Mushrooms for Athletes: What Works and What's Hype

By Jon Klipstein, U.S. Army Combat Veteran & Founder of Die Tryin Co., and Onur Oncer, BS Physiology, peer-reviewed published researcher & founder of Shroombiosis

Full disclosure: Onur formulated this product. That is exactly why this post tells you what the research does NOT show, too.

MUSHROOMS FOR LIFTERS, MINUS THE FAIRY DUST

Listen up. You've seen the mushroom coffee crowd on your feed. Soft lighting, linen shirts, somebody whispering about ancient wisdom over a seven-dollar latte. This is not that post, and this is not that product.

Here's the truth: the functional mushroom business (mushrooms taken for health, not for dinner) is split in two. On one side are real extracts made from the mushroom itself, called the fruiting body. They have active compounds you can measure and real human trials behind them. On the other side is powdered root, called mycelium, grown on grain. That is mostly starch wearing a mushroom name. Most of what sells is the second kind. And on both sides, the marketing has run ahead of the science.

This drink, Shroombiosis, is a collab between Die Tryin Co. and the company Onur Oncer founded, which is also called Shroombiosis. Onur is our science reviewer and Jon's battle buddy from Afghanistan. He built it after doing what most people never do: reading the labels on the big mushroom coffee brands. He found "proprietary blends" that hide the doses. The products were underdosed, overpriced, and sold on hype to people who were never given the tools to check. Shroombiosis is the answer to that, and it's the same reason Jon built Die Tryin Co. It's seven organic mushrooms in a white chocolate mocha cocoa drink. All seven are fruiting body, and all seven are dual-extracted (the good stuff pulled out two ways, explained below). Below is what's in it, what named human trials actually found, and, just as important, where the evidence stops.

WHY LIFTERS SHOULD CARE ABOUT SOURCING

Most people get this wrong because the label lets them. A mushroom supplement can legally be one of two very different things. The fruiting body is the actual mushroom, the part that grows up and out. Mycelium is the root network underneath. It's almost always sold ground up together with the grain it was grown on. Test those root-and-grain powders and you find they can run heavy on starch. You're paying mushroom prices for oatmeal filler.

Extraction matters just as much. Extraction means pulling the useful compounds out of the mushroom. Mushroom cell walls are made of chitin, the same tough stuff as crab shells, and your gut doesn't break it down well. Dual extraction pulls compounds out two ways:

• Hot water pulls out the compounds that dissolve in water, like beta-glucans, a type of fiber built into those cell walls. It takes hours of simmering to break them out of those tough walls.
• Alcohol pulls out the ones that don't dissolve in water, like triterpenes, a second group of natural compounds that hot water leaves behind. The alcohol step takes weeks of soaking.

Then the two get combined. Skip either step and you leave half the mushroom locked inside. Real dual extraction runs on a calendar, not a clock, and that timeline is exactly why most brands skip it. Grinding root and grain into a bag takes an afternoon. Every one of the seven mushrooms in Shroombiosis is organic, fruiting body, and dual-extracted. That's printed on the label, not buried in a proprietary blend. Real doses of real ingredients. For scale: the 500 mg of poria in one scoop matches what gets sold elsewhere as an entire standalone product. That standard is the whole reason this product exists.

WHAT THE RESEARCH ACTUALLY SHOWS

Start with endurance, because that's where the results are the most concrete. A 2017 trial split 28 adults into groups at random. One group got 4 grams a day of a cordyceps-based mushroom blend. The other got a placebo, a look-alike dummy. It was a blind test: neither the people nor the researchers knew who got which. After one week: nothing. Ten volunteers kept going for three weeks. By then, the mushroom group's VO2max, the most oxygen your body can use during hard work, had risen by about 4.8 points. Those points are ml of oxygen per kg of body weight per minute. The placebo group gained under 1 point. The mushroom group also lasted longer before hitting exhaustion. That's a controlled trial in people, measuring real performance, not a mouse study. And it no longer stands alone. A 2026 review of cordyceps trials in people concluded the evidence so far supports better performance and better recovery after exercise. The pattern holds: the effects show up after weeks of daily use, not on day one.

Lion's mane has real human data too. A small 2023 study tested it in 41 healthy adults, again as a blind test against a placebo. One 1.8 g dose made people measurably faster on a brain-speed test 60 minutes later. Over 28 days, stress dropped too. That drop came close, but it fell just short of the standard scientists use to rule out plain luck. It's one small study, not twenty trials, but it is real data measured against a placebo. To be fair, a separate 2025 study by Surendran's team (Frontiers in Nutrition) gave people one 3 g dose. It found no overall boost to thinking. Read together, the science says lion's mane is a consistency play, not a light switch. We're telling you that instead of cropping it out.

