When Andrew R. Jagim, Ph.D., competed in recreational sports during college, he often wondered: Could specific foods or supplements help with training and competing at a higher level?
That question led him to study various sports nutrition strategies, which included preworkout supplements, during graduate school, an interest that continued long after earning a doctorate.
Now the director of sports medicine research at Mayo Clinic Health System, Dr. Jagim has contributed to nearly a half dozen research papers on the topic. His findings can help you make more confident decisions about the preworkout supplements that might be worth your money — and which ones are better left on the shelf.
What is a preworkout supplement?
When Dr. Jagim started studying performance supplements in the early 2000s, there was no agreed-upon definition for “preworkout supplements.” So he pulled the top 100 products from the shelves and studied their labels to help consolidate the most popular list of ingredients. That effort led to the following definition. Multi-ingredient preworkout supplements (MIPS) are:
- Marketed to boost performance during a workout.
- Intended to be consumed 30 to 60 minutes before a workout.
- Created by combining at least three ingredients.
What’s in a preworkout supplement?
Study the ingredient labels of the top-selling preworkout supplements — as Dr. Jagim did — and you’ll see dozens of substances listed across brands. These may include quercetin, L-citrulline, choline, apple extract, taurine, vitamin B-12 and many others.
However, the most common preworkout ingredients tend to also be the most studied, and the ones that have been shown to offer benefits even when ingested individually. They include the following:
Caffeine
As far back as the early 1900s, athletes turned to caffeine for a competitive advantage. Around the same time, researchers W.H.R. Rivers and H.N. Webber took a closer look at caffeine’s stimulative effect. Using themselves as study subjects, Webber and Rivers determined that caffeine enhanced muscle contractions, helping people to lift heavier weights for longer.
Since then, hundreds of papers have uncovered a link between caffeine and exercise performance, finding that caffeine ingestion can help improve endurance, strength, sprinting, jump height and passing accuracy, among other benefits. Additionally, caffeine offers cognitive benefits, such as improved reaction time, reductions in fatigue and increased ratings of energy.
To get the most out of caffeine, use these pointers:
- About 30 to 60 minutes before a workout, consume 3 to 6 milligrams (mg) of caffeine per kilogram (kg) of body weight. For a 150-pound (68-kg) person, that’s about 200 to 400 mg or the amount in 2 to 4 cups of brewed coffee. You can expect your caffeine boost to last about 3 to 4 hours.
- It doesn’t matter whether you consume caffeine from beverages such as coffee or from supplements. Choose the option that you enjoy and can tolerate.
- Too much caffeine can interfere with sleep and induce heart palpitations, headaches and anxiety, all of which can hinder sports performance. Pay attention to your overall intake of caffeine. Consider starting with a small dose and slowly increasing it over time to ensure you tolerate caffeine well. Finally, restricting caffeine after 2 or 3 p.m. may help reduce the risk of sleep disturbances.
Creatine monohydrate
Creatine captured the attention of sports performance researchers after the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, when British track and field athletes Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell credited the supplement for their gold-winning performances.
In the decades since, thousands of studies have examined creatine’s safety and effectiveness, not only for athleticism but also for disease prevention and brain health.
Creatine increases the cellular energy available to your muscles, improving strength and power during workouts. A higher amount of creatine stored in your muscles can help shorten the time needed for recovery in between bouts of high-intensity exercise such as repeat sprint workouts. Your body uses amino acids to make some creatine internally daily. You also can get creatine by eating various animal-based foods. However, using supplemental creatine allows you to consistently elevate creatine levels your muscles and brain.
“Over time, it helps you to train a little bit harder or maintain a race pace a little bit longer before you become fatigued,” says Dr. Jagim. “It’s one of those supplements that almost everyone could benefit from in some way because it improves cellular energy. Every cell needs energy to function.”
To benefit from supplemental creatine, use the following advice:
- Choose creatine monohydrate, which is the form of creatine used in research. As a bonus, it also tends to be the least expensive form.
- Take 3 grams daily at any time of the day. Unlike many other performance supplements, you don’t need to take creatine right before a workout.
- Though many supplements direct you to mix the powder into water, you can add it to any watery food, including oatmeal, yogurt or a smoothie.
Beta-alanine
In the body, two amino acids — beta-alanine and histidine — combine to form a molecule called carnosine, which helps buffer acid in your muscles and brain.
“When people exercise at high intensities, they produce hydrogen ions, which reduce the pH in the blood and bring on that burning sensation,” says Dr. Jagim. “The carnosine created by beta-alanine serves as a buffer, subsequently helping to minimize that burning sensation, allowing you to work at a higher intensity for longer.”
Beta-alanine may be especially useful for high-intensity activities, such as a quarter-mile run, as well as events that require repeated bursts of effort, such as a game of soccer or an interval workout.
Use the following advice when supplementing with beta-alanine:
- Take 4 to 6 grams daily for at least four weeks. Like creatine, you can ingest beta-alanine at any time of the day.
