Waxy Maize Review

With the explosion of the internet, the fitness industry has been evolving at a very rapid pace. As soon as new ideas get brought to the public attention, everyone in bodybuilding or physique training is rushing to test it out. The “new kid on the block” right now is waxy maize. For those of you that may not be into the hardcore supplementation of bodybuilding or physique training, you may be wondering what that is.

Waxy maize is a flavorless (though certain brands sell flavored versions) natural corn starch. Personally, I don’t mind the taste at all and use it multiple times throughout the day in place of solid carbs when I’m training for lean muscle. So why is some corn starch that powerful? It has a higher molecular weight and lower blood osmolaity rate then dextrose or maltodextorse, which for years has been the preferred source of post workout carbohydrates. So it gets absorbed into the small intestine very rapidly and brings whatever nutrients that it was consumed with (protein, bcaa’s, creatine) into the muscles faster.

With other carb sources, these nutrients spend too much time in the stomach and actually get degraded so less of them are available for recovery or their various purposes. So we can shuttle the nutrients to our muscles fasters, recover faster and get a better “pump”. So everythings good right? Remember what I said about the internet? Well things get messed up and confused and it’s that way with waxy maize.

I don’t really understand why people bash waxy maize, I mean the science behind it is so solid. I think it’s honestly because it’s new. Let’s break it down for a second. People talk about it being a “high molecular weight” carbohydrate. You should remember from high school chemistry that all molecular weight is, is the weight of a molecule. Simple really, right? Let’s compare it to dextrose. Now I’ve seen various studies on this but the molecular weight of dextrose is around 150-325, somewhere in that range. The lowest molecular weight that I’ve seen of it is around 2000!

Another benefit is the osmolaity right? Well blood’s osmolaity is around 300. Most commercial products contain a osmalaity of around 10-15. That’s crazy.

Think about this. We all have had very high carb meals right? You know how you get bloated and your stomach gets heavy? Well that’s because of the blood osmoality level. Nothing is forcing those carbs into the small intestine (where about 80{70bf3f0de345653d44762dc26ff670ad140dd79bcbd9067b668b28c6672699c3} of carb metabolism occurs).

So it just skyrockets all your nutrients into your small intestine. I mean I’m starving 20 minutes after taking it. Oh it’s a carb you say? Well let’s look at post workout insulin. During that time your body is dying to replenish muscle glycogen, so which option would be better? To replenish it as quick as possible or to wait over a 60-75 minutes period. Obviously the first one since the sooner we replenish our muscle glycogen the sooner our body stops burning muscle tissue to recover. Not to mention that the insulin spike happens that quickly. You owe it to yourself to take a hard look at waxy maize.