A pre-workout supplement is almost standard for gym-goers these days.
It’s the best way to ensure you are energized and motivated for your next gym session, cardio workout, or competition event. They also help prepare your body for exercise with lots of vitamins and minerals.
Here are the best pre-workout supplements for peak workout performance and optimal post-workout recovery. Afterwards, we’ll dive into the details on how a pre-workout supplement can help you out.
Our advisory panel and our research team rank the best health products and supplements based on performance, label accuracy, and the efficacy of the ingredients in the products.
- Best Overall: Transparent Labs Pre-Workout
- Best for lifting: Blackwolf Pre-Workout
- Best for cardio: Ladder Pre Workout
- 4 Gauge
- BeetElite Sport
Research
Rankings
Last updated: September 29, 2022
Pre-workout supplements considered: 19
Hours of research: 52
Experts reviewed: 5
Scientific papers referenced: 11
| IMAGE | PRODUCT | |
|---|---|---|
BEST OVERALL  | 1. Transparent Labs Pre-Workout
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Best for lifting  | 2. Blackwolf Pre-Workout
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Best for cardio  | 3. Ladder Pre Workout
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 | 4. Gauge
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 | 5. BeetElite Sport
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 | 6. Legion Pulse
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 | 7. Alpha GX7
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 | 8. Do Vitamins Pure Pump
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 | 9. NO-Xplode
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 | 10. Cellucor C4 Extreme
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1. Transparent Labs Pre-Workout
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When it comes to pre-workout mixes, nothing is better than Transparent Labs. Why?
They offer 3 “custom” options of pre-workout—one for people who’re bulking (BULK), one for people who’re slimming down (LEAN), and one that is stimulant-free for all those people who freak out over stimulants (hey, I’m not mad at ya…).
All of this, and you still get a super “pump” with no artificial sweeteners, no artificial coloring, no artificial preservatives and 100% GMO-free.
They are also not stingy with the goods: BULK is stacked with 4,000 mg of beta-alanine and 4,000 mg of BCAA’s—a big reason why Transparent Labs has been one of the trendiest pre-workouts of 2022.
2. Blackwolf Pre-Workout
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If you’re looking for a pre-workout supplement for men that will boost energy, enhance focus, and increase endurance during workouts… then you obviously need to be looking at Blackwolf Track Pre-Workout.
This all-in-one pre-workout supplement will increase not only your pump, but also the intensity of your workouts and your ability to focus on them.
The secret is Blackwolf’s specially formulated Blackwolf Power Blend, which is designed to help increase energy levels and really dial-in your ability to focus.
Key ingredients in this dynamic mix include vitamins B12 and B6, vitamin C, magnesium, potassium, pantothenic acid, zinc, selenium, thiamin, whey protein isolate, citrulline malate, and more.
It also contains some caffeine to top off the nice pump.
3. Ladder Pre Workout
Ladder provides a powerful pre workout supplement, packed with all the goodies. It stands out by providing a lower dose of caffeine, allowing you to enjoy your coffee as well – without worrying about caffeine overdose.
The inclusion of beta-alanine and creatine help push your muscles to the max, and beyond. With just a few grams of sugar, and a delicious flavor, it’s one of the top choices for the serious athlete.
4. 4 Gauge
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4 Gauge delivers explosive power and laser-sharp focus — boosting both the mind and body —to help you achieve a better workout.
Their high-quality formula is backed by a considerable amount of research. Their are four key players in this formula that we want to highlight: caffeine anhydrous, l-theanine, creatine, and l-citrulline dl-malate.
The caffeine in this mix is well-dosed at 150 mg which, research suggests, should seriously improve physical performance. When combined with the l-theanine, it provides a powerful energy boost, but it does so with a smooth increase that’s proven to enhance mental focus. A strong serving of creatine brings the power in 4 Gauge, and an optimal dose of l-citrulline dl-malate is proven to boost endurance.
This supplement is completely natural, very generously dosed, and doesn’t contain any unnecessary fillers or proprietary blends. Overall, it’s simply a great supplement, and it’s no surprise that it’s popular.
5. BeetElite Sport
BeetElite is a great pre-workout option for endurance sports thanks to its laser-focused composition that uses beet concentrate to boost oxygen availability during exercise. If an aerobic boost is what you need, BeetElite Sport is a great choice.
6. Legion Pulse
Legion Pulse is a powerful pre-workout supplement formulated for serious athletes: the caffeine content—350 mg in two scoops—packs a serious punch, but it might be a bit much for some users.
7. Alpha GX7
Power and energy are the name of the game when it comes to Alpha GX7. All of the ingredients in this powder-based pre-workout supplement are geared towards boosting your peak power output: caffeine, theobromine, and yohimbe all contribute to its ability to boost your power output in short, intense gym sessions.