Now the shared engine most mushroom brands never explain. Your immune cells carry sensors that recognize beta-glucans and respond to them. That is not a guess. A review of 34 trials in people found the main effect shown for fungal beta-glucans (from yeast and mushrooms) is on the immune system. They help adjust how it responds. People also handled them well across the studies. Reishi, chaga, turkey tail, and poria all carry beta-glucans, so they share that engine. Of those four, the review included only reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), not chaga, turkey tail or poria. Reishi also owns the sharpest single result. An 84-day trial in healthy adults, also a blind test against a placebo, found reishi beta-glucans improved immune test results. Those included T cells and natural killer cell activity, both part of your germ-fighting white blood cells, plus IgA, a type of antibody. Healthy adults, a placebo group, and the immune results moved. That's the whole story.

Poria is the ingredient we used to call a long shot. The current science says otherwise. It has been written about in traditional Chinese medicine since around 215 BC, and the review describes more than 2,500 years of use. It appears in 25 of the 100 recipes on China's official list of classic herbal formulas. Then in 2025, a lab study in a journal from the Nature group mixed the complex carbs from poria with gut bacteria taken from people. The bacteria readily used them as food. As they fed, they made more of the compounds gut bacteria make when they break down fiber (short-chain fatty acids). Good bacteria grew, and possibly harmful kinds dropped. That was lab work on human gut samples, not a trial in people, and we'll say that plainly. A 2022 sleep study in mice also points to GABA, the brain's main calming signal, as a possible reason for poria's traditional calm reputation. The long shot grew up.

Now the limits, all in one place instead of sprinkled through every sentence. These are mostly small studies. The endurance trial used 4 grams a day of a blend built on a different cordyceps species than the one in this scoop. So treat it as evidence about cordyceps mushrooms in general, not this exact extract. The lion's mane trials used 1.8 to 3 grams. This scoop has 1 gram. Nobody has run a trial on this exact formula, and we're not claiming it repeats any of those results. What the studies agree on is the timeline. When these mushrooms change something researchers can measure, it takes weeks of steady use, not minutes. Anyone promising a one-scoop transformation is selling marketing, not science.

WHAT IT IS NOT

This is not a pre-workout. No added caffeine, no stimulants. It will not hit like Project M777, and it is not trying to. You'll also see the word "adaptogen" (plants and mushrooms said to help your body handle stress) slapped on products like this everywhere. Know this going in: adaptogen is a marketing word, not a medical one, and we don't lean on it. This also doesn't replace anything that actually built your physique. Creatine Monohydrate, protein, sleep, and your training program come first. If those aren't squared away, start with the ultimate guide to recovery before you spend a dollar on mushrooms. Basics beat hype. This is a supporting-cast supplement, and we'd rather tell you that than sell you a miracle.

THE GUT ANGLE

Hard training stresses more than your muscles. Long sessions, high volume, and heavy conditioning all put a load on your digestive system. That's why Shroombiosis carries a dedicated gut layer: a prebiotic, a probiotic and a postbiotic in one scoop. Every one of those has human research behind the ingredient. Not every one of them at the dose we use, which is exactly why we print the doses. It's designed to support gut health, and your gut drives more of your training than most lifters want to admit. Here are the three parts.

• Acacia fiber, 750 mg (the prebiotic). Straight talk on the acacia: Calame's 2008 study in people (British Journal of Nutrition) tested four daily doses: 5, 10, 20 and 40 g. It landed on 10 g as the best dose. It never tested anything below 5 g, and the company that supplied the acacia ran it. Our 750 mg is a fraction of that. Think of it as a little food for the bacteria you already have. It is not a fiber dose, and we are not going to dress it up as one.
• DE111 (the probiotic, meaning live good bacteria). DE111 travels as a spore, a tough, dormant form of the bacteria. A 2021 study by Colom's team (Frontiers in Microbiology) sampled the small intestine directly. Its volunteers had a surgical bag that collects from it. The spores survived the stomach and became active there within three hours. The strain's own maker ran that study. A separate 2021 study by Freedman's team (International Journal of Molecular Sciences) tested it in healthy adults. It barely changed their gut symptoms or gut-lining tests, so no clear effect showed up there. You should know both.
• BPL1, 100 mg (the postbiotic, meaning good bacteria heat-treated so they are no longer alive). BPL1 is not a mystery strain. A blind trial in people, run against a placebo, studied this exact strain, including its heat-killed postbiotic form. It found effects on measures of metabolic health.

