Since your health and fitness journey is a lifelong endeavor, there are undoubtedly going to be days along the way when you just don’t have it during your workout session, or you might even feel tempted to skip the gym completely. This might be because you’re feeling tired on a given due to a poor night’s sleep the night before, or maybe you’re simply lacking motivation and are feeling out of sorts because of the exhausting day that you just had at work. Instead of settling for a so-so workout session, or not showing up altogether, it might be worth your while to give pre-workout supplements a try as they have the ability to improve your fitness and also give you the energy you need to power through a difficult strength training session.
What Are Pre-Workout Supplements?
Pre-workout supplements are designed to boost your energy levels and increase your focus so that you can blast through your workouts. Typically, they’re a powdered substance that you mix in water and drink around 20 to 30 minutes before you exercise. They’re considered much more energizing than a banana, a shot of espresso, or a black coffee.
A study published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutritionexamined the effects of a pre-workout supplement containing caffeine, creatine, and amino acids during three weeks of high-intensity exercise on aerobic and anaerobic performance. The study found that combining pre-workout supplements with high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts resulted in improved training volume, VO2 max, and lean body mass (LBM).
How Do Pre-Workout Supplements Work?
Common pre-workout supplement ingredients that have been shown to improve athletic performance are carbohydrates, caffeine, beetroot juice, and creatine monohydrate.
Carbs are your body’s go-to source of energy. By supplying your body with extra carbs, the glucose in the pre-workout helps raise your blood sugar levels and offers additional energy during a workout. Caffeine is known to increase your metabolic rate, improve endurance, and reduce fatigue. It also enhances brain function for a more productive and effective workout by stimulating the central nervous system. Beetroot juice has been shown to increase your body’s levels of nitric oxide and improve cardiovascular performance. And creatine, a popular muscle-building supplement, is synthesized from amino acids and concentrated in muscle tissue to enable quick bursts of energy, which is ideal when you’re running or lifting weights.
How To Choose A Pre-Workout Supplement
What you put into your body is extremely important. That’s why you need to do your research before selecting a pre-workout since not all pre-workout supplements are created equally.
A Self magazine article reported, “According to a 2019 study of the top 100 commercially available pre-workout supplements, nearly half of all ingredients were part of a ‘proprietary blend,’ meaning the amounts of each ingredient were not disclosed.”
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How To Include Pre-Workouts In Your Stack
“As you progress in the world of fitness and dive deeper into perfecting your physique and bodybuilding, the subject of ‘supplement stacking’ becomes an important one for you to master,” according to Muscle & Fitness. “You need to know which supplements are effective, and which work best together. The technical term for this is ‘stacking.’”
Knowing how to correctly stack two pre-workouts together for better performance is easier said than done, which is why you should consult a trainer, nutritionist, or a medical professional on how to do this properly.
In terms of general rules, you should never stack two stimulant pre-workouts together since too many stimulants, especially caffeine, can negatively impact your performance. Instead, your focus should be on selecting pre-workouts that fit your style of training, and stacking complimentary supplements.
