Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - What Makes a Good Pre Workout Supplement?

Episode Date: October 23, 2015

In this episode I talk about what I do and don't like to see in a pre workout supplement and why (what actually improves performance and what doesn't). ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS VIDEO: Learn more about Phoenix: https://legionathletics.com/pulse/ 4 Caffeine Benefits & BS “Facts” That Justify Your Addiction: http://www.muscleforlife.com/caffeine-benefits/ The Simple Science of Losing Belly Fat…For Good: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-lose-belly-fat/ Why and How I Use Fasted Cardio to Lose Fat as Quickly as Possible: http://www.muscleforlife.com/fasted-cardio/ Why the BCAA Supplement is Overrated: http://www.muscleforlife.com/bcaa-supplement/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now, you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audio books and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are, one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website,

which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long

overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey again, this is Mike from Muscle for Life, and I'm here to talk to you about pre-workouts. That's going to be the subject of this podcast. Like I said in the previous one, I'll do a little mini-series on different types of supplements. So we already talked about fat burners, and now let's talk about pre-workouts. And then next week, I think, let's do protein powders next week

Probably those are the three more popular supplements that that people buy. I guess post-workouts are popular too So we'll do protein powder and then we'll do post-workouts after that. So pre-workout, uh Drinks, you know if you've been exercising for a period of time, you've probably tried quite a few different ones Um, I know I have I mean now I just use my own obviously, but over the years I've, you know, it's one of those, those are, these are the pre-workouts where you have no brand loyalty almost in a lot of cases, you just try new things that come out. But, you know, as I've gotten more educated, I don't really even see a need to try anything else. And I'll talk about why. And that's not necessarily, I mean, I'm not going to say that my pre-workout pulse is the absolute best that will ever be made.

But when you actually start looking at the formulation, we're going to talk about some other ingredients and some things that you'll find in other pre-workouts. It's hard to beat the formulation. hard to beat the formulation. And that basically boils down to, I spend a lot more money to produce that product than, uh, other companies spend on theirs. And I've, I've spoken about this before, but if you haven't heard, I'll just recap it briefly. And the big problem with the supplement industry and the biggest reason why so many supplements suck is their expense. Good supplements are expensive to make. And as we're going to go over some different ingredients for pre-workouts, um, that like take something like citrulline malate or beta alanine or beta-ene. These are good ingredients. These are, these are molecules

that have quite a bit of human research behind them. They improve performance. It's true, but you have to take enough and that's the problem. So it's, it's sure it's easy to put a couple grams of citrulline malate and maybe a gram of beta alanine or less, or maybe a little bit more than that. Maybe, you know, 500 milligrams of beta-ene, no problem. Uh, that's not very expensive, but when you look at how much you have to take to actually get the effects that you want, and you look at the research on that, you'll find that like citrulline malate, if you want to be in the higher end of the clinically effective dosage, which is really what you want.

I mean, you want to take a look at the research that's available and go, what's the average dosage used? And in terms of citrulline malate, that would be six to eight grams. In terms of beta alanine, that would be about five grams. And in terms of betaene, that would be between two and eight grams. In terms of beta alanine, that would be about five grams. And in terms of beta-ene, that would be between two and three grams. So the problem becomes that's expensive. Like as a company, as you know, me, I have to spend quite a bit of money to produce every bottle of Pulse so much so that the retail model simply would, will never work for my company

because I would have to sell Pulse. Like if you take a standard retail model, would, will never work for my company. Uh, because I would have to sell pulse. Like if you take a standard retail model, I'd have to sell pulse for probably a hundred dollars to make it work. That'd have to be the retail price to support, to go from the manufacturer to me and from me to the wholesaler and from the wholesaler or distributor to the retailer and the retailer to you. That's just how it, that's how it shakes out. And so that's really, I mean, I hate to, to just kind of make broad generalizations, but that's why a lot of the products, if you're buying your products, uh, from retail locations, and if you're buying from brands that are in retail locations, there's a very good chance that product is shit. It's,

it sounds bad or whatever. And it sounds like me, I'm just trying to pitch my stuff, but I'm not, I'm just telling the truth because it just costs too much money to make good products. And from all the, you know, the markups that need to occur from the supplement company to the wholesaler or distributor to the retailer, to you, it just, you know, pre-workouts, for instance, most companies are spending three to $5 per bottle, uh, for their, for their pre-workouts. And when you don't have that budget and you go, where are we going to put it? And there are only really a handful of ingredients that, um, have good science behind them, but now you can't afford

to, to, to use the right dosages. So you just do what, you know, you just go, Oh, well we'll put two grams of sit malate. We'll put, you know, two grams, a bit of alanine, we'll put 500 milligrams of betaine. We'll put some stimulants and we'll throw some other random shit in there for the last little dollar that we have left. And, uh, and we'll just hype it up in our marketing. And that's what a lot of pre-workouts are. So much so that you'd be probably better off just having some caffeine pills and picking up some citrulline malate and some beta alanine and beta-ene in bulk. You'd be better off doing that and just in dosing it yourself than wasting your money on a lot of the pre-workouts that are on the market.

