What is Pre-Workout and How Does It Work?

What to Take Before Training

WHAT'S A "PRE-WORKOUT" ANYWAY?

It can mean a few things:

1. A pure stimulant to jack you up before training, or a substance to get you mentally focused.

2. A nutritional drink with the right carbs, proteins, and amino acids to fuel workout performance and subsequent recovery.

3. 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."