Q&A: Pre-Workout

“It’s time to answer some questions. And today’s Q and A, I’m going to go over pre-workout. This question was asked in the group and it gets frequently brought up to me asking “When they should take their pre-workout?”, “What type of pre-workout should they be taking?”, “What ingredients to look for in the pre-workout?” So I’m going to get into all that right now.

So there’s 4 main ingredients that I look for, whether I’m going to take a pre-workout for myself or recommend it to somebody… Now recommendations, and all this should be taken with a grain of salt. If you have any medical conditions, obviously consult your physician. Most people will know if they can take the ingredients that I’m going to list or not.

So the 4 main ingredients I’m looking for are the (1) Creatine – creatine is the most widely studied substance that has a long list of benefits from mental health to physical performance. (2) Alpha GPC – that’s going to improve your physical performance. And I’m going to look for (3) Beta-Alanine – that’s going to improve your muscular endurance. And that’s also the tingly feeling. If you were taking one that is Beta-Alanine kind of kick in, and then the 4th one is going to be (4) L-Citrulline – that’s going to improve our blood flow.

Another huge consideration you want to think of with pre-workout is how much stimulants are in the pre-workout. You’ll see that most of them have over 300 milligrams. So you’re looking at at least two cups of coffee. Some of them going to go up to 3 cups of coffee, 4 or 5 per scoop. So if you’re taking 2 scoops, which a lot of people do, you’re getting double that amount. That’s something to consider because if you’re giving your body that much caffeine over time, (1) you’re going to develop a dependency on it. And (2), you’re actually going to hammer your nervous system to the point where you’re not going to build as much muscle or burn as much fat as you could, because your body is going to be in a state of fight or flight. It’s not going to be concerned about building muscle or burning fat.

So those are really the main things with pre-workout. I like personally, a stimulant free pre-workout. My personal recommendation is Prestige Labs that has those 4 ingredients in there that I listed it’s stimulant free. Or if you want the stimulants, you can add caffeine on the side with the pill, which I really liked because not every day, do I need to have 300 milligrams of caffeine, maybe, you know, I’m fine that day you don’t need any. So that’s really what I like about it too. And then in terms of when you should get your pre-workout, you don’t want to take it anywhere from 20 – 40 minutes before you actually start training. Let it get in there as you’re warming up, and then you should be good to go. So that is all for today, hope you found some value in this video. If you did, please drop me a thumbs up, give me a like, give me a heart that is all for today as always, stay strong.”

-EarthFIT Coach Sam