And again, this just comes down to there's only, you know, the budgets are very, very tight to create these products for these companies that are in retail locations. And that also, of course, means that, of course, they're sold online as well. And that doesn't just apply to pre-workouts. That applies to almost everything. Protein powders are an area where, um, supplement companies are actually willing to take a hit on pro their margins are very low on protein powders. In fact, I know some supplement companies, they don't even make money on their protein. They actually, because of this, you know, you're looking at the, the, the retail, uh, you know, the, the markups that, that, that, that you want to see basically would be an eight to 10 times

manufacturing costs. So, you know, I can tell you for a fact that high quality, like to create a high quality whey protein isolate to, you know, a kilogram, 2.2 pounds of protein. And once you're all done, if you're spending, you know, 20, $20 a bottle, you're doing well. So look at the, obviously, you know, you can go to GNC and you can buy that product for, you know, and let's say you buy it for $50. But still those numbers don't work for, for, for retail and where that goes in terms of protein, which we'll, we'll talk more about next week, is it's just different shenanigans, low quality proteins, protein blends that are actually just trash and amino spiking.

And anyways, we'll get into that stuff next week, a little teaser for next week. But back to my point with just this is the problem. This is the problem with fat burners. This is a problem with pretty much all products, joint products. Like I can, you know, it's easy to just throw some glucosamine in a pill because it's cheap. And you sell it for $3 a bottle when it costs you $2 a bottle. But to create a good joint supplement, you're not going to see, you know, you're not doing it for $2, $5, or even $8 a bottle. So with pre-workouts, you're better off just getting some caffeine pills and buying in bulk some citmalate, some beta-alanine,

and like maybe from bulk powders or whatever, and some getting, I don't know, you might be able to find beta-alanine in bulk. I'm not sure actually. My point is in the long run, you're going to save money and you're going to get a better performance boost out of just kind of making your own, um, than you will wasting money on the latest and greatest crap from the big name companies. Now, with that being said, let's, uh, let's actually just take a step back to our pre-workouts. Are they necessary? Are they really going to make a difference? No, they're not necessary. Like all supplements, no supplements are necessary at all. You can get, you're going to get the majority of your progress is going to come that you're going to see in your body. The majority of your muscle

gains and your fat loss and your, and your strength progression is going to come from your diet and training. Uh, certain supplements can just help. And that's really the bottom line. And they're not going to, uh, you know, I, a lot of people, they just default back to the old 80, 20 thing. I would say supplementation is probably even less than 20%. It depends what you're trying to do. It depends on the circumstances. So if we were just going to default to that, I could say, you know, it's probably semi-accurate to say somewhere between 80% and 90% of everything that's going to happen in your training and in your body is going to come from your diet and your exercise routines. And the supplements can

help speed things up really is what it boils down to. But you can get to wherever you want to be. You can get strong. You can build a lot of muscle. You can get lean without supplements. Certain supplements will make it faster. That's really the most accurate way to put it. So with pre-workouts in particular, the reason why I personally like a pre-workout and have always used one is because a good pre-workout is going to improve your performance in the gym. It will, you're going to have more energy. Um, you're going to get more reps in depending on what's in the pre-workout, you're going to be a bit stronger. And over time that translates into something. If you also are eating right, and you're also working on a good, on a good program, uh, if you can, you know, increase the

weight on the bar a little bit quicker over the course of two years, let's say, uh, if you can, you know, increase the weight on the bar a little bit quicker over the course of two years, let's say, where you, let's say, made it because of your pre-workout, you were 10% faster in just progressing because you hit your reps, you're able to add weight, you hit your reps, you're able to add weight, then, you know, there is a real benefit to that. And then there are some ingredients, like let's say beta-alanine, there are some mechanisms whereby it can directly influence muscle growth. The research is not conclusive on this, and it's not really something that I, in selling my pre-workout,

which has about 5 grams of beta-alanine per serving, I don't really push that. We have it in the copy because there is, I believe, there there are, I think it's one or one or two studies that we cite there that show that it, there are some ways that it can directly lead to greater muscle growth over time. But what is very well established is that it can improve your performance, especially with endurance. You get more reps or just with endurance activities. So that's what I like about pre-workouts, uh, is just simply you're a good one is going to give you better workouts. And there's also the experiential, uh, aspect too, where you, if you have better workouts, if you enjoy your workouts more because you have more energy,

because you're more focused, um, there's, there's, there's value in that. I mean, there's a lot of that. That's like similar with diet, right? There's that old saying, the best diet is the one you can stick to. There's truth in that because, you know, so long as you follow the basics of energy balance and, and you have your macronutrients fairly balanced, at least your protein is up. You know, there are a lot of different ways to, to get to your goal and in terms of exactly like how many carbs you're gonna be eating, how many fats can be eating, what types of foods you're going to be eating, when are you going to be eating, how are you going to handle your, your, your cheating? So, so to speak, are you going to refeed? Are you just going to save

calories? Are you going to go over, uh, you know, you're just going to go crazy for, for one meal a week. So there's a lot of different ways to get there. And the, the, the most important thing is that you choose a way that actually works for you, that you enjoy. It shouldn't, when you're dieting, uh, and same thing with your training, you shouldn't be dreading, you know, every meal you shouldn't be dreading every day, or you shouldn't be like, I can't wait until this stupid diet ends. Now I'll, uh, to be fair, I mean, cutting does get a bit old after 68 weeks, but again, all in all, it should be a fairly straightforward, almost pleasant experience. And on the training side of things, same thing. You could have the best possible training program ever that is laid out, you know, that is programmed perfectly in terms of the scientific side of things.

