Pre-workout is a supplement or combination of supplements, often in powder form, taken before a workout session to improve performance and increase training adaptation. As fitness culture has exploded and grown by leaps and bounds, so too have pre-workout products to improve your workout performance.
Some of the things you should do before your workout are:
- Improving energy use
- increases muscle protein synthesis
- promotes anabolic reactions
- fuel your muscles
- improve performance
But are pre-workouts effective? Let’s take a look at some of the most popular common pre-workout ingredients to see if they actually work as advertised.
creatine
Creatine helps store more phosphocreatine in your muscles. This is one of the most powerful fast-acting energy systems for high-intensity, fast movements such as weightlifting. Creatine intake:
- Improves performance on all studied lifts, especially more complex multi-joint compound lifts such as squats and deadlifts.
- Improves strength and muscle gain even in older adults.
- Improve sprint performance.
Creatine works. He improves strength training performance and is one of the few supplements I still take daily. Creatine is especially important for vegans and vegetarians who don’t get creatine from meat or fish.
L-citrulline
L-citrulline is an amino acid that increases nitric oxide synthesis and improves endothelial function. Simply put, it improves blood flow. This strengthens blood flow to your heart and muscles.
- Improves performance during intense activities.
- Improves “pump”, the sensation of muscles filling up with body fluids and blood. Important subjective feedback that makes lifting more enjoyable. Arnold Schwarzenegger famously compared the feel of a pump to the sensation of sex. Exercise scientists commonly downplay the importance of pumping, but I’ve found that pumping has a strong correlation with better training and improved adaptations.
L-citrulline works. Enhanced blood flow to all areas of your body is great for performance in all areas, not just the weight room.
beta alanine
Beta-alanine is most effective in longer sessions. Exercising for less than 60 seconds does not seem to have any effect. For exercises lasting longer than 60 seconds, beta-alanine begins to show beneficial effects on performance and performance.
If you feel a tingling sensation in your muscles, you know that beta-alanine is working. It’s not necessarily a pleasant feeling, but it means you’re ready to start training, and if you’ve had a great session, you’ll start to appreciate the tingling sensation. Given that the overall effects of beta-alanine described in the literature are modest, it is possible that the tingling sensation acts as a kind of placebo, giving the muscles a psychological signal that they are ready to work hard. I would wager that it is. That’s not to disrespect them.
caffeine
Caffeine may be the world’s most effective pre-workout supplement. Certainly it is the most popular. I wrote an entire article about using caffeine before a workout, but here are the main points about what caffeine can do for you before a workout.
- Strengthens women’s upper body muscles.
- Increase motivation for training.
- An interesting example of how effective pre-workout caffeine can be found in one study where a ketone/taurine/leucine combination had no effect on performance unless caffeine was added. Sounds great in theory, but you needed boring old caffeine to make it work.
sodium
Salt is the most important electrolyte in our bodies, and our needs increase when we exercise. When you sweat, you lose salt. When salt is lost, muscles can no longer contract effectively. When muscles are unable to contract, strength and performance decrease.
Instead of waiting until you sweat to get rid of all the salt, get an early start by adding a pinch or two (or three) of salt to your water as a “pre-workout.”
exogenous ketones
Ketone supplements are also a way to have your cake and eat it too. The idea is that you can diet as much as you like, consume ketone esters and salt, and reap the benefits of ketones without strict dietary restrictions. Although there is some evidence that exogenous ketones may aid performance in high-end endurance training, it is not clear how helpful exogenous ketones are for the average exerciser. They are still useful for a variety of health conditions. Read my post on exogenous ketones for more information.
However, please be careful. Taking too much of some ketone supplements can make you run to the bathroom. It’s difficult to perform in the gym if you have to take bathroom breaks every 30 minutes.
BCAA
Branched chain amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, and valine) strongly stimulate mTOR, the pathway for growth, anabolic recovery, and muscle gain. Most people don’t need BCAA supplements before or after training, but they can be beneficial for certain people.
BCAAs are most useful for people who engage in fasted training because they preserve muscle, prevent muscle loss, and improve mTOR signaling post-workout.
BCAAs are also helpful for people who abstain from animal products, as meat, eggs, and dairy products are the best sources of animal products.
baking soda
Baking soda reduces lactic acid buildup and acidity in your muscles, allowing you to train longer and harder without feeling fatigued. Reducing muscle acidity improves energy transfer and makes muscle contractions stronger. When taken about 30 minutes before training or competition, it has some interesting effects.
- Improved time to fatigue. You can train longer and harder. One study found that using baking soda increased the time it takes to fatigue while cycling by 20 to 30 seconds.
- Improved resilience. Reducing the acidity of your muscles will help them recover faster.
- The number of repetitions will increase. Baking soda has been proven to improve the number of reps a lifter can complete.
- Runners, baking soda may reduce the runner’s high by inhibiting the release of endorphins. It turns out that these endorphins respond to acidity.
- Baking soda definitely works. To minimize gastrointestinal upset, consume in small doses throughout the day, up to a total of 1 to 2 teaspoons, and avoid taking near meals.
collagen
Although not a classic pre-workout that dramatically increases performance, taking collagen with 60 mg of vitamin C before a workout improves collagen deposition in connective tissue. It’s like a pre-workout with the long-term goal of building tissue resilience and strength.
Is there a Primal pre-workout?
If I were to put together a pre-workout, it would be like this:Actually, this is what I did do:
- Fill my bottle with 32 ounces of water. I usually use Mountain Valley Spring Water and a stainless steel bottle.
- Add LMNT packets. This is an excellent electrolyte supplement that provides 1 gram of sodium, plus magnesium malate (which has an ergogenic effect) and potassium. It tastes good and is highly effective. A must have in the Miami heat.
- Add a spoonful of creatine. 5 grams, give or take.
- Add 2 scoops collagen peptide.
- Shake well, drink it a few minutes before your workout, and continue drinking it throughout your workout.
You may want to add baking soda if you can tolerate it. You can add a caffeine source, but I prefer to just drink coffee.Add 20 grams from time to time whey isolate Use powder if you’re having a particularly hard, energy-intensive session and haven’t eaten anything. This is a quick and dirty way to replenish your BCAAs (and tastes awful).
That’s about it. I don’t like messing around with crazy pills and powders. Those days are long gone. what about you? Have you received pre-training?
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