The team at Maximum Energy Corp and our brand, OS Performance Nutrition, have been in the market since 2004. We share a common vision and core values to produce only the highest quality, all natural nutritional supplements on the market. Our products are designed for elite and professional athletes who can measurably benefit from products that are optimized to deliver "real performance."
How do you optimize nutritional products to deliver "real performance?" It is not easy since many variables need to be controlled in an environment that is constantly changing. We believe that our approach to nutritional performance is unique. We measure and balance each ingredient in precise quantities to achieve measurable nutritional performance for numerous specific situations. Obviously this cannot be done with just one product. We developed a full line of nutritional products to manage the various situations you encounter as an athlete .
We view the sport world in four distinct areas that can be optimized - 1) pre-event nutritional preparation, 2) during event high intensity efforts, 3) during longer event endurance and 4) post event recovery.
There are many nutritional supplements on the market, however few actually deliver "real performance." Nutritional performance, frankly, is hard to measure. Many nutritional product companies take advantage of your lack of ability to measure performance by providing products with low nutritional performance and high simple sugar concentrations to meet the taste requirements of the mass market.
OS Performance Nutrition was founded on the principle of delivering "real and measurable" nutritional performance, the kind of nutritional performance that you can feel during a hard effort such as the effort to climb Mt. Graham.
From an incredible 130 mile ultra-endurance training ride, OS Performance Nutrition was born. A "real and measurable" nutritional performance genesis occurred while testing products under extreme conditions in the rural mountainous region of Arizona.
It is a long story, but worth every minute of it. The "ahaa moment" occurred while riding in PAC Tour's winter desert and mountain tour, ultra-distance cycling training camp. The day began in early March after 4 days of 100 mile per day "warm-up" riding through the beautiful winter desert largely flat terrain from Tucson, Arizona through Tombstone, down to the Mexico boarder and across into New Mexico. At the end of an exhausting day 4, I remember looking at the peak of Mt. Graham from a distance and thinking how beautiful the snow covered mountain was, quiet, pristine and majestic.
It was intimidating to think about the next day's 138 mile ride with a beyond category climb of 5,000 plus feet up a smooth new blacktop road with steep, winding, snow covered pines right in the middle of the high altitude desert course. Mt Graham stood proud for anyone to see from the hotel base camp in Safford, Arizona 30 miles away from the base of the mountain. The crazy thing about this day is that climbing Mt. Graham is not mandatory, it is totally optional. You could simply ride up to the PAC Tour aid station at the base of the mountain and proceed to Lordsburg and skip the 23 mile climb to the top. The course is rated at only 91 miles, but when you add the 23 miles to the top and then race back down you have added another 46 miles to the course. To add complexity to the challenge, the ride up the top and the remainder of the day unfortunately was unassisted. You have to plan appropriately for the epic climb and carry what you need. That is both a physiological burden as well as a physical one as the extra weight for water haunts you at least until you get to the top. Mt. Graham is a pristine and primitive state park with no commercial retail or grocery stores within its boundaries just like it should be. It is just you, your bicycle and nature.
You might ask why would anyone add 46 miles to an already long day and climb Mt. Graham unassisted if you did not have to? While most people look for the east way out, I thought it would be an interesting personal challenge, but knew that it should not be underestimated and preparation is paramount. The other thought was how many times in your life do you get an opportunity to climb such a beautiful mountain on a bicycle?
What does this have to do with OS? Well up to day 5 of the PAC Tour that year, I had only paid attention to physical training, mass market off-the-shelf nutritional supplements with solid food and water at each aid station stop. This strategy seemed to work as I did ok on all of the prior rides, however they were fairly flat Arizona and New Mexico desert rides. It was during the week, that PAC Tour brought in a nutritional scientist to present the idea of ultra-endurance nutritional strategy and what your body needs when spending more than 5 hours on the bike. The presentation was inspiring and the information was refreshingly new for me as I had never before thought about nutritional performance over such a long time period. It seemed unbelievable to me that your body could absorb significantly more calories and faster if you simply focus on the right ingredients and osmolality (ratio of a mixture in water).
It was on day 5 of PAC Tour and the big Mt. Graham climb that I knew I would need something more than physical training to conquer the mountain. Armed with new knowledge on performance nutrition, It was this fateful day that the first batch of OS was unknowingly created.
Not knowing if this new performance drink would work, i set off armed with OS in two water bottles and two water bottle in the back pouch of my jersey. I nervously rode to the first aid station 30 miles into the ride to the base of Mt Graham and the first aid-station. All of the other riders, roughly 50 in total, were talking about the climb and had heard that the mountain was closed due to 12 inches of new snow that had fallen on the mountain that night. I remember the frustration caused by the anticipation and all the preparation only to be denied by weather.
