The Best Pre Workout is No Pre Workout

The Best Pre Workout

Should you take pre workout supplements?

Although some pre workout products may have some benefits, they might also cause health effects.

So just say no to Pre Workout supplements and choose a Pre Workout routine that does not cause harm.

What is Pre-Workout?

Put simply, Pre Workout supplements are any type of supplement you take before your workout.

Typically, it is a powdered substance you mix up into your water to give your workout a little boost.

According to the marketing, pre workout helps you boost your workouts.

How Does it Work?

Pre-workout supplements contain stimulants like caffeine to reduce fatigue and boost energy. Caffeine provides benefits to your performance.

Caffeine stimulates your central nervous system, helping to reduce fatigue and improve alertness. Caffeine binds to your adenosine receptors.

Adenosine is a compound that builds up over the course of a long day or hard workout and makes you feel tired. By binding to these receptors, caffeine decreases and delays fatigue.

Performance Effect of Caffeine

Caffeine can also increase alertness and lower your perceived exertion and discomfort from a workout. Caffeine also increases the brain activity of neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and dopamine.

Additionally, caffeine can help you recruit more motor neurons in any sporting activity, increasing strength and power output.

Caffeine reduces fatigue. It can shave seconds off your mile run time even if you are an elite athlete. Caffeine can also reduce fatigue within a workout session.

Additionally, caffeine can also increase your use of fat as a fuel source, which can help you to preserve more glucose during your exercise session.

An increased reliance on fat and a decreased reliance on glucose can make your workouts feel easier and can increase your time to exhaustion. In fact, these benefits mirror the same benefits of regular cardio training, helping your body to use more fat for fuel.

However, you can get caffeine without taking a Pre Workout Supplement. While Pre Workout typically contains a ton of caffeine, you can consume caffeine in coffee, tea or even pure caffeine pills.

You don’t need a Pre Workout supplement to get the benefits of caffeine. Instead, you can go for a coffee before your workout instead.

What else do Pre Workout Supplements Contain?

Pre workout supplements also contain other ingredients that may boost performance and recovery. These supplements may include some combination of any of the following.

Glutamine may reduce recovery time and help with muscle building.

Creatine may increase creatinine stores within the muscles, which can help with high intensity muscle contractions. Also, creatine may be associated with increased muscle growth.

Beta alanine may reduce fatigue and increase endurance. It may also improve muscle endurance and power.

Nitric oxide increases blood flow to working muscles to reduce fatigue.

Beetroot may increase nitric oxide production and improve blood flow to working muscles.

Citrulline may improve blood flow to working muscles.

B vitamins may improve energy. And vitamin c may reduce the effects of free radicals.

Branch Chain Amino Acids may prevent muscle protein breakdown during exercise.

Many pre workouts also contain proprietary blends or herbs that may or may not have any impact on performance.

You do not need a Supplement

However, you could simply take any or a combination of these supplements instead of taking a Pre Workout concoction. You can better ascertain the effects of one vitamin or supplement that way. In addition, you can avoid the blends or herbs in Pre Workout powders that way.

You could even consume some of these nutrients in food form instead of in a supplement form. If certain vitamins give you a stomach ache, you should avoid vitamin supplements.

What are the other Downsides of Pre Workout?

Pre workout supplements may harm you.

Pre Workout has not been evaluated by the FDA.

The Food and Drug Administration devotes significant time, money and research to determine that a drug or therapy is effective and safe.

If any significant health risks exist, they must make an informed decision about introduction to market.

Drug companies pay millions of dollars to the FDA as part of the application process to license a new drug.

Supplements not Evaluated by FDA

However, supplement and vitamin companies can get around the FDA licensing requirements to bring their products to market.

Because supplement companies do not need to get FDA approval, they can put a disclaimer on their products that they have not been evaluated by the FDA.

This means that the FDA has not determined the safety and effectiveness of supplements like pre workout.

If these products contain significant risks, you might not know. Additionally, if these products contain risks for certain people, you might not know that either.

Some proprietary blends might cause negative health effects. They may also interact with your medications.

Effectiveness Unproven

And finally, you might not ever know if these products provide benefits.