But practically, if you can't stick to the program, if you just don't like it, if it doesn't fit your lifestyle, if you, you know, whatever, then it's not a good program for you because yeah, you could follow, you know, some great program for let's say four weeks. And then you're starting to not look forward to your workouts anymore. You start skipping compliance goes out the window. And, uh, you know, that is, you're worse off doing that than following a program that's maybe mediocre, it's not great, but you enjoy it and you stick with it. Now, obviously, ideally, you find a program that is well built and gets good results that you can stick with and enjoy over, in my opinion, this is something to be looking at for the long-term future. I want to still be in the gym 30 years from now. the, for the longterm future. I want to still be in the gym, you know, 30 years from now. And yeah, sure. Some things change with age and you had, you have to make recovery more of a priority and you might have to give some more attention to your soft tissue work to make sure

that you, you know, you don't run into any problems that are going to then cause injuries or whatever. But, uh, you know, for me, I I'm interested in finding something that I'm going to enjoy, you know, over the longterm, not, Oh, I'm going to beat the shit out of myself for six months and then feel like I never want to work out again. So to that point, if a good pre-workout makes you enjoy your workouts more, then that's a reason to use it. If, however, you don't like pre-workouts for whatever reason, maybe you don't do well with caffeine, maybe you just don't want to take supplements at all, then that's totally fine. You still can get to your where you want to be. And it's not like not taking pre-workout is going to dramatically influence the progress or the process. So that's the general kind of overall breakdown of pre-workouts.

So that's the general kind of overall breakdown of pre-workouts. It is one of the supplements that I myself use and will always use and I do recommend and for down below for those watching. And then if you're listening, if you go to Muscle for Life and search for caffeine, you can find an article I wrote. It kind of debunks some myths about caffeine, you know, that it causes insomnia or it's bad for your heart or it increases risk of cancer. There's a lot of random shit out there. That's just not true. It's been scientifically proven to not be true. And in fact, research shows that moderate use of caffeine, now this is the key, moderate use of caffeine can actually improve or reduce the risk of heart disease because it improves blood flow. That's one of the things that it does. Now, what is moderate use? Again, you can go dive into the article if you really want to get the details. But basically, there was one, I think it was a meta-analysis or just a systematic review that concluded basically that about 400 milligrams per day for the average person, if you keep your intake at or below 400 milligrams a day, you're at no risk of harming your health whatsoever. Some people can go quite a bit higher, um, and be fine. And some people can't, but that's just a good baseline number to keep

in mind. So caffeine and pre-workouts is good in terms of clinically effective dosages of caffeine. You probably want, uh, somewhere around a milligram per pound of body weight is, is, is kind of a good ballpark figure to get the performance enhancing benefits. That's what you want. Caffeine can make you stronger. It obviously gives you energy, but it'll give you strength. It'll increase the amount of reps you can do, but you have to take enough. And then where you'll see really pronounced benefits in that regard is going to be closer to the 2 milligrams per pound of body weight. Like my pre-workout pulse, it has 350 milligrams per serving, which we came to base just on the average person that's going to be using it.

And a lot of people, they'll just do one scoop on some workouts, two scoops on other workouts and so forth. So caffeine is good. Now, since we're talking caffeine, I just want to quickly talk about one other molecule that I really like that works synergistically with caffeine to improve nitric oxide production. So you're going to get better pumps in the gym, and it improves cognitive performance and mood. And it's actually noticeable. And it's called theanine. It's an amino acid that's found in tea. especially noticeable. And it's called theanine. Uh, it's an amino acid that's found in tea. And when you have it with caffeine, usually about a one-to-one ratio, like in my pre-workout we have,

uh, it's, it's a one-to-one ratio of caffeine to theanine. Uh, you will notice that your, your energy rush is smoother on caffeine, uh, that you don't crash. And the real thing you're going to notice. And if you're like most people, is a dramatic improvement just in mood. Like, it's actually strange. The first time that I tried it, I almost felt, you know, it was almost like a euphoria type of, I felt like I was on some sort of drug or something. But it's just an amino acid in tea. And, you know, it just, when you take enough of it with caffeine, you feel very good. And it also, again, it really, it helps with, you know, smooth out that the, the caffeine rush. So it comes on and then you don't crash.

So just a quick little, it's not a stimulant, but if you see athenine in a pre-workout, then that's cool because you don't, it's just not a molecule that you find in very many products. You'll find it sometimes in nootropics that also have caffeine, but it's not really out there very much. I guess it's not really known about. It's also not particularly cheap, so maybe that's a reason why. Sinephrine is another common stimulant that you'll find in pre-workouts. And sinephrine is a great molecule. It's similar to ephedrine. It, it's just like a, a, a, a weaker form of ephedrine, but molecularly it's, it's similar. And the thing that I don't quite like about seeing it when I, when I see it in pre-workouts is as a stimulant, it's very weak.