- In some people, beta-alanine can cause a pins-and-needles sensation called paresthesia. If this sensation bothers you, Dr. Jagim recommends splitting your daily dose into smaller amounts throughout the day.
- Some companies market carnosine supplements as superior to beta-alanine. However, the digestive tract breaks down carnosine into beta-alanine. When you take beta-alanine as a supplement, more of it reaches the muscles than when you take carnosine.
Nitrate
The nitrate (NO-3) that’s naturally found in root vegetables and leafy greens seems to promote performance and overall good health. In the digestive tract, this dietary nitrate converts to nitric oxide, a molecule that dilates blood vessels.
Wider blood vessels and the resulting increased blood flow may contribute to reduced blood pressure and help protect the lining of the arteries from damage. It likely also boosts performance by delivering more nutrients to the working muscle and clearing metabolic byproducts. That means you can exercise harder for longer without feeling as fatigued, says Dr. Jagim.
Though many foods contain nitrate, you’d need to eat more than 2 cups of root veggies or leafy greens to reach a performance-boosting dose. Alternatively, supplements or beetroot juice concentrate nitrate into a much smaller volume.
For a performance benefit, consume nitrate 2 to 3 hours before exercise.
Look for a high-quality beetroot powder or concentrate marketed for athletes. Ideally, it should offer about 400 milligrams of nitrate per serving. On the label, many supplements list beetroot or another ingredient rather than nitrate itself. In addition, the nitrate content of beetroot products can vary considerably, which can complicate efforts to find a correctly dosed supplement. If a manufacturer doesn’t list the nitrate content on its packaging, you can sometimes find the information on the manufacturer’s website.
Are preworkout supplements safe?
The average preworkout supplement contains around 18 ingredients, according to research by Dr. Jagim and others. Some of these ingredients can pose health risks, especially in high dosages.
Read the list of ingredients
Several common preworkout ingredients — like creatine and beetroot — are highly studied, and consistently found to be safe and legal.
However, some preworkout products also contain illegal and controlled substances like anabolic steroid derivatives and amphetaminelike compounds such as ephedrine and methylhexaneamine (DMAA). In high amounts, DMAA can constrict blood vessels, leading to heart problems in people who are susceptible. In addition, for serious athletes, the ingestion of DMAA and other banned substances, even in trace amounts, can lead to a failed drug test, says Dr. Jagim.
Know recommended dosages
Even among the more highly studied and legal ingredients, dosages often vary greatly.
Some ingredients are found in such small amounts that they likely offer little to no performance benefit. For example, according to Dr. Jagim’s review of the top 100 products, most formulations contain only about 1 or 2 grams of creatine — only a third of the amount shown to boost performance. The average beta-alanine content was about half the effective dose.
However, dosages of other ingredients can be much higher than recommended. Also, many manufacturers list “proprietary blends” on their labels, disguising the amounts of key ingredients and making it difficult for consumers to make informed purchasing decisions.
If some is good, more isn’t better
In a survey of 872 people who use preworkout supplements, 14% of respondents said they ingested two or more servings at a time.
By doubling the dosage, study participants were likely ingesting amounts of caffeine and other ingredients well above the safe and tolerable limit, says Dr. Jagim.
In the same survey, more than half of the respondents said they experienced side effects such as skin reactions, heart irregularities and nausea.
What are the best preworkout supplements?
To ensure you are getting a performance-enhancing dose of research-tested ingredients while eliminating potentially harmful or useless ingredients, you have two options.
Do some sleuthing
As mentioned above, you’ll want to check the ingredient lists and dosages of preworkout supplements. In addition, look for a product with athird-party seal of approval. Independent organizations — including Informed Sport, the Banned Substances Control Group (BSCG) and NSF — test supplements to ensure they are free of contaminants and banned substances. Look for products with a seal from one of these organizations on the packaging.
Create a DIY concoction
This is what Dr. Jagim does.
He starts his day with 3 grams of creatine monohydrate, often mixed in a smoothie or oatmeal. As a reminder, timing doesn’t matter with creatine. You don’t have to take it just before a workout.
Then 2 to 3 hours before exercise, Dr. Jagim consumes either a nitrate-rich meal, a concentrated nitrate powder or a shot of beetroot juice.
About an hour before his session, Dr. Jagim ingests caffeine. Depending on his preference that day, he might consume a 200-mg caffeine tablet, a cup of black coffee, an energy shot or some other caffeine-containing beverage. Around the same time, he drinks 4 grams of beta-alanine powder mixed into 8 to 12 ounces of water. Though, as mentioned earlier, you can take beta-alanine at any time of day, Dr. Jagim enjoys the pins-and-needles sensation brought on by the supplement. Once it sets in, he knows his body is primed for a workout.
Experiment during a practice
You never know how a new substance may affect your performance or how your body might respond.
“You don’t want anything new on game day, especially if you are new to caffeine,” says Dr. Jagim. “You might feel anxious and jittery or experience gastrointestinal upset, which could make you perform worse.” So always experiment with new supplements during low-stakes sessions.
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