“ Let me take my pre-workout Bro. It has creatine, BCAAs and omg it’s going through my veins. Now I am a beast “. That’s the typical conversation that you hear from your friend before hit the gym. However the blueberry flavor is pretty delicious noh ! Let’s get straight to the title. For those you new to the world of fitness supplements, a pre-workout is a supplement often taken before exercise.
Table of Contents
What is a pre-workout ?
Thus the name, PRE-WORKOUT. It is frequently promoted as a performance booster for strength workouts as well as endurance like cardio, but marketers know it’s almost 100% used by our lifting people. Pre-workouts can give this extra energy and beast like sensation that undoubtedly make people feel like they can push out a few more reps, go heavier, or train a bit longer session. But sometimes it goes too far in what it advertises and our job as fitness explain is to be unbiased with helping you with your fitness goals.
Do pre-workout supplements really help ?
Let’s break this down with four key points.
Key Point 1
The first point is that a lot of the ingredients added into a pre-workout, although can be helpful. You are likely to find stuff in your pre-workout like BCAAs, Creatine and beta-alanine. Branched chain amino acids (BCAA) that are very important and directly connected to muscle protein synthesis which plays a significant role in muscle growth. Creatine is one of the most researched substance in fitness performance, know for providing extra energy and anaerobic training. Beta-alanine, a building block of carnosine, buffers acid accumulation in skeletal muscle, enabling longer training sessions at high intensities. Those are good in gradients. But taking them before hitting the gym doesn’t really do anything.
But what if someone says what if it doesn’t matter when you take it, if it helps then that’s good thing? Yes true but that only applies if you take them regularly, such as every day basis or you’re on a masochistic plan of working out every single day which we fitnessexplain is not against. If you’re not taking a pre-workout on a daily basis, which might make these ingredients less effective. Usually even for components that do have an impact prior to exercise, pre-workouts have smaller concentrations than are suggested, like citrulline, all the while charging you much higher prices than it would cost to get these ingredients separately.
Key Point 2
2nd point is that what’s worse than charging you more for good ingredients, is charging you anything at all for bad ingredients. We are not going to say ”bad” but more so ineffective. Many pre-workout supplements contain a lot of ingredients that do very little. This includes things like conjugated linoleic acid, glutamine, a wide variety of unproven plant extracts, and BCAAs. We are going to talk about BCAA deeply in another upcoming article. In the scientific research, these aforementioned ingredients have yet to show any meaningful benefit in the general exercise performance regardless of the time of consumption. Simply put, the data does not support their usefulness. Companies undoubtedly rely on you not being aware of this. and would appreciate if you just stare at their complex ingredient label thinking you’re getting your money’s worth. Who doesn’t enjoy a little complexity? It gives us a sense of sophistication. For everyone else, be smart with your money and think twice before purchasing a product that has a lot of unnecessary components.
Key Point 3
The third point follows one ingredient in pre-workout that even your grandfather takes on regularly is caffeine, the most widely used stimulant in the world is guaranteed in all pre-workout supplements minus the ones that advertise to contain no stimulants, caffeine has a time-dependent ergogenic, energy-boosting effect by inhibiting the sleep-inducing effects of a brain-related substance called adenosine. Without caffeine, you will likely have no idea if your pre-workout did a single thing, but supplement companies are banking on you to not really know that. But now you do reading fitnessexplain.
Key Point 4
Final Point : Why pay such a high price for the most crucial component when there are several caffeine products available, like tea, coffee or straight up caffeine supplements are so much cheaper. You normally would, be worry about how much caffeine you take. 100 milligrams might totally kick your butt while 300 milligrams for grandpapa means falling asleep reading newspaper. other ingredients have the same applies. They are very cheap on their own, so it’s best to focus just on those that do actually help like creatine and beta-alanine. Don’t waste money on things like glutamine and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid).
And then there’s another – BCAAs included in the list of good ingredients as well as the bad. I am not going to explain deep in to it in this article I will write another for you. Main thing about branched chained amino acids is that it’s advantages are almost always better when included with other essential amino acids which you can’t find in pre-workouts but in much better supplement we know as protein powders (whey). Buying a whey protein supplement or getting enough protein in your meal is more than enough to get all those BCAAs and other essential amino acids and it also helps your wallet. Save your money guys. Spend it on things that are actually worth your time and money or just spend it on more important things like supporting fitnessexplain by subscribing our YouTube channel and reading our articles every day.
Your support will be very appreciated. But before you stop your pre-workout remember this is only my opinion. Sometimes I also like taking it from time to time too. I know that how handy it is to receive a lot of energy with one scoop. I see how you would find it enjoyable to just take it. I know that it may taste fairly good. You should definitely just keep taking it if those things that are important to you. But for those of you who are unsure about pre-workouts and are somewhat more worried about unnecessary spending, then I hope this video helped you further along with your decision. But please don’t forget to share your opinion on this on the comment section below and also share this article with your gym mates.
