It’s February and that means it’s almost time to reveal the top ten pre workout supplements of 2015. A late addition to this years trials is ‘diva burn’ – the women’s pre workout from Pureline Nutrition. As the newest product to enter the scene, I knew it was the perfect candidate for an official BPW review. I’ll tell you about my personal experience with the product- focusing on the flavor, how it performed for my workout, and then finishing up with a value assessment and final score. Without much further ado, let’s get to it- my Pureline Nutrition Diva Burn review.
I have to admit that when I first learned about this product, I sort of cringed. You know from my other reviews that I am an absolute supplement snob. It’s tough to please me- especially if you’re a pre workout. Or if you’re short. LOL. I actually saw a picture of Diva Burn on Instagram and decided to give it a go. I ended up paying about $43 bucks plus $12 for UPS Ground Shipping- so about $55 for my passion fruit flavored pre workout. It came reasonably quick so props to Pureline for that. I guess I may as well start with the flavor.
Diva Burn Flavor Review: 8.5
Pureline Nutrition Diva Burn comes in two flavors. They are sweet melon and passion fruit. I decided to give passion fruit because it sounded a little better to me than ‘sweet melon’. I’m usually pretty hard on taste and packaging so more often than not brands get B minus and below from me on those aspects. I am giving Diva Burn a B plus because it was quite good. I’m not going to tell you that it blew me away like some products have recently (ie Musclepharm Assault), but this pre workout tastes pretty dang good. The funny thing is that I’ve never eaten a real passion fruit so I’m not really sure what this flavor was supposed to taste like, but if I had to describe it, I would say it was a little bit like one of those apple pear things- not sure if you’ve ever had one of those but I highly recommend them. There was some tartness and some sweetness, and when you drink it in ice cold water like I did, it was truly refreshing and enjoyable. Now. That being said, there’s a very good reason why this product tastes bomb, and I’ll get into that in the ingredients review section. Get your popcorn ready. But first let me tell you about how this pre workout performed for me.
Diva Burn Performance & Effects: 8.0
I’m awarding Diva Burn a B minus on performance. It was not the most effective pre workout in my opinion, and a lot of that is due to the formula. And we’ll cover those ingredients in depth, but I’ll tell you about the workout experience I had with it. I took one level scoop before my workout yesterday morning, about 30 minutes prior to my first rep to give it time to set in.
The workout itself was very different from what I’m used to. I’ve had the worst pain in between my shoulder blades for like a week, and the more that I tried to exercise through it, the more it started to really hurt like heck. I’ve had the problem before, and usually blame it on an impinged nerve or something. I ended up finding this article on t-nation that basically was dead-on with my problems. My training regimen has created a pretty serious muscle imbalance and lack of proper scapula function. If you have had the sort of pain that I’m describing, you have to read this article because believe me, I’ve searched high and low for the information that can help- and this was the first one that really really made sense and hit on the source of the problem.
So anyways. I followed the advice of the article and started working on some really strict form pushups. The most interesting thing that I took away from this article was that traditional benching and pressing works your rhomboids and serratus in a much different way than push-ups. So my workout for the last week has essentially just been a series of push-ups followed by a heck of a treadmill workout. And that’s what I did yesterday- 6 sets of decline push-ups followed by about 20 minutes of treadmill intervals. Jogging 3/4 of the way around the track at 8 mph up the 7.0 incline, and then resting for the final 1/4 lap. During the push-ups, I barely felt anything from this pre workout. There was not a good wave of energy that I’m used to- almost zero focus to report, and not even a hint of the beta-alanine tingles. I was really confused at this point and thought maybe I had had a hallucination and didn’t actually take anything! But maybe it would kick in during the treadmill sprints.