You're just not going to feel it very much. If at all, I have synephrine in, uh, my fat burner, which is called Phoenix because it helps you lose fat faster and it actually works synergistically with caffeine. So it makes sense in a, in a fat loss product. Um, you know, most fat loss products have caffeine. Mine doesn't because I always didn't like that about, um, fat burners is I don't want to have, I don't want to get my caffeine from a pill. I want to get my caffeine from a pre-workout or, you know, I don't drink coffee. I don't like coffee, but a lot of people obviously do. And that's one of the things they don't like about fat burners is they either have to now add another

200 milligrams of caffeine a day or more depending on the product and on top of their caffeine intake, or they have to reduce their caffeine intake. And both of those are not good. So I left caffeine out of mine. Um, but put Sanofran in because I know that people that are going to be wanting to lose fat are going to be getting caffeine from somewhere, at least the vast majority of them. So I don't think it's a bad inclusion in a pre-workout, synephrine. But in terms of stimulant, you're not going like caffeine is far, far stronger than synephrine. Just based on feedback from people that have used or that are using Phoenix, the most I hear from people is they feel like they have a little bit more energy. Like, you know, it peps them up a little bit. And keep in mind, that's 50 milligrams of sinephrine,

which is quite a bit higher. Like in most pre-workouts, you're going to find anywhere from 20 to 30 milligrams. But the proper clinically effective dosage, if you want to really go by the studies, is 50 milligrams. So, you know, with a full dosage of Senefrin, even stimulant sensitive people are, you know, feeling it a little bit. So that gives you an idea. And these are people that get amped up on like, you know, 200 milligrams of caffeine. So Senefrin is a cool molecule, but I don't think it has a great value if it's in a pre-workout. Unless it's being sold as like a pre-workout for fat loss. And then again, though, it needs to have enough.

So, yohimbine. Let's talk about yohimbine because you'll find this in a fair amount of pre-workouts as well. It is a stimulant. It's a molecule that is extracted from a plant that grows in Africa. And I'll link an article down below. If you're listening, go to Muscle for Life and search for stubborn fat and read and check out that article. Cause I dive into the, to the nitty gritty details of how it works in the body, but to keep it simple, basically fat cells, they can, you have, you have chemicals in the body that attach to fat cells that either well,

what the point of these chemicals is to, to induce the fat cell, to release the energy that it's storing to be burned. And those chemicals have to bind to what are called receptor sites. And there are two types of receptor sites on fat cells. One type, when these chemicals bind, it causes the fat cells to release the energy that they're storing within them. The other type of receptor doesn't. The fat burning chemical will bind, but nothing will happen. So what yohimbine does is it blocks the activity of the receptor site that blocks fat loss. So in a sense, it's like taking the break off of fat loss, basically. Now, like sinephrine, yohimbine, it makes sense to have in a fat loss product, although you need to know that if you are not in a fasted state, if your insulin is not at that low baseline level, then you're not going to get any fat burning benefits from yohimbine.

A lot of companies that sell yohimbine don't really tell you this. They just say you're going to lose fat faster if you take yohimbine, and that's simply not true unless you are really two things. And that's simply not true unless you are really two things. One, you want to be taking it with exercise when adrenaline or adrenaline levels are spiked. And two, it needs to be fasted exercise, which I'll link an article down below. If you go to Muscle for Life, if you're listening, you search for fasted cardio, you'll see an article on this that explains why this is. But that's something you need to know for using a hemorrhaging for fat loss. Now, when it's in a pre-workout, obviously that still applies. It's not going to help you lose fat if you have eaten food in the last couple hours. Um, but it still can have a stimulatory effect, but you know, him being, it's not a dangerous molecule, uh, but

it's one that you need to be careful with. Um, because some people don't respond well to it. Some people get jittery. It can raise blood pressure. So if someone has high blood pressure, then it's not recommended that they take your hem beam. And pre-workouts are one of the more commonly abused supplements in that if somebody takes, let's say you recommend two scoops of this pre-workout and they take two scoops and they like it and they go, well, I mean, two scoops are good. So four scoops of this pre-workout and they take two scoops and they like it and they go, well, I mean, two scoops are good. So four scoops much must be better. Right. And if, if it's just caffeine and then you overload yourself with caffeine for one day, that's not going to

necessarily cause any problems. But if you were to take a ton of your him bean, um, it actually could be a problem. Like depending on your situation, it could be a big problem, or it could just be that you get really jittery. You'll, uh, you can get nauseous and really not feel good. So I don't like your hand being in pre-workouts really for those reasons. Um, I think it really needs to be in a separate product and needs to be dosed low per pill. So you can, or, I mean, that's also, it's kind of, it would be hard to do this with powder. So I like it in a pill form, but per serving, I could say, I like to see a low dosage. So you can work your way up toward the clinically effective dosage for fat loss, which is about two milligrams per point to 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

Like I have yohamine in one of my, it's really a pre-workout fat burner. It's called Forge. And I believe there's two to two and a half milligrams per pill, I think is what we decided on. So you can work your way up to, you know, the amount that you need. Because I recommend that if you're going to take yohimbine, you start at 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of body weight to assess your tolerance and make sure that, you know, you don't get all jittery and that you feel okay. I get a little bit nauseous from yoh him being about 30 minutes after I've taken it, but it's very minor. I don't even, it's hard to even notice. It's a very slight discomfort type of feeling. Um, but some people get very nauseous from it, which actually usually goes away in time.