Because supplements like Pre-Workout have not been evaluated by the FDA, they might not increase your workout results.

Optimizing Creatine

For instance, Creatine supplementation might help for vegans who don’t get much Creatine in their diets. However, people who consume red meat and poultry regularly might not need Creatine supplements.

In essence, they have already optimized their Creatinine stores and won’t benefit from an additional supplementation.

Optimizing Nutrient and Vitamin Levels

Branch Chain Amino Acids might help you if you don’t eat much protein before and after your workouts. If you do eat enough protein, you might not benefit from BCAAs at all.

Many foods contain Vitamin C and B12. Supplementing might not provide any benefit for exercise performance or immunity. In fact, many studies find risks of extra vitamin C supplementation.

You can find caffeine in coffee. The dose of caffeine in Pre-Workout may be beneficial for some people but less effective for people who are caffeine tolerant or caffeine sensitive.

And Glutamine, Tyrosine and other components of Pre-Workout have some evidence behind their effectiveness, but no demonstrated benefit in other studies.

It’s also difficult to ascertain the benefit of Pre-Workout in conjunction with the other foods and beverages you are consuming.

Dietary Research is Difficult

In short, dietary research is difficult because of the confounding effects of many other foods and beverages as well as issues like dietary compliance over a long enough time period to provide evidence.

This is partly why dietary recommendations tend to change every couple of years. Remember when fat was deemed to be bad and food marketers lowered the fat content of food without providing any health benefits?

Do you remember when salt intake was associated with high blood pressure? Now too low salt intakes are thought to be worse for heart health. 

How do you even know that these Pre Workout supplements won’t be shunned for their ineffectiveness in the future? The truth is, you don’t!

Dietary Study Participant Recruitment and Study Length

Many studies fail to recruit enough study participants for nutrition research.

Yes, maybe a supplement shows promise for a couple weeks. However, they might not show long term benefits.

Few nutrition studies continue for more than a few weeks anyway.

If a supplement showed promise for only a few weeks, are we really sure the supplement caused that effect?

And finally, research in sport science is not subject to the same rigors as medical research.

Really, you cannot even be sure whether Pre Workout powder even works or provides benefits. Why would you purchase a product that did not even live up to its claims or could cause harm?

Possible Harms

Some supplements like Pre Workout powder might create health risks that are currently unknown.

Stimulants like caffeine can also cause negative health consequences like vomiting, diarrhea, irregular heartbeat, the shakes, tremors, withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, headaches, heart problems, or even death in high doses.

Because Pre Workout powder contains a large amount of caffeine, it might cause health risks.

In excess, caffeine can also cause anxiety that lasts the whole day, trouble sleeping, and it might effect the depth and quality of your sleep negatively too.

Additionally, herbs and proprietary blends found in Pre-Workout might cause short or long term health effects. They might also interact with your other medications and make them less effective or cause health risks.

Pre Workout Might Cause Stomach Cramping

Creatine and other supplements may cause cramping, especially if consumed before a long bike ride or race.

So some Pre Workout supplements might not help you before a race or training run.

Banned Substances in Pre Workout Supplements

Some Pre Workout supplements might even have banned substances. Again, because the manufacture and sale of these products is not regulated by the FDA, some products may have banned or harmful substances.

If you are an athlete competing in a drug-tested sport, you might unknowingly take a banned substance that can cause you to get banned for life from your sport.

For instance, some high school athletes were banned from playing their sport for years after they took C4, a product containing an ingredient thought to give athletes an unfair advantage over others.

Why was C4 Banned?

Cellucor’s Product C4 used to contain an ingredient called synephrine that gave athletes a slight unfair advantage. Thus, it was banned in 2016 for athletes competing under WADA or NCAA rules.

However, in 2017, Cellucor came out with a reformulated C4 that did not contain the banned ingredient.

Still, newer products on the market might also contain banned substances.

Individual Effects

While caffeine and other ingredients might effect some people positively, others might have negative effects.

For instance, the high caffeine intake in Pre Workout powder might cause performance detriments due to shakiness or anxiety. Creatine might cause stomach cramping. You might be allergic to an ingredient.

