I was wondering if I should take a pre-workout and realized I don’t know anything about them. I’ve heard the team discuss when intra-workout nutrition is a good idea and when electrolytes are a good idea, but can’t find anything about the who/what/why for pre-workouts.
Howdy!
We’ve talked about pre-workout supplements a few times in podcasts, but admittedly, we’ve never done a dedicated piece on them.
The goals of a pre-workout supplement (presumably) are to increase performance during the workout and generate greater fitness adaptations from the workout (and increased performance). From this perspective, the only common pre-workout ingredient that really needs to be timed before the workout is caffeine. The other ingredients in our pre-workout need to be taken regularly and in the right amounts in order to work, but they don’t need to be timed before a workout.
Benefits of most evidence-based supplements are relatively modest when it comes to acute performance and fitness adaptations like strength, hypertrophy, and fitness adaptations. It’s not nothing, but probably not going to change your life either.
If you want to get the most out of your training, supplements are likely to help in addition to good nutrition, sleep, and programming.