Leah Higl
Welcome to the Ideal Nutrition podcast. I’m Leah Higl, and I’m here with my co-host Aidan Muir. And today, we are going to go over what you should be looking for in a pre-workout and whether they are actually worth the money. So we’re going to keep this one hopefully pretty short and sweet. We’ll see how we go. Let’s start with what benefits [00:00:30] are we actually looking for when we are reaching for a pre-workout? So usually what people are expecting to get out of it is that you’ll feel more hyped and motivated to train. You’ll have more energy in your training session. Hopefully it’ll improve performance to a certain extent. That’s always beneficial.
And potentially just improved outcomes in regards to training adaptations, so potentially muscle and strength gains. And maybe even fat loss for some ingredients, who knows? [00:01:00] The upside of pre-workout is you get a whole bunch of things all in the one powder, kind of like a multivitamin but for sports supplements is how I like to think about it. But I know there’s a lot of debate, particularly amongst kind of fitness professionals and dieticians about whether or not these pre-workouts are worth it, whether the ingredients they’re kind of putting in are worth taking. And something that comes up a lot is, is there enough active ingredients in these single scoop pre-workouts [00:01:30] to make a difference? So we’re going to break it down one by one.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. I think you covered a lot right at the end. And I want to touch on all of those points. So what we’ll actually do is we’re going to go through each ingredient individually and we’re just going to cover as much as we can in the time we have available. So I’m going to go from, try to be most relevant to least relevant. But also, just because an ingredient is going to be mentioned here does not mean I’m like, “This should be in a pre-workout.” It’s just being like, “There’s so many ingredients that could potentially be in a pre-workout. Let’s just talk about them from [00:02:00] that perspective, then we’ll sum up at the end for what to look for.”
And yeah, we’re just going to go back and forth on each ingredient. So the first one we’re going to go on is caffeine. So that’s the main thing in most pre-workouts. It’s probably the most effective or one of the most effective in pre-workouts as well, for a lot of reasons. Obviously hypes you up, can make you motivated to train, and give you more mental focus. And at higher dosages it can and improve strength. And even in slightly lower dosages, it can improve endurance. And [00:02:30] it reduces rate of perceived effort, as well as how it’s termed in the literature. It basically means you could do the same reps and sets and whatever, and it feels easier.
Leah Higl
Yeah. I love caffeine. I think that’s definitely what I’m looking for in a pre-workout. But we’ll kind of talk about this later, but there are non-stim pre-workouts. So there are definitely ones that are on the market that don’t contain caffeine. But usually I’d say most people are wanting that caffeine hit with a pre-workout.
Aidan Muir
And that’s another thing that I was going to say is relevant as well is I see a lot of the people who are in the anti pre-workout [00:03:00] world who’ll be like, “Coffee is the only pre-workout I need.” And one advantage of pre-workout is you know how much cafe you’re getting. And oftentimes it’s a high amount.
Leah Higl
Usually higher than coffee.
Aidan Muir
Usually a lot higher than coffee, exactly. And the dosages often use in pre-workout, not always, but often they’re clinically relevant dosage for strength, depending on your size, obviously. And what I’m talking about there is often they’re anywhere between 150 and 300, most commonly 300 milligrams of caffeine. And [00:03:30] we know for strength three to six milligrams per kilo of body weight seems to be roughly the optimal amount, sometimes even in the higher end of that makes sense. Whereas if you have a coffee, the average is probably going to be 80 to 100 milligrams, somewhere along those lines. It’s more complex than that, but I’m going to just use that number. So it’s kind of like, that’s probably not going to cut it. If somebody’s 80 kilos and they have one coffee, it might give them motivation and everything like that. It might reduce the perceived effort and everything like that. But it might not give the performance benefit to the same level.
Leah Higl
[00:04:00] So creatine is another thing that’s in a lot of pre-workout. So we know creatine, once again, assists with efficient energy production in the muscle. It has been linked to greater outcomes in strength and lean mass gains. We’re huge fans of creatine. The only issue with having it in your pre-workout is that you are highly unlikely to take pre-workout seven days a week. Ideally, when you are taking creatine, it’s not the acute effect you’re [00:04:30] after, it’s the chronic buildup over time. So you want to reach creatine muscle saturation. So to keep that saturation, you need to have kind of three to five grams every single day. So if you are not taking creatine outside of the times you’re not taking pre-workout, then you’re probably not going to be getting the benefit from having it in your pre-workout.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. I wouldn’t [inaudible 00:04:54] it’s a bad ingredient to having your pre-workout, but it’s also like, if you want to optimize creatine, you probably should be taking it separately, [00:05:00] which actually is similar to the next one. I want to talk about beta-alanine, same kind of concept. Beta-alanine is something that, in a way, it builds up in your body. It’s not the beta-alanine we’re trying to increase in your body. It’s carnitine that we’re trying to increase in the body. And you want to be taking it daily, sometimes multiple times per day because the side effect of beta-alanine is parasthesia, this tingling, itchy kind of feeling.