8. Do Vitamins Pure Pump
Do Vitamins Pure Pump focuses on boosting muscle force production and improving muscular adaptations to exercise, thanks to an innovative blend of ergogenic aids (beta-alanine, citrulline, creatine) and branched-chain amino acids.
9. NO-Xplode
NO-Xplode is a broadly-popular favorite among serious gymgoers that boasts 225 mg of caffeine, huge doses of B-complex vitamins, and a blend of performance enhancers, fat burners, and energy boosters. It’s a solid broad-spectrum option for better workouts across the full range from heavy lifts to circuit workouts.
10. Cellucor C4 Extreme
Cellucor blends B vitamins and vitamin C for energy alongside workout-boosting supplements beta alanine, creatine nitrate, arginine AKG, and a proprietary “energy blend” that includes caffeine, several amino acids, and bitter orange, among other ingredients.
Despite its popularity, the caffeine dosage is a bit high and we aren’t huge fans of bitter orange as a stimulant, so it ends up lower down in our rankings.
Who should buy a pre-workout supplement?
A pre-workout supplement is well-suited for people who are serious about the intensity and quality of their training sessions. If all you do is hit the gym to stay in decent shape, a pre-workout supplement probably isn’t necessary.
High-level athletes: If you’re training for high-level sport, like CrossFit, ultimate fighting, or bodybuilding competitions, pre-workouts can give you the extra edge you need for top athletic performance.
People trying to cut out coffee but keep performance high: Pre-workout is also great if you are looking to cut out coffee from your diet, but still need the performance-enhancing effects of caffeine and other stimulants.
Gymgoers who need a pick-me-up: Even if you’re not an elite athlete, pre-workouts are a good option if you work out after a long shift at work or get up early and need a pick-me-up before you hit your workout hard.
The boost to your energy levels that you get from caffeine, guarana, beta-alanine, and other ergogenic aids can make a big difference in your motivation level and workout intensity.
Category winners
Best pre-workout overall: Transparent Labs Pre-Workout BULK and LEAN
Whether you’re lifting for strength and size or hitting the gym to shed some pounds, Transparent Labs has you covered. The BULK formulation is packed with amino acids for rapid muscle growth, and the LEAN formulation is designed for optimal fat oxidation.
Best pre-workout for lifting: Blackwolf Pre-Workout
For maximum gains, choose Blackwolf—its combo of whey protein isolate, creatine, and branched chain amino acids is unbeatable when it comes to supercharging your muscular supercompensation after tough lifting workouts.
Best pre-workout for cardio: Ladder Pre-Workout
Ladder gets the mix for cardio just right: a moderate amount of caffeine, plus beta-alanine for high-intensity cardio output. On top of that, you get just enough sugar to increase endurance performance without getting stomach cramping even during hard running, cycling, or rowing.
Best pre-workout without caffeine: Blackwolf Pre-Workout Fruit Punch
Looking to ditch caffeine jitters? Blackwolf has got you covered. The Fruit Punch flavor of their excellent pre-workout formula uses huperzine, taurine, and betaine to sustain high-energy output from your muscles instead of leaning on high doses of caffeine.
Best pre-workout for bodybuilders: Transparent Labs Pre-Workout BULK
BULK provides all the essentials for bodybuilders working to maximize muscle size and definition: zinc for optimal testosterone, betaine and beta-alanine for sustaining high-rep lifts, and a wide range of amino acids (including BCAAs) for optimal muscle recovery.
Best pre-workout for women: Ladder Pre-Workout
Ladder is perfect for women thanks to its simple, clean, and effective formulation. Unlike many of its competitors, it’s not bloated with excess sugar or way too much caffeine, yet it still provides creatine and citicoline for extra strength, power, and energy.
How we ranked
We took a holistic approach to pre-workout supplements, keeping in mind the multi-purpose nature of the range of compounds included in pre-workout formulations.
Prolific ingredient stack: We analyzed the ingredients to identify the biologically active ingredients, then classified each of these ingredients as a short-term ergogenic (like caffeine) or a long-term ergogenic (like L-carnitine).
To make our rankings, a pre-workout supplement had to include multiple ergogenic compound from each category.
Proven efficacy: We specifically looked for science-backed supplements like beet root powder, caffeine, beta-alanine, BCAAs, and creatine: these have the most evidence behind their efficacy.
We also evaluated supplements on the presence of other, more cutting-edge performance enhancers like yohimbe, but put less stock in these emerging ingredients, because the scientific evidence to support them is not as strong as the core stack of performance enhancers we were looking for.
