Do You Need Pre-workout supplements? GOOD OR BAD FOR YOU?
These days most of you are trying to do regular and proper workouts in order to keep yourself fit and smart. These workouts won’t only keep you fit and fine, but will also maintain and improve your health. However, some of you even get lazy, stressed, and weak thinking about these exercises.
Therefore, we have a solution for you. This solution will not only help you in doing the workouts easily, but it even helps you to stay active once the workout sessions are complete. You might be assuming loads of thoughts regarding what we are trying to tell you?
Go through this informative article to enhance your general knowledge about this solution.
Pre-workout supplements
The solution we were trying to inform all of you about is the highly popular pre-workout supplements. In simple words, pre-workout supplements are gaining loads of popularity and name these days.
Bodybuilders, people who are quite careful about their fitness and, especially, people who are currently trying to reduce weight with the help of intense workouts are using these pre-workout supplements. It helps them during their workouts by making them strong and energetic.
Weightlifters and athletes use these pre-workout supplements to enhance and improve their workouts.
According to advocates, pre-workout supplements have the ability to improve and maintain the fitness of the trainer and performer. It gives them a sufficient amount of energy so that they can have enough power to perform and complete challenging workouts.
However, some of the experts say that these pre-workout supplements (only some of them) are wholly unnecessary and potentially dangerous. Therefore, this article will provide every one of you with the basic and detailed information that relates to pre-workout supplements. It will also include whether these supplements are in favor of your health or not.
What do we mean by pre-workout supplements?
You will also come across some people who mostly refer pre-workout supplements to pre-workouts. Basically, pre-workout supplements are dietary supplements that contain multiple ingredients. The formula mainly works on your body to boost levels of strength along with energy. As a result, you yourself will observe a much better athletic performance.
Most of the time, these substances (pre-workout supplements) are in the form of powder. You only have to mix this powder form in water. Later on, drink this water and powder mixture before you start your exercise routine.
You will also find a lot of unique formulas for these pre-workout supplements. But yes, these formulas contain little consistency when it comes to the discussion of its ingredients. In simple words, most of these dietary supplements contain caffeine, amino acids, artificial sweeteners, vitamin B, and creatine, but the quantity of each ingredient differs in different brand’s supplements.
The main aim of pre-workout supplements is to increase the athletes’ energy levels, endurance, and ability to focus more during the sessions of training.
In conclusion, pre-workout supplements that are available in the form of powder and require a mixture of water are likely to improve the overall athletic performance along with energy before the exercises start. However, the list of ingredients might be different among dissimilar brands.
Certain ingredients that help in improving athletic performance
If you surf the entire internet regarding the pre-workout supplements, you will only find limited and few amounts of research on this topic.
In simple words, researchers are still trying to investigate more and more about the pre-workout supplements so that they can provide you with more pieces of information, scientific proofs, and results on the effectiveness of the pre-workout supplements.
However, there are some studies that prove the efficiency of these ingredients. These studies show how these ingredients create benefits for athletes and impact their performance.
- Precursors of nitric oxide
It is one of those compounds that your body will produce naturally in order to relax down your blood vessels. This relaxation, in turn, will improve the flow of blood in your body. Your body will use a few of the common and mutual compounds in order to make nitric acid.
These compounds are also present in pre-workout supplements. The list of common compounds includes L-Citrulline and L-arginine. It also contains sources that are rich in dietary nitrates like the juice of beetroot.
However, a few of the studies state that combining these compounds with the supplements will boost the oxygen supply along with transporting essential nutrients to the muscles of athletes. Therefore, it will, in turn, enhance and increase the performance of athletes.
According to the researches that are available on the internet, the focus of nitric acid is mainly on young males. However, it is still unclear whether these results will occur in other age groups or not. Thus, more investigation on this topic is in process, and we need it too.
- Caffeine
The producers (companies) of pre-workout supplements frequently use caffeine in their supplements in order to increase the focus, concentration, and energy. Caffeine is one of the most well-known and popular stimulants that tend to improve your mental alertness along with the capacity of memory. It also promotes and supports your performance during exercises. Moreover, caffeine also aims to burn fats at a faster speed.
- Creatine
Creatine is also one of those chemical compounds that a body produces naturally. Your skeletal muscles will primarily store creatine. This chemical compound plays a chief role in producing energy and enhancing the strength of your muscles.
Manufacturers of pre-workout supplements often include creatine in their formula. However, it is also available as a separate (standalone) supplement. This supplement or compound is very popular and useful among bodybuilders, power athletes, and, most importantly, weightlifters.
According to several researchers, supplementing your body with creatine will produce a lot of benefits. These supplements will increase the stored supply and already present stores of this particular compound (creatine) in your body. Thus, it will, as a result, improve and retain the recovery time, exercise performance, strength, along with your muscle mass.
Cons of pre-workout supplements
Now, coming towards the downsides of pre-workout supplements. Although these supplements are safe, still, they are not 100 percent free from risks. Therefore, if you are finalizing your decision regarding adding these pre-workout supplements to your exercise regimen, make sure you go through the potential or expected downsides first.
- Sugar alcohols and artificial sweeteners
You can easily pinpoint pre-workout supplements that often include sugar alcohols or artificial sweeteners in their composition. While these artificial sweeteners or alcohols aims to enhance the flavor of the supplements without adding any calorie, a few of the sweeteners might lead to discomfort along with intestinal distress in some athletes.
In a few words, high consumption of sweeteners or sugar alcohols might activate and trigger some uncomfortable symptoms that include diarrhea, gas, and bloating.
All of these factors can easily disturb your workouts.
However, some people are reporting quite similar and alike digestive response that is a result of the intake of artificial sweeteners such as sucralose.
Yet, there are no such scientific studies that can prove these symptoms. Therefore, you should try to avoid such pre-workout supplements that contain a huge amount of these artificial sweeteners. You can even start with a small quantity to know whether you are capable enough to tolerate these sweeteners.
- Excess caffeine
As we have already told the readers, caffeine holds the major responsibility of working as an energy-boosting element in most of the pre-workout formulas. However, excess intake of caffeine (a stimulant) can create some serious negative and serious side effects.
These side effects include an increase in blood pressure, anxiety, and impaired sleep.
An astonishing fact about pre-workout supplements is that these supplements contain too much caffeine that is almost equal to 240 to 475 ml or one to 2 cups of coffee. However, if you are also consuming caffeine in other forms, it can cause more side effects as well.
The safety and quality of the supplement
In a few countries that include the United States, these dietary supplements aren’t available or regulated easily. Therefore, the labels on the product might be misleading or inaccurate.
If the manufacturers are compromising with the quality and safety of the supplement, you might unintentionally and inadvertently eat these banned substances or unsafe (dangerous) quantity of some compounds.
Therefore, in order to ensure safety, you must purchase those supplements only that contain test verification by third parties such as USP or NSF International.
In conclusion, do check the label of ingredients on the supplement before buying them. Select the product that is proven by higher authorities.
The final verdict on pre-workout supplements
The purpose of pre-workout supplements is to enhance and promote your energy along with physical performance. However, it does not contain too much support for its benefits or cons. But yes, these supplements are good for your exercise routine until and unless you are consuming them correctly.
Do consult your trainer to find out if these supplements are good for you or not. Moreover, keep the ingredients, their benefits, and third parties test in mind before selecting a supplement for yourself.