And having high doses of beta-alanine for a lot of people, or high enough, the clinically relevant kind of dosage of [00:05:30] four to 6.4 is most common, often will cause an uncomfortable feeling for a lot of people. So sometimes I’ll split it up. So just having it in the pre-workout often, firstly, it’s going to be too low most times. Often it’s two grams is what is most common in pre-workouts. But what’s also interesting is, it’s in there for a bit of placebo.
If you get this tingling feeling, you’re like, “This pre workout’s really working.”
Leah Higl
It’s working. I remember back in the day with, is it Jack3d or something like that? And all the pre-workouts [00:06:00] it was a bit of a contest to who could get as much of that feeling in like their consumers as possible. And that was deemed the best pre-workout when, in reality, it’s just a side effect. It’s not giving you a performance benefit unless it is that placebo thing and just hypes you up for your session.
Aidan Muir
Yeah, exactly. And beta-alanine, just like protein. It does work. It does help improve performance for things 60 to 240 seconds most commonly is what it’s improving it for, but it can also improve it [00:06:30] for anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes. So beta-alanine’s good. It’s just it doesn’t matter in a pre-workout beyond what we just kind of talked about. You probably want to be having it separately if you want to be optimizing it.
Leah Higl
Another thing that is usually in pre-workouts, or to a large extent, is citrulline or citrulline malate. So this one actually might be relatively beneficial because you do get that acute effect from it. So it doesn’t need to build up in the system. But basically L-citrulline raises [00:07:00] blood arginine levels more effectively than arginine does itself. And this converts into nitric oxide and leads to vasodilation, so just better blood flow. And I find that people put these in pre-workouts and then put the claim of getting a better pump. So that’s what most people are kind of after. I don’t know if that actually results in more muscle gain from actually having it, but it definitely gives you a bit of pump if there’s enough in there.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. And it can improve performance. It hasn’t been super, super clear cut, but it does seem like it adds a few reps here and there. So if you’re looking at it specifically to improve performance, then it can also help with that. But that’s on the higher rep sets like any exercise that you’re actually going to get a pump on is going to be relevant for it. If you’re doing sets of five, you’re probably not getting a sick pump. So you’re probably not going to benefit from it. Anything where you’re getting that pump, that’s where this extra blood flow actually seems to help.
That’s not very scientific of me. Technically [00:08:00] it’s like there’s certain times and stuff like that, but the kind of exercises where you do feel that, that’s where it is helping. And as a side note, it also seems to help reduce slight onset muscle soreness too. So it’s like it’s another just added benefit. And there’s a lot of mechanisms from that. Partly the blood flow, partly the clearance of ammonia and stuff like that. But it’s another benefit of having it pre-workout, because you kind of need to have it pre-work because it has this acute benefit. So that’s something to think about as well.
Leah Higl
Sorry, Ashwagandha is another one that’s kind of recently been [00:08:30] popping up in pre-workouts. And we talked a little bit about this this morning off air. But you were saying that it was more zen you out. Reduce stress as a kind of the reasoning behind putting Ashwagandha in things. And I think that could probably be somewhat beneficial, particularly if you have a bit of gym anxiety or you’re more of a stressed out person. Having something like Ashwagandha in your pre-workout, potentially a good thing.
Aidan Muir
I [00:09:00] view it more as offsetting the caffeine.
Leah Higl
Offsetting the caffeine.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. As in, if your heart rate’s elevated because of the caffeine, if you are a little bit more anxious, if you are a little bit more jittery, Ashwagandha seems to offset that. It’s a de-stressor, basically.
Leah Higl
So you get the pros of the caffeine and it’s offsetting those negative side effects to a certain extent.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. And also jumping onto the next one we’ll talk about before we come back to Ashwagandha, which is a bigger topic, L-theanine is sometimes included in pre-workouts, and that’s exactly [00:09:30] what L-theanine does. It just offsets the negatives of caffeine outside of nutrient absorption like iron, disruption and sleep. One other one that’s common to mind, can’t think of it. It does offset that jittery. It slows the heart right down. It allows you to reap the benefits of caffeine. The focus, the hype, the actual improved performance without the anxiety and jitters that come alongside it.