Pre-Workout Costs

If you need to save money, Pre Workout products might not be your best choice anyway. At $1 to $2 per serving, it can easily be $10 to $15 per week. While that is not a ton of money, people struggling to even afford nutritious food should not take pre workout.

Besides, nutritious food does not cause the same side effects or health drawbacks as pre workout.

Effects on Men vs. Women

Pre Workout powder may also have more negative effects on women who have smaller body sizes and metabolize supplements and caffeine differently.

Women metabolize caffeine differently than men.

Finally, estrogen can effect caffeine breakdown and absorption. This means that women using hormonal contraceptives might respond to caffeine differently than women who are not using a hormonal contraceptive.

Many Pre Workout supplements have high levels of caffeine, and this might cause increased side effects for women. Additionally, these side effects or even risks of caffeine overdose might increase with the use of hormonal contraceptives or other medications.

Why Pre Workout Supplements May not Be Your Best Bet

Many pre workout supplements contain some combination of caffeine, other supplements and herbs. Still, you might benefit more from a good meal and cup of coffee before a workout.

For instance, instead of relying on Pre Workout supplements for caffeine, you could drink one or two cups of coffee or green tea about 45 minutes before a tough workout.

You could take a pure Creatine supplement or consume a varied diet with foods naturally containing Creatine.

If you are interested in trying Glutamine, Tyrosine or any other supplement associated with better focus or reduced fatigue, you might try these products independently. You may try one new supplement at a time instead of taking them in combination. Or, you may choose to do your own research to determine the true effect of using such supplements.

Instead of taking more expensive pre workout supplements with Iron, Vitamin D or Vitamin C, you should eat a varied diet that includes many different micronutrients from food.

You could avoid the side effects of these products while getting most or all of these benefits more cheaply and more safely.

And most people could do better without mixes of proprietary blends and herbs that have not been FDA evaluated.

Alternatives to Pre-Workout Supplements

Maybe after reading this article you have decided that taking Pre Workout could cause health risks.

Instead of taking Pre Workout in a pill or powder form, you can prepare for a great workout with a super-charged pre workout meal.

You might also benefit from using caffeine. You might try Green Tea or Coffee before a session. As little as 3 grams of caffeine per kilogram of bodyweight has demonstrated performance benefits.

A small cup of coffee has about 100 grams of caffeine. So, one and a half or two cups of coffee might help you if you drink it about 45 minutes before your workout.

Finally, you might want to include a Creatine Supplement, as long as you are not going on a long run or bike ride. Creatine might improve your power output and strength. Alternatively, you can also eat steak, chicken and protein powder to supercharge your creatinine levels.

Best Pre Workout

The best pre workout meal contains protein and carbohydrates and nutrients that may boost strength or endurance. It’s easy on your stomach whether you are performing a strength or cardio workout.

This meal includes enough energy, hydration and caffeine to get you through.

Aim to eat a solid meal about 2 hours before your workout. If you have a sensitive stomach, you might want to give yourself 2.5 to 3 hours to break down your meal but may consider adding a sports drink about 30 minutes before your session.

Pre Workout Meals

A good choice would be 1/2 to 1 cup of rolled oats mixed with almond milk, and then enjoyed with blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. The antioxidants found in berries may boost endurance. You might want to enjoy that with a Whey/Casein Mix Protein Shake that contains Creatine. Additionally, you can make your shake with fortified almond milk or regular fat free or low fat milk. Either will contain calcium that you need to power activity.

Consuming protein before your workout can prevent muscle protein breakdown during your workout and help you recover faster from the session. And the carbs in the oatmeal and fruit can give you energy for a hard workout. Add a cup or two of coffee or try an Espresso Protein Shake.

You could also try a peanut butter and fruit sandwich before your workout with a cup of coffee. The bread and fruit supply carbs and the peanut butter a bit of fat to give your workout staying power. You could also enjoy this with a glass of chocolate milk, which supplies protein and carbs to start recovering before you even start your workout.

The options are endless! Aim for about 1 to 3 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram body weight. If you are doing a short workout, aim for the lower end of this range. Consume more carbs for a long run.

Final Thoughts

Pre workout supplements carry a lot of risks and cost a good deal of money. It might be more efficient to simply eat a quality meal and consume a cup of coffee before your next hard workout.