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Cobra Labs The Ripper Review

 

The Ripper is without question one of the most distinctive fat burners on the market today. Cobra Labs really got the branding right here; anybody who sees this fat burner once will probably remember it for a long time and they instantly know it is a supplement to increase metabolism. The skull on the tub leaps right out at you off the shelf, and the name is definitely different to most other fat burners out there right now; we can’t count how many “T5″s we’ve seen! If nothing else, Cobra Labs have been inventive with their branding!

But what does The Ripper actually do?

How is it supposed to help you shred body fat during a cut?

 

 

According to the Cobra Labs website, The Ripper delivers a handful of key benefits that make it useful for anybody trying to cut fat and preserve muscle. These are:

• Lasting energy
• Appetite control
• Enhanced fat loss
• Rapid action

These are the core benefits we look for in a fat burner. If a product can help us stay energized during a diet, keep us from over-eating, and help fire-up our workouts, then it is a winner for us. 

The fact that it is designed to work quickly is a major bonus; we like fat burners which can be used as a pre-workout as well as an all-day support supplement. 

As the Cobra Labs site says: “This great tasting, full strength formula mixes in seconds and goes to work within minutes of the very first dose.”

You’d think it would be easy to find a product that can deliver these simple benefits. But it isn’t.

Every fat burner out there claims to do these things. Yet only a dozen or so actually do. 

Well, does The Ripper deliver? Or is it another case of “all bark and no bite”? 

Is it safe? What kind of side effects will it cause?

How does it compare to the likes of Instant Knockout?

Find out by reading our full Cobra Labs The Ripper review below. We’re going to tear the formula apart and see if it is really as good as the manufacturer claims. We’ll tell you what kind of side effects you can expect. Ultimately, we’ll tell you whether or not this fat burner is worth the price tag. Got any questions? Want to share your experiences? Post in the comments section at the end!

 

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The Ripper Formula

Here is the ingredients list as it appears on the bottle:

 

 

That is NOT what we wanted to see AT ALL. 

Proprietary blends (where we aren’t given individual ingredient serving sizes) are MAJOR RED FLAGS for us. 

As we see it, there’s no reason whatsoever to use a proprietary blend unless you want to hide tiny serving sizes from customers. After all, none of the best-selling fat burners today use prop blends. If they can do it and make buckets of money, so can everyone. 

We never recommend using a supplement that hides its formula behind a proprietary blend. 

But there are specific problems with The Ripper’s prop blend that make it particularly bad.

The larger of the blends contains a couple of ingredients that have 0 fat burning potential. Or to put that another way, they don’t work. The science is clear on this. The blend does contain other ingredients that do accelerate fat loss, but we have no idea how much we get per serving. 

The smaller of the blends is far too small. There is no way that the best ingredients in that blend can all be dosed how they need to be to work properly. We don’t even think there’s enough for one of the ingredients to be dosed properly. 

Overall, a poor formula. We expected more from such a popular fat burner, especially since it’s made by such a seemingly reputable brand.

 

Big Problem – Dud Ingredients In Proprietary Blend

You should never settle for a proprietary blend when there are so many fat burners out there with clear, transparent, open formulas. There’s just no need to take the risk. 

We think prop blends are always an sign of a rip-off formula. When a manufacturer has a great formula to offer, they tend to use it as a major selling point. So why hide, right?

But The Ripper’s prop blends are particularly bad. 

The main reason for this is that they contain ineffective, unproven ingredients. 

For example, the larger of the two blends contains Raspberry Ketones. 

We recommend that you read our article on raspberry ketones if you have the time. To cut a long story short, we think they’re a total scam. There’s no conclusive evidence showing that they aid fat loss in humans. The reason they’re found in so many supplements – in our opinion – is because they’re cheap, readily available, and they have the word “ketone” in their name. 

Raspberry ketones have nothing to do with human ketone bodies. Nothing.

“Ketone” refers to the structure of a molecule. The make-up of that molecule can be anything at all; so long as it is in a particular arrangement, it is a “ketone”. 

Raspberry ketones are the molecules which give the berries their pleasant smell. 

We’ve never seen a robust clinical trial showing that raspberry ketone supplementation leads to greater fat loss in humans. Until we do, we’re going to just go ahead and assume that they’re totally bogus. 

 

 

Another good example of a bogus ingredient is Olive Leaf Extract. 