Um, so that's why I don't really like yohimbine in pre-workouts. Another stimulant that is kind of popular right now is higenamine, or maybe it's hygenamine. I'm assuming higenamine. It's actually hard to find the pronunciation on it, but it's an interesting molecule that binds to the receptor sites in fat cells. If you just remember what I was talking about with yohimbine, it binds to the receptor sites that cause the energy in the fat cells, if you just remember what I was talking about with the yohimbine, it binds to the receptor sites that cause the energy in the fat cells to be released, the good receptor sites in that regard. And that's why it's often sold as a fat burner. But there's just not very much evidence that it actually has enough effect to make a difference. There's a bit of animal research and a bit of speculative type of research, but we don't really have conclusive human studies on it like we have with

sinephrine or ephedrine, which again, hegenamine is similar to. If you want to dive into the scientific details of it, head over to examine, examine.com, look up hegenamine and go look at the section on fat metabolism. And it's one of these things that when we have human research, good in vivo human research, we may see, hey, this stuff does work. And if that's the case, then it's something that I would consider including in my products. But right now it's kind of an unproven type of thing that may or may not actually help you lose fat faster. So I wouldn't say that I don't like seeing it in pre-workouts. I don't put it in any of my products because I really want to stick to ingredients that have good human research behind them.

Because, again, I mean, when we're talking clinically effective dosages with – and with hegenamine, I believe it's about 40 milligrams would be the theoretically what you would need. Again, it's expensive. And also you the theoretically what you would need. Um, you know, again, it's expensive and also you only have so much space in every serving. Take a citrulline malate, you need eight grams. That's not only expensive, but that takes up a lot of space in your scooper. So of course 40 milligrams does not take up space in a scooper, but it can take up space in your budget. So when I'm looking at, and you know, I, when, when, when, when the, I've worked with, uh, with a few other people when we're looking at, okay, what are we going to do with this formulation? Um, a big part of our consideration is how much money can we spend on

this product and where can we put that money to, we want to put that money into ingredients that we know are going to work based on the research. We try to stay away from speculative ingredients because that's not personally what I would want. I want something that I know is going to work and that's what I want to spend my money on. All right, let's move on now to beta-alanine. Beta-alanine is an amino acid that increases the amount of another substance

called carnosine in the muscles and that improves performance. There's quite a bit of research on beta-alanine. It works. It's good. You just have to take enough, and enough is about five grams. There was a meta-analysis that was done. I think they reviewed about, it was in the 20s, somewhere between 20 and 30 studies done on the performance-enhancing benefits of beta-alanine, and that was the conclusion, is the average effective dosage that you find in all this research, uh, is about five grams. You're not going to find five grams in most pre-workouts because again, it's expensive.

Uh, most pre-workouts have between two and three grams, which would be the low end of, I mean, you're going to, that, that will probably make a bit of a, somewhat of a difference in your training, but it's not going to be nearly as much as the companies are claiming in their marketing probably. If you want to claim the benefits that are seen in these different studies, you have to use the same dosage. So beta-alanine is good, but you need to take about five grams. All right, next is citrulline. Citrulline is another amino acid, and it breaks down into the amino acid arginine in the body, which then has different performance-enhancing benefits. Citrulline does work, and it's actually more reliable than arginine.

So a lot of companies, they'll use arginine in their pre-workouts or just in their nitric oxide type of products because one of the benefits is it improves blood flow so you get better pumps. But arginine is just, it's an unreliable molecule. In some people's bodies, it has the desired effects and in other people's bodies, it doesn't. Similar to CLA actually, like I used to recommend and take CLA, but then as more research came out, it showed that CLA is for fat loss, right? It's usually sold as a fat loss product, not for pre-workout, but that it's just unreliable. Like arginine, some people are going to take CLA and it's going to help them lose fat a little bit faster and some people are going to take it and it's not. So I stay away from those types of

ingredients. Again, I want something that there's no reason why this shouldn't work for everybody, that if it doesn't work, it's the strange non-responder. Like sometimes people, they don't get any benefits. They notice nothing from creatine. That's very unusual. Most people, if you take five grams of creatine a day, you're going to notice an increase in strength within the first week or two. And you're going to build muscle faster as well. But, you know, that's not always the case 100% of the time.

But I don't like going with an ingredient that works maybe 50% of the time and 50% of the people are going to notice a benefit and 50% of the people are not. So citrulline is a better alternative to arginine because, and again, if you go to legionathletics.com and go check out the page for Pulse, our pre-workout, you can go look at the studies that were done on citrulline if you want to dive into the details. But it's metabolized into arginine, which raises arginine levels more reliably than taking arginine directly. And then the effect of that is it improves your performance, your physical performance. And again, this is particularly for endurance. You'll find that you have more muscle endurance and more cardiovascular endurance with citrulline. Now you have to take enough. And again, I've said this several times about eight grams,