Your gut and your immune system are roommates, and hard training blocks are exactly when both get tested. Reishi brings the beta-glucans covered by that review of 34 trials. Poria brings the complex carbs that fed good gut bacteria in that lab study (a lab result, not a human one). The fiber, probiotic and postbiotic layer comes at the same system from another angle. Deliberate design, not a kitchen-sink accident. There's one more reason to care. Research by Cryan and Dinan on how your gut and brain talk to each other keeps tying gut health to mood and drive. And roughly 90 percent of your body's serotonin, a chemical messenger, is made in the gut. That figure comes from a 2015 paper by Yano's team in the journal Cell. For the bigger picture, supporting your immune system through hard training is worth understanding on its own.

HOW TO RUN IT

One scoop, every day, judged over weeks. Here's how Onur formulated it to be taken: first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Start with a half scoop for the first few days to see how your body handles it, then move to a full scoop. If you are pregnant, managing a medical condition or taking medication, clear any supplement with your doctor first. Remember the endurance trial: week one showed nothing, and week three showed results. Give it a full tub, 30 servings, before you decide anything. Skipping days and expecting effects is how people decide supplements "don't work," when the real answer is they never actually took them.

It's a cocoa drink, not a chalk shot. It's white chocolate mocha, mixed hot like a mocha or shaken cold. Each scoop has 25 calories. It also has 3 g of carbs and 1 g of protein. It fits any macro plan (your protein, carb and fat targets), cutting or bulking. No caffeine means it slots in cleanly morning or evening, including as an evening wind-down. Stack-wise, it plays fine next to everything else you're running. One scoop of Shroombiosis alongside your creatine in the morning, done. Your pre-workout stays your pre-workout.

Mix it however you actually drink things. The Tri-Biotic layer (the prebiotic, probiotic and postbiotic trio) was picked for exactly this. DE111 is a spore-forming probiotic built to survive heat. BPL1 is a heat-treated postbiotic. So the gut layer holds up in hot coffee, cold coffee, hot water, or cold water. Mixing with water? Use a shaker and shake it hard. And if you see sediment, the gritty bits at the bottom, that is normal. That is the fibrous structure of real mushrooms, not a defect. Give it a swirl at the end and drink it all. The sediment is the product.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Do mushroom supplements actually work?

More than the skeptics claim, less than the marketers promise: human trials found endurance gains from a cordyceps-based blend, faster scores on a brain-speed test from lion's mane, and better immune test results after 84 days of reishi beta-glucans. Nearly all of it took weeks of daily use, and quality (real fruiting-body extracts at doses printed on the label, not grain filler) decides whether you get any of it.

Is this a pre-workout?

No, it has no added caffeine and no stimulants, so you won't feel a kick. It's a daily cocoa drink for the long game, and an actual pre-workout is what you take to feel something before a session.

When do you take it?

Onur formulated it for first thing in the morning on an empty stomach: half a scoop while you test how you handle it, then a full scoop daily. Consistency beats timing, and with no caffeine, evening works fine too, hot or cold.

Is it vegan?

Yes, it's vegan friendly and GMO free (no genetically modified ingredients). Coconut milk powder makes it creamy instead of dairy, and monk fruit and stevia sweeten it instead of sugar.

Does it replace creatine?

Not even close: Creatine Monohydrate is the most-studied performance supplement there is, and nothing in the mushroom world touches its track record. Keep taking your creatine and run this alongside it, not instead of it.

What does "fruiting body" mean?

It's the actual mushroom, the part above the surface, not the root network (mycelium) that most brands grind up with starchy grain. All seven mushrooms in Shroombiosis are fruiting body and dual-extracted, and the label says so.

NINE PURCHASES, OR ONE SCOOP

We priced each ingredient at the amount in our scoop, not at whatever bottle size it's sold in. Shroombiosis costs $88.49 less for the same thirty days. It works out to $1.67 a day against $4.62. And that comparison uses the cheapest verified option for every single ingredient, not the averages. Against typical prices, the gap gets wider. One more thing: most of those cheapest options don't even verify fruiting-body sourcing, let alone dual extraction. Buying the same quality, ingredient by ingredient, would cost even more than the table shows. Store prices matched to our doses, checked August 2026, using the cheapest verified option per ingredient. Several were worked out per dose from larger containers. Prices in this category move, so these will drift. Retailers unnamed on purpose.

READY TO GEAR UP?

Seven organic, dual-extracted, fruiting-body mushrooms, a prebiotic-probiotic-postbiotic gut layer, and a white chocolate mocha you'll actually want to drink daily. That's Shroombiosis, 30 servings, built by a physiology researcher who put the limits right in the blog post. Not sure where it fits in your stack? Take the quiz and build from the basics out.

ALWAYS FORWARD.