Your Guide to Pre-Workout Supplements

What’s a “Pre-Workout” Anyway? It can mean a few things: A pure stimulant to jack you up before training, or a substance to get you mentally focused. A nutritional drink with the right carbs, proteins, and amino acids to fuel workout performance and subsequent recovery. A combination of one and two above. In short, pre-workout supplements are meant to enhance your performance in the gym. They can contain all sorts of ingredients that increase energy, improve blood flow to the muscles, or enhance focus. There are all sorts of formulations, but before you decide to buy a pre-workout supplement, you need to know the facts. Common Pre-Workout Ingredients Some pre-workout supplements are junk. The only legit way to know if a pre-workout is good or not is to simply look at the ingredient label. Marketers often lie, but the ingredients don’t (well, usually). Here are some common pre-workout ingredients: Beta Alanine Betaine Caffeine Creatine L-Citrulline L-Leucine Let’s go over the evidence and show what the clinical studies tell us about these ingredients. Beta Alanine Beta alanine is a naturally-occurring amino that’s responsible for giving you the “tingles” associated with some pre-workout formulations. Those tingles come from increased blood flow to the skin and muscles, which has an impact on performance. In one of the largest research papers published on beta alanine to date, researchers found that it could improve athletic performance by up to 10.49%. The research paper looked at dozens of clinical studies and found that simply taking two grams of beta alanine before a workout was enough to give users a boost in their athletic performance. According to researchers, beta alanine most likely works by increasing “intracellular pH buffering, as the result of increased muscle carnosine levels.” In layman’s terms, this means that beta alanine helps decrease cellular acidity levels from intense exercise. The bottom line is that beta alanine is a great ingredient to have in your pre-workouts, and it’s one of the best ingredients for getting a pump. Betaine Anhydrous This is a naturally-occurring chemical that’s produced by the body, but can also be found in foods such as spinach, beets, seafood, and wine. One study, cited by 70 other clinical research papers, found that supplementing with betaine anhydrous can improve muscle mass, endurance, and body composition. Specifically, the study found that the cross sectional area of the arms increased drastically when users supplemented with betaine. Bench press volume increased dramatically also, along with lean body mass. Caffeine Caffeine is, by far, the most common ingredient found in pre-workout supplements. The benefits of caffeine are very well studied. A meta-study of caffeine published in the British Journal of Sports found that caffeine consumption before a workout can help improve athletic performance by anywhere between 2% and 16%, which is a hell of a lot in the sports performance world. Creatine Creatine is naturally created in your body, and it’s essential to the production of adenosine triphosphate production (ATP). Your body needs ATP to create energy, and thankfully, creatine helps your body create more of the compound. One research paper, conducted at Baylor University and cited by 437 other clinical researchers, found that creatine drastically increased overall athletic performance: “Short-term creatine supplementation has been reported to improve maximal power/strength (5-15%), work performed during sets of maximal effort muscle contractions (5-15%), single-effort sprint performance (1-5%), and work performed during repetitive sprint performance (5-15%). Moreover, creatine supplementation during training has been reported to promote significantly greater gains in strength, fat free mass, and performance primarily of high intensity exercise tasks.” Creatine is especially known for its ability to help users gain muscle mass. Take a look at the following graph from the website Healthline: According to this graph, users can put on nearly twice as much muscle mass when training and taking creatine, as opposed to just training alone. L-Citrulline L-Citrulline, or citrulline malate, is known to enhance endurance and decrease muscle soreness both during and after your workouts. Citrulline also helps muscles recover faster. One study, conducted by the Department of Medicine at the University, found that supplementing with citrulline malate reduced muscle soreness by a whopping 40%, which is a huge deal because it allows athletes to get back into the gym a lot quicker. L-Leucine Among the amino acids, the one that has perhaps the biggest effect on regulating protein synthesis is leucine. It’s the main mTOR amplifier among amino acids. Although leucine is found in any whole protein source, some pre-workout blends add an extra amount of it for an added muscle protein synthesis punch. What’s the Best Pre-Workout Formula? So, what’s the best
Origin: Your Guide to Pre-Workout Supplements