I'd say six grams is okay. Eight grams is best. If your pre-workout has two grams, that's not very exciting. That would be quite a bit lower than the clinically effective dosages, so much so that you probably wouldn't find any studies really that are showing any physical performance benefits at two grams. Another performance enhancing ingredient you're going to find in a lot of pre-workouts, it's popular these days because enough research has accumulated on it, is beta-ene. It's a molecule found in beets and it can improve strength and it can improve muscle endurance. It's a good molecule. It works. There's good research on it. Clinically effective dosages are about one and a half to two and a half grams

with two and a half being the safer. And that's what I include in my pre-workout because that's what I want personally. When you look at just the body of research on it, if you're taking two and a half grams, it's like creatine, you're going to get something out of two grams, uh, but you're going to get a lot more out of five grams. So with, with beta-ene it's about two to two and a half grams is really the dosage that I like to see in pre-workouts. And, um, yes, it's good. It acutely, it acutely improves performance, which is what we want. So now let's talk creatine. I'm sure you've heard of creatine. It's a, it's a peptide, which is two amino acids bound together. Um, probably the most researched molecule in all sports nutrition. It works. There's no question. Uh, creatine helps you build strength and build

muscle faster and improves muscle recovery as well. Um, you have to take enough about five grams a day is the standard dosage. Uh, you can load it. You don't have to take enough. About five grams a day is the standard dosage. You can load it. You don't have to. Loading it will just get it to accumulate in the body faster, which loading protocol is usually like 20 grams a day for five days. Then you go to five grams a day. You don't have to cycle creatine. It doesn't shut down anything like steroids or anything like that.

Of course, its effects are not nearly as pronounced as steroids, but that's obvious. Now, as good as creatine is, I don't like seeing it in a pre-workout for a couple reasons. One is there's some research that shows, there are two or three studies that I've seen that show that it is more effective when taken after a workout. So that's a simple reason why it's in my post-workout supplement, which is called Recharge, and it's not in my pre-workout. And also there's some research, I believe there's two studies now, two that I've seen, that show that caffeine may actually interfere with some of its benefits. And the mechanism is not fully understood, but the effects were seen.

So for those reasons, I just don't include it in my pre-workout. Also, you have to take five grams to get benefits. And five grams is quite a bit when you look at it in my pre-workout. Also, you have to take five grams to get benefits. And five grams is quite a, quite a, quite a bit when you look at it in terms of a serving size. And again, you're coming down to with a powder, you only have so much room per serving and also financially they have so much room. So I think it's, it's creatine makes more sense in a post-workout, which is why it's in my post-workout and not in my pre-workout. But I wouldn't say that, you know, it's not something when I see creatine in a pre-workout where I'm like,

oh, that's bad. But I think it's better suited to a post-workout. All right. So those are the main performance enhancing ingredients you're going to find in pre-workouts. So let's talk now about some nootropics. First would be alpha-GPC. You're going to find that. That's a, it's a supplement that contains a molecule called choline, which turns into acetylcholine in the body, which is a neurotransmitter. And there is some research that shows that it can improve cognition, but it's at about three, I think it's three to 600 milligrams is the clinically effective dose. And I know because I've, one, I've taken it separately, uh, you know, just, just bought some,

just taking it to see if I noticed any effects, which I didn't, um, personally, but you know, I don't, I don't know. I've tried different nootropics and didn't really notice much, but, but there is research that shows that 600 milligrams can improve cognitive function. Um, and, and I actually wanted to put it in my pre-workout because just because, you know, I didn't notice anything doesn't mean that the research is invalid. And there are a lot of, there are a lot of people out there that, that, that, uh, swear by alpha GPC and that they do notice a difference. The problem though, is it tastes terrible. I couldn't get it to taste. Um, I mean, it's really, really bitter, really, really sour. So I did, I did try to put it in, um, at 600 milligrams. And, uh, but you know, I, I, it's, it's one of those things that if sometime we

can figure out the flavor system, then I would put it in. But for now it's not there. And if you find alpha GPC in another pre-workout, it's not going to be at 600 milligrams. I guarantee you because it's expensive and there's no way the companies are going to want to spend as much as it costs to put it in at the proper dosage. So it's one of those things, just know that if you see 50 milligrams or a hundred or 150 milligrams of alpha GPC, you're probably not going to notice anything whatsoever from that. Um, and there is one study that showed that I believe it was 600 milligrams increased power output in people that were working out and increased, increased the growth hormone production from the out and increased the growth hormone

production from the workout, which the growth hormone production isn't really kind of a, whatever. It kind of sounds cool, but it's not really gonna make a difference in terms of anything. Um, but an increase in power could be cool as one study. Um, you know, I, when I was wanting to put it in pulse, I wasn't really even, I didn't even, I wasn't sure if I was even going to cite that study cause it's one standalone study. I'm not totally convinced that that's going to be reliable enough to really have it be it as a selling point, but there is plenty of good research on its cognitive enhancing properties. Again, though, you have to take enough. Another cognitive enhancer that you'll see is Hooperzine

A. Hooperzine also turns into acetylcholine in the body, which is a neurotransmitter. You'll see it's huperzine A. Huperzine also turns into acetylcholine in the body, which is a neurotransmitter. And like alpha-GPC, there's good research in humans that shows that it does have these cognitive enhancing properties. Again, I've tried it. So I've tried alpha-GPC, huperzine A, and there was another one, one or two others. I tried them separately. I didn't really notice anything. I tried them together, and really all I got was crazy, weird, bad dreams. Like, and, and also I just started feeling weird.

