Should I Take A Pre-Workout?Updated 10 months ago

The answer? Depends on what’s in them.

Ingredients Make or Break a Supplement

With the end goal being an energy boost, athletes and fitness enthusiasts want a pre-workout that tastes good, too. Here’s the problem: to keep production costs down and make their product visually look more appealing, companies will use synthetic caffeine, dyes, and tons of sugar or synthetic sweeteners. These are all ingredients you want to avoid. Here’s why...

Synthetic Caffeine - some products contain way too much caffeine. Take too much and not only are you going to end up crashing, you’re going to hinder your gains. With synthetic caffeine your body can not as easily process the caffein causing more dramatic damage to the adrenals and other natural energy producing functions of the body. 

Instead, take natural caffeine like that found in green tea leaves. It works just as well without the negative side effects because your body can digest and use it with ease. Caffeine is listed as an ergogenic aid in the journals which basically means it is proven to boost performance in both endurance and anaerobic (short bursts) of exercise. Literature shows it can increase workload which in turn means more volume and more gains for you.

Dyes and other additives - Artificial dyes derived from petroleum are found in thousands of foods and supplements. “Even some fresh oranges are dipped in dye to brighten them and provide uniform color,” says Michael Jacobson, executive director at CSPI. 

Man-made food dyes appear in ingredient lists as a name of a color with a number following it: Blue 1 and 2, Citrus Red 2, Green 3, Red 3 and 40, Yellow 5 and 6.The three most widely used dyes--Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Red 40--contain compounds, including benzidine and 4-aminobiphenyl, that research has linked with cancer. They are all carcinogenic in nature.

There are natural colorants, like beets and annatto, but overall they’re cosmetic and do nothing to enhance energy, performance or overall health. At least natural colorants have not been proven harmful. We humans shop with our eyes. We like visually appealing products. 

Sugar - The right kind of sugar helps your workouts, but the wrong kind robs you of your gains. 

Refined sugar--the wrong kind--has snuck its way into virtually every packaged, boxed and bagged food product in a grocery store. It’s also crammed into protein powders and countless supplements, including pre-workout ones. 

Refined sugar is classified as an additive, instead of an ingredient, and has no known health benefits. They spike your blood sugar levels, which causes them to crash as well. Sugar increases your risk of diabetes, obesity and heart disease, create nutrient deficiencies, and so much more.

Artificial sweeteners aren’t any safer. They have been shown to be carcinogenic, just as addictive as cane sugar, and just as harmful. They have been shown to numb your taste buds to sweetness, which tricks your taste buds into hating fruits and vegetables while convincing you that you need more sweets.

You want natural sugars in a pre-workout for maximum benefit. Whole food sugars are nutrients your body recognizes and can benefit from. They actually have nutritional value and are packed with antioxidants, which means helping you recover from workouts faster. They’re an easily digestible source of quick energy.