositol. While it is incredibly effective as an anxiolytic, all studies affirming this have been conducted with much higher dosages.
One study that found inositol effective as “a potentially attractive therapeutic for panic disorder” gave participants as much as 12g/day. Obviously, this is a fair amount more than SPRINT’s 185mg serving.
The disparity in serving size is in fact so large that we might question the efficacy of inositol at this dosage.
While inositol has some other effects at dosages as low as 200mg/day, its anxiolytic effects seem to only begin at 6g/day and up.
I think it’s likely that Nootrobox were erring on the side of caution with this formula. They may have only wanted inositol to act as a kind of ‘assistance’ ingredient to SPRINT’s main components. In either case, they may have been a little too cautious with this one.
The caffeine and L-Theanine are perhaps the only ingredients in SPRINT capable of delivering a palpable cognitive benefit. Both of these compounds act to increase focus and mental energy. They reduce fatigue and can stave off sleep for a long time in large enough doses.
They are both naturally found in green tea. In green tea they are obviously found in much smaller amounts, but they are there and you do notice them working if you drink a few cups.
The 100mg dose of caffeine is actually quite high unless taken on its own, without any other sources of caffeine being consumed around the same time. It is certainly too high for me personally.
I drink a fair amount of green tea and coffee, so a 100mg boost of caffeine is likely to make me incredibly alert but also quite anxious. Larger doses of caffeine is known to enhance concentration but cramp creativity. That means it might be great for getting through monotonous tasks, but less useful for exercising your brain’s creative abilities.
For most users though, 100mg of caffeine will be nothing. Fat burning supplements usually contain about 200-250mg of caffeine along with other stimulants. If you are used to taking products like that, then SPRINT will be, if anything, under-dosed.
The inclusion of L-Theanine changes things a little.
L-Theanine is an amino acid implicated in reducing the perception of effort and stress, improving concentration and focus, and reducing stress, all at the same time. It is therefore, in many respects, quite a potent nootropic in its own right.
At relatively low doses its effects are quite weak, so taking L-Theanine alone is often not an optimal way of really boosting your brain power (unless you take a fairly large amount).
Taken with caffeine, on the other hand, L-Theanine becomes a very effective stack ingredient indeed.
L-Theanine acts in a very synergistic way to caffeine. This isn’t a big surprise, as they are often sourced from exactly the same plant. When taken at the same time in doses of 100-200mg, caffeine and L-Theanine have been shown to improve cognition, attention, and mental drive.
The combination of 100mg of caffeine and 200mg of L-Theanine therefore seems like an excellent compromise. While some studies saw benefits when giving participants 200mg of each substance, people taking nootropics in the real world are likely to get plenty of caffeine elsewhere. They may not, on the other hand, get much L-Theanine.
I think Nootrobox got the dosing of these two ingredients just right.
Finally, the B vitamins. Not much to say about these really. They’re standard ‘accessory’ ingredients. B6 and B12 help with cognition and energy synthesis in a very general, background kind of way. They’re definitely good additions to a stack, but they don’t pull any of the weight.
There is some concern about the dosing of the B vitamins in this stack, which I will deal with in the Nootrobox SPRINT side effects section. This concern is slight though, and will not make a huge difference to most people’s experience.
All in all, not much to write home about with this one. On its own, Nootrobox SPRINT doesn’t look like a great supplement.
But we can’t judge this supplement by looking at it as a stand alone stack.
Nootrobox clearly intend this to be taken in conjunction with Nootrobox RISE. The latter is supposed to be your daily nootropic, while Nootrobox SPRINT is supposed to be a “special occasion” sort of thing.
So, how do these two stack up together?
Noootrobox SPRINT and Nootrobox RISE – take together?
Just by looking at the formula of Nootrobox SPRINT, I know that it’s going to work well alongside Nootrobox RISE.
Nootrobox RISE is all about giving you a clear, focused, and active mind from the moment you wake up until well into the afternoon, if not for much longer.
It is designed to replace coffee in your morning schedule, but it is formulated to work in a very different way to coffee (read the full Nootrobox RISE review to find out more).
It enhances memory function without stimulants, and it promotes high levels of acetylcholine. This means that it can improve your cognitive performance by increasing neurotransmitter availability, not by plying your brain with caffeine.
However, if you have a particularly demanding afternoon on your hands, you might want a little more help than the gradual and subtle benefits of taking Alpha GPC.