I don't know. It was actually strange. I mean, I guess it's messing with brain chemistry. So, um, yeah, anyways, I, I tried these, you know, just to see if I, cause my, you know, my, my work is thinking and writing and I thought, Hey, if I can get a little bit of a mental edge, sure. That would be great. Didn't really notice much other than I started getting weird nightmares, like bizarre. Like, uh, I think, I think some of these might be also people that are into lucid dreaming might take them. I don't know. I had never really been into that myself, but, um, anyways, Hooper Zine, uh, is if our, you know, gonna make a nootropic, which I don't really plan to,

I would be looking at Hooperzine A. Again, its effects are mild. And same thing with alpha-GPC, just so you know, the effects, even at the proper clinically effect dosage, it is going to be mild. And that's one of the reasons why I haven't made a nootropic yet, because I don't feel like I could make that great of a product. The molecules that I like the most already in my multivitamin like Bacopa Minieri is very good for this, but it's in my multivitamin. So I'd be kind of double dipping on the multivitamin, which doesn't quite make sense. In terms of dosage of Huperzine A, it's very small, 50 to 200 micrograms per day is what you'll see in the studies. And again, personally, when I'm looking at creating products or going over formulations,

I like to be in the middle or higher range, higher end of the clinically effective dosage range, unless I have a good reason to be on the lower end. And that would be normally where if, if research shows that you're not going to see, uh, much more in terms of benefits on the, if you go above, like, you know, let's say 10 milligrams, you're going to have whatever you're going to see, uh, 90% of the benefits are going to occur in that 10 to 15 milligram range. But there are a couple of studies that show if you go up to, if you double that, you might be able to squeeze a little bit out a little bit more out of it. Then there's a, you know, you say, I have to weigh,

is it worth that extra money to get an extra 10% out of this ingredient? Or should I take that money? And then I can include a completely different ingredient that provides different benefits or benefits that are synergistic or stack with it or whatever, which by the way, watch out for companies that use that as a pitch where they'll say, yeah, well, you know, we don't, yeah, well, there's only two grams of citrulline, but you don't need more than that because all the benefits are at the two gram or two, three gram. That that's, that's not true. Uh, the, the, the, all the, the dosages that I've talked about so far, that's what you want to see. So in terms of Hooper's in a, and really alpha GPC in, in a pre-workout or just nootropics, nootropics in general, no pre-workout,

I like the idea. I like the idea of something that can improve, uh, focus really. I mean, that would really what we'd be going for, right? It's not like we're not taking a test when we're in the gym, so we don't need our memory to work better or different cognitive functions to necessarily work better or ones that related more to learning, but focus would, you know, improved focus is, uh, is, is a nice benefit, which is why I have something called CDP choline, which again, it's a choline, uh, supplement breaks down into, uh, acetylcholine in the body. That's in forge. And that's in that because forge you have to take you it's for fasted training. Um, and one of the downsides of fast

training is your workouts can kind of suck you can just be mentally not quite with it um because when you're carved up you have a lot of energy carbs are a nootropic um so i i put cdp choline which has some good research behind it showing that it has these cognitive benefits that's in my my uh fasted pre-workout product so the idea of having nootrop my fasted pre-workout product. So the idea of having nootropics in a pre-workout, I like the problem. And I can tell you from firsthand, I know is that it's expensive to do. I was willing to spend that money in alpha GPC because I would like to get one more ingredient in pulse. We've tried alpha GPC, couldn't get a taste right. And I mean, and it tasted bad. It just was, it was out of the question. Um, but it's expensive. So just know when you see something like Hooper's in a, or you see alpha GPC, or you see a set of L carnitine,

which we'll talk about next Alcar, um, just know that good ingredients, but I guarantee you they're underdosed because they're very expensive. So let's talk about Alcar, acetyl L-carnitine, a form of carnitine, um, that has good research, good human research showing it does have cognitive benefits. Um, and that's another one. That's what I'm working on actually right now to put into pulse. It doesn't taste good. It has a weird detergent type of aftertaste to it.

So we're working on it. We're trying to, you know, it's, I'll be willing to sacrifice a little bit of flavor, um, for, for, for Alcar, but it can't taste like detergent, which is kind of where it's at right now. And, um, you know, just as a random aside, flavoring is a bit of an art. It's actually interesting. I mean, obviously I'm not doing it myself. I, the manufacturer I work with, they have a team of people, but it's not something you go to school for and just learn how to flavor stuff. It's something that like you learn from somebody who did it for 30 years and he learned from somebody else and it's you yourself come up with your own concoctions and ways of doing things.