Diva Burn actually did kick in a little bit during my treadmill uphill sprint intervals, which was sort of unexpected given how absent the effects were through my pushups. But during the fifth or sixth interval of treadmill climbs I noticed that I was able to get my breathing under control much quicker than usual and my legs started to feel way lighter and stronger. This was not an obvious pre workout feeling, and is something where if I was not so in touch with my body I might have missed this. Throughout the middle intervals the feelings continued and I was able to power through the laps maintaining pretty good form throughout. The last few laps were a battle, but they always are and always will be lol. But the fact that Diva Burn did kick in with some endurance was a pleasant surprise. Is this the strongest pre workout for women? No. But does it help with some endurance benefits? Totally. So what’s in here that creates the endurance effect? And what ISN’T in here that makes it so hard to ‘feel’?
Diva Burn Ingredients: 7.0
I have to give Diva Burn a pretty measly C on it’s ingredient panel because it just isn’t very impressive. Let’s go through ingredient by ingredient and break this thing down:
- Fructooligosaccharides Powder: I’ll admit it- I totally had to google this one. And I’m not really sure if I understand it still. There were some big words being used. But from what I gathered, these are simply fruit sugars. Actually they might technically be complex, or slower digesting. But I think the takeaway here is that the main ingredient in Diva Burn is basically carbohydrate. And since carbohydrate is like rocket fuel for cardio, that would explain why it actually did help me out during my run.
- Conjugated Linoleic Acid: CLA is the fatty acid found in red meats that has been used forever as a fat burning ingredient. Study results have been muddy at best since some reports seem to prove it’s effectiveness, while others seem to contradict. I personally am not a huge believer in this supplement, but to each her own.
- Taurine: This is probably the second smartest ingredient in here behind Fructooligosaccharides. Taurine is the key amino for focus and energy, and probably helped me get through that middle section of my workout.
- Green Coffee Bean: GCB was quite popular during its hay-day and time in the Dr. Oz spotlight, but I believe the hype has calmed down as some reports have called into question it’s legitimacy as the magic fat burner.
- Yerba Mate: I don’t mind yerba mate, though my instinct is that it’s probably dosed pretty conservatively in this product.
- Aim Slim: This is some kind of trademarked appetite suppressant. I don’t feel like doing all the research to figure out what exactly is in it or how it works, but to be honest I’m not totally sure what it’s doing in a pre workout.
- Dandelion Root: I know some companies use this as a form of diuretic- which would flush you out a little bit and give you a leaner look. But in terms of increasing athletic performance (aka the point of a pre workout), this is a waste.
- Glucoronolactone: This ingredient can support focus and energy. It’s usually used in concert with caffeine to balance things out. But since there isn’t a significant amount of caffeine in here, not sure why it is included.
- Green Tea: Green Tea is a smart inclusion to any pre workout as it can support basically every bodily function you have.
The formula is proprietary, but we can assume that they are listed in order of the most heavily dosed being at the top of the list. That leads me to believe that the majority of this product is just fruit sugar powder. Not very impressive. But the label is kind of cool?
Diva Burn Packaging Review: 8.0
Usually I would hate how gimmicky this packaging is, but it actually comes off pretty cool in person. The bejeweled feature graphic is sparkly and shimmery and has a nice look. I also appreciate how the designer used the black hourglass shape in the background to convey the feminine figure. Even the pink light things on either side of it work for me in a weird way. I’m not crazy about the gimmicky Missy Eliot font used for the product title, but it’s not horrible. The purple lid is also a refreshing departure from the hot pink that we’ve become so used to.
In summary, this pre workout is just not on par with some of the competition out there. The formula is really unusual- and trust me I’ve seen them all. The ingredients don’t seem to have any common thread between them. It’s like an appetite suppressant powder mixed with various herbals with the overall goal being totally unclear. What I do know is that the dosage of carbohydrate that it does provide might be worth a shot if you do alot of cardio. But if that’s all it’s good for, you would honestly get comparable benefits from eating a banana. From that perspective, the $55 price tag (shipped) just doesn’t seem worth it. Diva Burn is one of the most confusing pre workouts I have every reviewed. Tastes ok though 🙂
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