Ambitions defeated but still inspired, I thought I would ride up the base of the mountain and touch the crossing gate to ride as far as I could before turning back to head toward Lordsburg. All of the other riders wrote off the climb, and I could not get even one rider to climb up to the first crossing gate with me approximately 3 miles up the mountain from the aid station. I am sure they thought it would be a waste of time and effort.
So riding alone I took off for what I thought would be a quick jaunt up the mountain. Curiosity is powerful for me and it was important for me to go as far as humanly possible before returning home. As I approached the first crossing gate I could faintly hear the sound of snow plows working the mountain ahead. To my surprise the first crossing gate was open. There were snow piles on each side of the road, but past the first crossing gate was a clear, black, beautiful asphalt road with an intense desert sun acting as a solar blanket to warm the road ahead. It was like something was compelling me to climb further. A thought that inspired me was thinking about the passage in the Bible of the parting of the seas.
Another 40 minutes of constant pedaling later the second crossing gate was also open. Hallelujah! It appeared that the snow plows were working fast enough to keep well ahead of my pace up the steep mountain. Along the way the mountain terrain changed from desert floor to scrub brush to a pine forest. The air was clean; the sun was bright, creating perfect conditions for the "ride of my life." During the ride I remember drinking OS in 15 minute intervals and thinking that I am not sure if the nutritional science stuff was going to help. I drank it anyway and kept riding.
After passing the third and final crossing gate at mile 18 the blacktop path on the road was narrow as snow covered everything in a magical white blanket. At least at this point, I knew the top was within reach. The views of the surrounding valley were incredible. The road behind was like a winding black snake up the mountain. The valley views to the West were crystal clear and looked far away like a view from an airplane. The mountain side was an amazing fairytale like setting with a dense forest of snow flocked pine trees and the mountain fresh scent of crisp, clean Christmas pine.
When you are at the top of the mountain there is a kind of euphoria. For a few seconds it makes you appreciate how difficult it was and how long it took to get to the top. The road was not just steep, but also the temps had dropped about 20 degrees Fahrenheit along the way from the 60 degree temps at the dry arid desert floor to a cold 40 degree temp at the top of the mountain. I grinned widely in the cold weather as I had all the right gear - long riding tights, extra warm wool socks borrowed from a friend the night before, riding gloves and the extra jacket to keep my engine warm. My heart was pounding louder than normal. At high altitude everything was magnified.
After 4 hours of riding and 3 hours of constant climbing I reached the top of Mt. Graham. A glorious moment of achievement that quickly turned to adrenaline laced excitement as I wasted little time to reflect on the climb and turned around at the end of the pavement and looked down at the long winding descent that lie ahead. My heart was pounding at the excitement of a fast and furious, no pedaling scream down the mountain with numerous twisty, turny hairpins on a clean black paved road. After just 10 minutes of the fast no-pedaling descent, my hands shivered from the constant clasping of the brakes combined with the cold wind whipped lack of physical activity. The temps eased noticeably as the descent raced through the pine forest to scrub brush and rock and then the pervasive sandy brown landscape of the desert floor. It was only 40 minutes of pure adrenalin rush to reach the bottom and back to comfortable 60 degree temps at the base of the mountain.
The remaining ride from the base of Mt. Graham to Lordsburg was unremarkable other than it was long and flat with occasional rolling hills. Since I was the only rider that day to reach the top of Mt. Graham, the last 90 miles was also on my own. The support wagons were long gone and packed up thinking that all riders did the 91 mile route and I did not bring my cell phone to let them know I was still out on the course. It was long and lonely miles back to the hotel in Lordsburg, and I was not sure if the two bottles of OS and two bottles of water was going to be enough. However, I made it in surprisingly strong fashion.
I remember rolling into the hotel 3 hours later than the last riders and Lon Halderman, camp owner and famous ultra-distance rider, asked "what are you doing still out on the course?" I remember telling Lon "I did it, I climbed to the top of Mt. Graham." Lon said "you did what?" I remember the strong feeling of achievement - reaching the top of Mt. Graham, riding farther than anyone else and feeling strong at the end. I knew something special happened on that day, something important, something real!
This is the story of the genesis of OS Performance Nutrition. Since that fateful day many years ago, a team of professionals and dedicated cyclists developed a complete line of nutritional products based on a simple philosophy of designing all natural nutritional products that achieve real and measurable performance optimized for the conditions. Our OS line of high-end nutritional performance products are specifically designed for pro, elite and amateur endurance athletes that appreciate real nutritional performance.
We do not design or products as "one size fits all" to chase high volume sales to the mass market. We prefer working with experienced athletes that can benefit from all natural products that are designed to optimize their endurance nutritional needs.
All it takes is one drink of OS Performance Nutrition on a long hard training day to understand exactly what I am talking about.
If you ever get a chance to ride to the top of Mt. Graham at least once in your life, you should. Just be sure that you are well prepared. Train hard, replenish well and drink OS Performance Nutrition. |