Um, so some people can be, you know, really bad at it. Like I've gone through so many samples of so many things with so many different companies and been amazed at how disgusting some of their, like, why would they even send this? It tastes so bad. Why would they even send this to me to even try? Like, do they have taste buds? Do they actually think anybody would buy this and not immediately just spit it out um and same ingredients versus manufacturer that i'm with um they have a very good flavor team where he makes stuff taste good like we're coming out with this new protein soon that is delicious i guarantee you it's the best all-natural protein uh powder that you've ever tasted it's so good and i think it stands up to even the the stuff that's full of chemicals

and, you know, that has quite a bit of fat and carb as well, that some of these proteins that are out there, they taste like milkshakes and water because there's, you know, there's just so much flavor and so much crap in there to make it taste good. I would be willing to say that the new protein that's coming, which will be here in about four weeks, it can go toe to toe with even that stuff. But you know, flavoring is flavoring is tough. So we're working on Alcar. The clinically effective dosage of Alcar is a wide range. I think there's studies as low as about 600, 500 milligrams, and then up to about two and a half grams. You want to be in that two gram range. We, we're looking at how really what we can do on the taste, uh, two and a half grams would be the top. I'm not sure we can make that taste right,

but I also don't think we need that much to get the benefits that we want out of it. So we're playing with it. Um, again, so Alcar, uh, it's a good ingredient. It's a good thing to see, but keep that dosage, uh, in mind. Cause you're again, you're not going to find, I mean, I've never seen a pre-workout that has even two grams or maybe, I don't even know if I've seen one that has one and a half grams. Cause again, it's expensive. All right. So now a couple of the random things you'll see, you'll see BCAAs in a pre-workout. BCAAs are very, very overrated. Obviously they're very popular and they're sold like they're going to help you almost like they're like natural steroids or like they're creatine or something. And it's just not true.

I wrote an article on this, which I'll link down below. And if you're listening, go to muscleforlife.com and search for BCAA. And where I just kind of debunk the BCAA craze, where they're actually useful is if you're going to be training fasted, then having leucine, which is amino acid that stimulates protein synthesis before your fasted workout makes sense because muscle degradation is higher during fasted training and the leucine will counteract that. But the problem with BCAA is getting your leucine because it's branched chain amino acids. That's BCAA. It's leucine, isoleucine, valine, three amino acids. Really all you want is the leucine. The isoleucine is very weak in its stimulation of protein

synthesis and valine does basically nothing. So you're paying for three amino acids when all you want is one. And so that just gets expensive. And also leucine does basically nothing. So you're paying for three amino acids when all you want is one. And so it just gets expensive. And also, leucine does have a slight insulin response. It's not very high. It's not like food. So that's me being just nitpicky. Like personally, before I had the product that now I use, which is, again, it's my own, the pre-workout fasted, that fasted pre-workout fat burner, which has instead of leucine,

because I used leucine. I would just buy bulk leucine. I would take about three grams before my faster training and that was it. HMB though is a metabolite of leucine means it's a molecule that when your body metabolizes leucine, one of the things that it breaks it down into is HMB. And HMB again is a different supplement. It's very overhyped. It's not going to help you build muscle faster. It's not like creatine. But where there is good research and what is well established is it's very anti-catabolic, which is what we want before our fasted workouts. And it has no insulin response and you don't need very much of it. About two and a half grams or so is what you need. And that's why it's in my fasted pre-workout, uh, fat burner and not Lucina, not BCAs.

So BCAs in a pre-workout is, is stupid. Basically, there's no reason for them to be there. Um, they're just cheap and people associate BCAs. It's just BCAs have been well marketed. So people hear like, it's one of those things like it's protein powder. Of course it works like BCAs. They work creatine, it works. So it's more just a marketing play to put BCAAs in a pre-workout because then you can just throw something else in your copy and be like, and it has BCAAs.

And you don't even have to necessarily even claim all that much. Um, because a lot of people are kind of, they're indoctrinated to think that BCAAs are good. So you put some in your pre-workout, it's cheap and, uh, it gives that, you know, another bullet point to sell. So there are a few other random things you'll see like taurine and tyrosine, which really have no reason to be in a pre-workout. I won't even go into them. Just don't even pay attention to them. Pretend they're not even there. So that's everything. You know, obviously you're going to find some other random type of things in pre-workouts, but the more popular ones, we've pretty much covered everything that they really bank on, that they say that's what makes their stuff really good.

So I hope this helps you make better decisions in your pre-workouts. Again, if you want to check out my pre-workout, it's called Pulse. You can just Google Legion Pulse or you can just go to legionathletics.com, you know, and go look at, go look at it there. Um, and I'll link it down below for, you know, people that are watching this. And if you don't want mine, that's cool. Um, I recommend that you just make your own, um, just know though, even bulk aminos, they are expensive. You'll see that it's not cheap. Even if you were to go recreate Pulse, they are expensive. You'll see that it's not cheap. Even if you were to go recreate Pulse, you know, it's going to cost you more to buy it and actually recreate it in bulk than it will cost you to get it from me just because they're expensive amino acids and you are getting,

as a consumer, you are paying, you know, a premium for pure amino acids. But that's just because there are large dosages in, in, in pulse. Um, but if you want it to scale it down, let's say you didn't have every ingredient that pulse has, and you went something simple, caffeine, citrulline malate, and beta alanine. That's where I would say, if that'd be like the bare minimum pre-workout, if you were to do that, um, caffeine is up to you depending on how much you weigh and depending on your tolerance, anywhere from 200 to 400 milligrams. 8 grams of citmalate and 5 grams of beta alanine.

And maybe mix in some zero calorie sweetener because it's not going to taste good. Because citrulline malate is gross. Just warning you. That would be a good base for a pre-workout. All right. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And next week we'll talk about protein powders.

So I will see you then.