Moderation with caffeine and other stimulants: We took a very close look at the content of caffeine and other stimulants like guarana. We tossed out products that leaned too heavily on caffeine content like like EFX Kre-Alkalyn and Jacked Factory Nitro Surge, and made sure to include some pre-workout formulations that were totally stimulant-free.
Transparency: We strongly penalized formulations that hid the specific amount of each ingredient in the supplement behind a “proprietary formula,” as these types of tricks make it impossible to fully evaluate the efficacy of a supplement.
This led us to toss supplements like Force Factor Volcano and Onnit Shroom TECH Sport, since several of their key ingredients were wrapped up in proprietary blends.
Our final rankings, sorted by overall quality and efficacy, represent the best products on the market according to these criteria—they balance out short-term performance, long-term improvement, and all-around efficacy.
Benefits
A pre-workout can combine the benefits of amino acids, stimulants, B-vitamins, and more. These compounds help boost protein synthesis, elicit maximum muscle strength, and give you a boost in energy levels, all of which combine for a more effective workout.
Caffeine can improve endurance, coordination, strength, and stop-and-go sport performance. According to a review by the International Society of Sports Nutrition, caffeine is a highly effective performance enhancer (5).
Caffeine works for many different types of exercise, including endurance (running cycling, rowing) to intense coordination and starting and stopping (pickup basketball, ultimate Frisbee, HIIT training) and maximal strength (Olympic and powerlifting).
L-Carnitine increases anaerobic power and strength. Research done at the University of Connecticut shows that taking L-Carnitine after a strength workout increased the activity of the androgen receptor response (6), meaning that your muscles get more attuned to the muscle-building effects of androgen hormones like testosterone.
Beta-Alanine boosts anaerobic power as well. Beta-alanine builds up your muscular content of carnosine, which helps increase your tolerance for the buildup of acidity in your muscles.
According research out of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, beta-alanine improves performance in short, high-intensity exercise and delaying the “burn” during high-intensity exercise that causes fatigue (7).
Creatine increases muscle mass and strength by up to 25-30%. When taken consistently, creatine can increase muscular creatine content by over 20%, and muscular cross-sectional area and raw strength by 25-30% (8).
More advanced pre-workout ingredients like yohimbe could help cut body fat. According to a study published in 2006 (9), yohimbe supplementation in athletes could lead to a drop in body fat percentage over a period as short as 21 days. Pre-workouts with yohimbe could be a useful way to drop body fat, even while continuing an intense training program.
BCAAs in a pre-workout supplement can help prevent soreness. BCAAs reduce the damage induced by intense workouts, according to research published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise (10).
This means that branched chain amino acids are particularly well-suited for workouts with a lot of eccentric-dominated exercises like squats, RDLs, and lunges.
Side effects
Pre-workout supplements with high doses of caffeine can cause nausea, jitters, and sleeplessness. When taken in too high of a dose, caffeine can even cause heart arrhythmias, seizures, and other serious medical problems.
Women are more likely to experience sleeplessness from pre-workout supplements. Because estrogen affects how quickly caffeine is metabolized from the body, women (especially those taking hormonal contraceptives) can have hugely different responses to how long the anti-fatiguing effects of caffeine in pre-workout lasts.
Some women might find that taking pre-workout even in the morning can negatively affect their sleep the next night: if this is the case, try a stimulant-free pre-workout instead.
Pre-workouts with synephrine might interact negatively with caffeine. A few pre-workout supplements contain bitter orange or its active ingredient, synephrine. This ingredient has caused some doctors to issue warnings that it has a side effect and biological profile similar to that of the banned stimulant ephedra.
If you’re concerned about the potential cardiovascular side effects of synephrine, avoid supplements that contain it—especially when they also contain caffeine (11).
Beta-alanine in pre-workouts can cause mild tingling or prickling sensations. These sensations are called ‘parathesia’, and are a mild and common sensation in response to beta alanine dosing.
This sensation is the result of peak levels of beta-alanine in the blood, so all you need to do to avoid this in the future is split up your pre-workout supplement into smaller doses taken at thirty or sixty minute intervals.
Recommended dosage
Pre-workout dosing depends on the exact formulation, but here are some key guidelines:
Caffeine dosage should be 3 to 6 mg per kilogram of body weight—so a 170 pound man (77 kg) would consume 230 mg of caffeine to get a dose of 3 mg/kg. Doses >6 mg/kg don’t appear to be any more effective and they have a higher incidence of negative side effects.
Creatine dosage can be up to 25 g. If your pre-workout supplement doesn’t have this much, add a separate separate creatine supplement that you take during the day.