You’ll find this stuff in plenty of supplements – not just fat burners either. You’ll find Olive Leaf Extract in pretty much any kind of natural supplement you can think of. We think this happens because people think of olives as being vaguely “healthy”. 

One study found that Olive Leaf Extract supplementation might help with the treatment of obesity by down-regulating certain genes related to metabolic disorders. However, we don’t think this means that OLE is a proven fat burner. Far from it. 

This study did not show that OLE supplementation led to decreased body fat n human subjects. 

It did not show a robust correlation between OLE supplementation and decreased body fat levels. 

All it did was identify a substance found in olives and suggest that it might help mitigate a genetic predisposition to obesity. 

To us, this is not a suitable ingredient in a hardcore bodybuilding supplement. 

 

 

To make this worse, we don’t know how much of the formula is made up of these ineffective, unproven ingredients. 

For all you know, you’re paying top dollar for a supplement that is mostly just Raspberry ketones and Olive leaf extract – ingredients that have not been shown to help with fat loss in humans. For us, that is completely unacceptable. 

We don’t see why anybody would choose such a supplement over products that contain only proven, reliable fat burners, and with doses stated on the bottle!

 

-See Our Ab Training Guide-

 

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The Ripper Side Effects – Is It Safe?

There are a couple of things that you need to be aware of before you start using The Ripper fat burner. 

For starters, you should know that proprietary blends always make things uncertain. And when we’re trying to judge how dangerous a supplement is, uncertainty is definitely a bad thing. 

If we don’t know the doses of the individual ingredients, then we cant figure out how dangerous a product is; simple as that. That is part of the reason why we NEVER recommend a product that doesn’t show the individual ingredient servings on the bottle. 

Now that that warning is out of the way, let’s look at some specific side effect risks in The Ripper. 

 

 

The main side effect concern is the caffeine. 

Each serving of this fat burner contains 200mg of caffeine. We assume that is total caffeine content; it is listed separately to “Guarana Extract”, which usually means caffeine (but with some useless plant matter thrown in as a bonus – caffeine is caffeine). But we think this is just to make it clear how much caffeine each serving provides, which we appreciate!

Consuming 200mg of caffeine in a single serving is going to cause side effects in the vast majority of people. 

Your average espresso from a coffee shop contains about 60-70mg of caffeine. So 200mg is like consuming 3-4 espressos at once. 

We don’t care how much coffee you drink – that’s A LOT of caffeine.

Some fat burners split their daily serving up into 2-4 equal parts. This allows you to spread your caffeine intake out evenly throughout the day. This not only mitigates side effects, but also keeps you nice and energized in work and in the gym despite being low on calories. 

The Ripper doesn’t allow for this; one serving is one serving. 

The likely side effects of consuming 200mg of caffeine in a single dose include, but are not limited to:

• Jitters
• Sweating
• Dizziness
• Hypertension
• Rapid heart beat
• Shortness of breath
• Lack of focus
• Energy crashes

It’s OK to take a little more caffeine right before you workout. But taking 200mg in a single dose – at any time of day – is probably a bad idea. 

Using caffeine like this over many months will cause more serious problems – dependency, insomnia, and elevated risk of heart disease to name a few. 

 

-Does Cardio Really Burn Muscle Mass?-

 

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The Ripper Review Summary – Not Worth The Price Tag

In our opinion, Cobra Labs The Ripper is not really worth the price tag.

Our main problem is the use of proprietary blends. There are dozens of fat burners out there that show their individual ingredient serving sizes on the bottle. The manufacturers boast about their formulas; the generous servings of top fat burners is their main selling point! These supplements make millions of dollars a year.

We therefore don’t see any reason for anybody to spend money on an unknown quantity. Transparency and certainty have value – no doubt about that. 

The ingredients found in The Ripper’s prop blends make this problem even worse. For all we know, most of the formula could be bogus ingredients. You could quite easily be paying top dollar for a lot of raspberry ketones and olive leaf extract and not much else. Not ideal!

The small size of one of the blends means that the best ingredients – green coffee bean extract for example – are highly unlikely to be dosed properly. 

Overall, this is not a very good fat burner. Cobra Labs could have done much better here. We really don’t understand why this product is so popular. 

If you want good value for money, better side effect control and ultimately better results, check out any of our top rated fat burners.