You might want an instant boost. That is where SPRINT would come in.
Coupling cholinergenics and memory enhancing extracts like those found in RISE with fast-acting stimulants such as those found in SPRINT is likely to give you a temporary but significant mental boost. This is likely to be far more potent than what you normally experience taking either product on its own.
It won’t be particularly intense, of course, but it will be noticeable.
The benefits of RISE were, in my opinion, noticeable, but in a very subtle way. It was effective, but it took some time for the ingredients to really get to work, and the main difference was in output rather than “feel”.
Taking Nootrobox SPRINT with RISE could be one way of introducing that “feel” element to your nootropics experience. The stimulants will give you the mental energy you need to really take advantage of the cognitive benefits conferred by daily RISE supplementation.
Or to put it another way, RISE gives you the tools, SPRINT can help with the motivation to use them.
RISE is definitely the choice for those of you looking for a Nootrobox product to take on a regular basis, but SPRINT can definitely help give you a short term boost when you need it.
If you’re the sort of person who needs a serious lift towards the end of the day, then this combination might be right for you.
-Check Out Our Nootrobox RISE Review-
Nootrobox SPRINT Side Effects
Other than the obvious side effects that can come from consuming a lot of caffeine, I can’t see there being many side effects to taking Nootrobox SPRINT.
Even 100mg of caffeine makes it arguably unsuitable for daily consumption if you already consume lots of caffeine from other sources.
Again though, many users take this much caffeine fairly regularly and experience no negative effects.
Crucially, the L-Theanine content can help to take the edge off the caffeine content. This isn’t an exact science, but theanine helps keep anxiety at bay without interfering with caffeine’s focus-boosting effects.
One potential problem that might come up if you take Nootrobox SPRINT on a regular basis is a bad reaction to the B vitamin content.
60ug of B12; that’s a hell of a lot of B12. Breastfeeding women are told to consume about 2.8ug of B12 per day. The same goes for the B6 content; 20mg represents about 1400% of your RDI.
Taking regular high doses of B6 has been known to cause some side effects, including tingling sensations, headaches, and tiredness. Stomach cramps and nausea have been reported at very high doses.
Taking many times your RDI of B12 on a regular basis can also cause problems: dizziness, diarrhoea, headaches, and nausea.
However, the safety of taking these vitamins on a regular basis is without question for almost everyone. No safe upper limit has been set for B12, as far as I am aware, and many supplements contain over 10,000% of your RDI of B6.
Basically, taking SPRINT every day might put you at risk of some mild adverse reactions to so much B6 and B12
Everyone is different, so check with a doctor before trying new supplements.
Nootrobox SPRINT Review Conclusion
On its own, Nootrobox SPRINT is not much of a nootropic stack.
Its main ingredients are Inositol, L-Theanine, and Caffeine. The rest of the formula is pretty much an accessory to these ingredients in my personal opinion.
Glucuronolactone may turn out to be an effective supplement, but thus far no studies have managed to detect any benefit while controlling for caffeine and taurine (the ingredients in energy drinks that definitely do work).
That said, any review of Nootrobox SPRINT has to take into account the purpose of this stack.
Nootrobox SPRINT is not meant for stand-alone supplementation.
In the words of Nootrobox, it’s”your use as needed boost”.
Nootrobox seem to assume that users will be taking their daily nootropic stack, RISE, on a regular basis, and supplementing this with SPRINT when they need an extra boost.
Is this a flaw in the formula? I don’t think so.
There’s nothing wrong with designing supplements that serve as “add-ons” to your existing ones.
If anything, it is commendable that Nootrobox have taken the time to offer a stimulant-based supplement as separate to their daily nootropic.
Most manufacturers would have just stuffed their daily stack with caffeine and L-Theanine, probably resulting in an inferior product.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one supplement that will deliver real, palpable cognitive enhancements, then this is definitely not the supplement for you.
If you need some help staying focused while you burn the midnight oil, this would be a great supplement to try in my opinion. It seems like it would work very well when used as a “booster” to your daily nootropic stack.
We have reviewed hundreds of nootropics and this supplement is still the most impressive. Our review team used this product for months and all experienced:
- Heightened focus
- Enhanced memory function
- More mental energy
- Better mental performance under stress
Read our full review to find out if this is the nootropic you have been looking for.
Vic says
I’m so curious about these supplements. I think I’m going to get a box of this and try it myself. Great review by the way!