Leah Higl
Looking a little deeper into Ashwagandha, I actually come across some things that I guess I didn’t quite [00:10:00] expect, because I’m like, “Well, why are these supplement companies outside of being a bit more zen and controlling stress, why are these companies putting this product into their pre-workout supplements?” And to be honest, in terms of performance, Ashwagandha in the research is actually looking kind of positive. I was a bit surprised. So the research would suggest that Ashwagandha in the range of kind of 500 milligrams to a thousand milligrams per day maybe does have a beneficial [00:10:30] effect from both a cardio respiratory endurance perspective, as well as potentially a strength and gains and lean mass perspective. So I really wasn’t expecting to find those results in the research, but I actually didn’t come across many studies that had a nil effect with Ashwagandha. So it’s a bit of an interesting one.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. I find the same and I actually, I’m going to do an entire blog post on this at some stage in the next 12 months, I’m not sure. Got a lot [00:11:00] on my plate, but I do actually want to do a proper blog post on this because I think we can’t do it justice in here. It’s kind of like there’s not a lot of research, yeah. There’s not a lot of research, but all of the research has been done has been pretty overwhelmingly positive. So it’s just an interesting space. But I don’t think we’ve got the time to do a nuanced deep dive on it right now. But it’s an interesting ingredient to include in a pre-workout that could potentially have quite a bit of benefit.
So the next thing we’re going to talk about is stim versus [00:11:30] non-stim pre-workouts. And I kind of touched on it, but one of the big advantages of pre-workouts is caffeine. The stimulant side of it. But what if you don’t want to use a stim pre-workout? One obvious reason is, what if you train late in the day and you don’t want to have heaps of caffeine or something like that? There’s heaps of other reasons why people wouldn’t want caffeine, but what if you’re in that position but you still want a pre-workout to provide the other benefits? [00:12:00] That’s where it’s just the other benefits are typically going to be those performance enhancing benefits. And they’re also going to be those pump kind of like citrulline malate, AAKG, and those kind of ingredients. Improving that, maybe a bit more endurance. And then they’ll be including stuff like creatine and beta-alanine and those kind of things too. Would you ever recommend a non-stim pre-workout?
Leah Higl
I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend one, but if someone’s like, “I want to use it,” sure. Go for it. As long as they kind [00:12:30] of say, “Yes, I will take my creatine outside of when I take this pre-workout. That’s usually the only caveat I give my clients.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. So I’m not opposed to non-stim pre-workouts. It’s like more of a, I’m the same. I wouldn’t go out of my way to have it. And I heard [John O 00:12:46] say this, Jon O [Steedman 00:12:47]. So I heard him say something like, citrulline malate, he views it as a hobby supplement for him. He takes it, I think. But it’s just like, I don’t know, it might help a little bit. Get a sick pump. Me personally, I’d rather take my creatine and beta-alanine [00:13:00] as clinically dosed, the ideal amount. And if I want something to help a pump, I’d have it as a bit of a hobby supplement on top and just supplement that thing itself. Yeah.
Leah Higl
It’s almost just a bit of fun more than it is a serious performance supplement.
Aidan Muir
Yeah, exactly. So I suppose we should just summarize really what to look for in a pre-workout. Or firstly, do you recommend pre-workouts ever? And if you were, what would you be looking for?
Leah Higl
At the end of the day, when it comes to what I recommend, I don’t recommend [00:13:30] any specific pre-workouts to my clients. If I want to use caffeine, I’ll use caffeine. If I want to use creatine, I’ll use creatine. The only time my clients will use pre-workout is if they already have something that they like and want to continue using.
Aidan Muir
Yeah. That’s pretty much how I look at it as well. I do the same. The advantage of it, you touched on right at the start of this, is it’s kind of like it has multiple ingredients all at once. What happens if you actually wanted all of these individual ingredients? It’s just packaging one thing that ideally tastes nice. [00:14:00] But the downside of it is, you also touched on it as well, where it’s like you don’t get the dosages that you want. What if the dosage of citrulline malate is six to eight grams? That’s the ideal amount, but the pre-work only has four grams, for example. It’s not the ideal dosage. What if has two and a half grams of beta? I mean, but you’re trying to get four to six per day. Those kind of things, you don’t get to control the dosage and stuff like that. But if you wanted a nice coverall and you happen to like having pre-workout, it fits the bill pretty well.
Leah Higl
Yeah. It can be a good option. [00:14:30] This has been episode 42 of the Ideal Nutrition podcast. If you have enjoyed this podcast, we’d really appreciate if you could leave a rating or review if you have the means to do so. But otherwise, thanks for tuning in.