Beta-alanine dosage can be up to 1000-1500 mg. Ideally, your beta-alanine dosage would be split up into a few different doses taken at 30-60 minute intervals.
FAQ
Q: What is a pre-workout?
A: A pre-workout is a combined supplement that is designed to provide ingredients to increase your athletic performance in your workouts.
These supplements are designed to boost both short-term performance plus your longer-term athletic ability.
Q: What are some good natural pre-workouts?
A: If you want the most effective natural pre-workouts, look for green tea extract, coffee, yohimbe, and guarana to boost workout performance, B-complex vitamins for more energy, carnitine and beta-alanine for better anaerobic performance, and compounds like BCAAs and glutamine to boost recovery and reduce soreness.
Q: Is pre-workout safe?
A: Most pre-workout ingredients are safe, but the biggest risk comes from stimulants, which can range from garden-variety things like caffeine to more potent and also potentially more dangerous compounds like synephrine or bitter orange peel.
In rare cases these stimulants can cause heart rhythm problems, especially when used in combination and at high doses.
Q: Are pre-workout supplements necessary?
A: If you just want to get a solid effort in at the gym, and aren’t looking to smash any records or push yourself up to your body’s physiological limit, a pre-workout is not going to be necessary to achieve your workout goals.
If you are looking to max out a lift, or push yourself harder than ever in a HIIT session, a pre-workout supplement might be just what you need.
Pre-workouts can also be useful when you are not feeling up for high-level performance, but still need to work out.
Prime example? Early-morning gym sessions. If you are sleep-deprived but need to kick your body into high gear, a pre-workout supplement is one surefire way to do it.
Q: What does a pre-workout supplement do?
A: Pre-workout supplements work by activating multiple biological pathways in your body at once, all of which are connected to performance.
Some examples:
Caffeine disinhibits your central nervous system, allowing you to perform better and push yourself harder at high intensities.
Fat burners like green tea extract increase your body’s rate of fat oxidation.
Anerobic ergogenics like carnitine and beta-alanine boost the ability of your muscles to sustain high-intensity anaerobic efforts.
Amino acids like BCAAs and glutamine don’t directly boost performance, but protect your body from soreness and muscle damage induced by your workout.
Q: What’s the difference between a pre-workout and post-workout supplement?
A: Post-workout supplements are all about recovery. After you finish your workout, you need to supply your body with the nutrients it needs to rebuild muscle and replenish its energy stores. In contrast, before you work out, you want supplements that will prime your body for peak performance.
While there is a little crossover, such as with BCAAs, typically you’ll find that the ingredient profile in a pre versus a post workout are markedly different. You’re not likely to find caffeine, for example, in a post-workout supplement.
Q: How long does pre-workout last?
A: Most pre-workouts are engineered to last for around two to three hours, but getting more specific than this is tricky, because different ingredients operate on different timescales.
Caffeine has a fairly well-defined window of efficacy: you want to take it at least 45 minutes prior to working out, and once having taken it, the effects will last for up to five hours.
Other ingredients like BCAAs are absorbed more quickly, and ideally you’d like your workout to be over before the BCAAs have been processed by your body.
Q: Why does pre-workout make you tingle?
A: Tingling after taking a pre-workout supplement means one of two things: either the pre-workout supplement that you are taking has a lot of beta-alanine, or a lot of niacin (also known as vitamin B3).
Both of these ingredients cause flushing and tingling at high doses, and while this side effect is unpleasant, it isn’t harmful.
Q: How can you spot a fake pre-workout?
A: Low-quality pre-workout supplements are characterized by the presence of a lot of sugar, a lot of caffeine, and very little in the way of other effective supplements.
Watch out for products that hide all of their ingredients in a “proprietary blend,” as this allows the manufacturer to obscure the fact that the amount of the active ingredients could be far below what’s necessary for optimal performance.
Choosing a reputable manufacturer, like those in our top rankings, is a good way to ensure you’re actually getting a beneficial pre-workout.
Related articles
- Pre-workout for women
- Intra-workout supplement
- Post-workout supplement
- BCAAs
- Beta-alanine
- Creatine
- Caffeine pills
- Glutamine
Recap
Choosing the best pre-workout supplement can boost your performance at the gym and help you hit new levels of physical fitness. Whether you are training for stronger lifts, higher power output, or better endurance, a well-formulated pre-workout is a great way to achieve your goals.
Just watch out for caffeine-induced sleeplessness if you take pre-workouts late in the day: the same fatigue-fighting effects that are useful for getting in a great workout can also keep you up at night if you take pre-workout too late in the day.
For BodyNutrition’s #1 pre-workout supplement recommendation, click here.
