Pre-workout supplements aren’t just for guys.
For women who are serious about hitting peak performance, improving their fitness, or cutting fat while maintaining lean body mass, a pre-workout supplement is almost a necessity.
However, you can’t always settle for the same pre-workout supplement as men, since women have a different hormonal profile than men, and thus need a pre-workout supplement that’s tuned to their biochemistry.
We’ve reviewed the best pre-workout supplements for women and ranked the top ten. If you want to tune up your workout, check our our rankings.
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: Ladder Pre Workout
- Best for women with B-vitamins: Naked Energy Pure Pre-Workout Formula
- Best for women over 40: Hilo Energize Pre-Workout Gummies
- RedLeaf Pre-Workout Energizer
- Alani Nu Pre-Workout
Research
Rankings
Last updated: September 30, 2022
Pre-workout supplements considered: 22
Hours of research: 51
Experts reviewed: 5
Scientific papers referenced: 10
| IMAGE | PRODUCT | |
|---|---|---|
BEST OVERALL  | 1. Ladder Pre Workout
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Best for women with B-vitamins  | 2. Naked Energy Pure Pre-Workout Formula
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Best for women over 40  | 3. Hilo Energize Pre-Workout Gummies
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 | 4. RedLeaf Pre-Workout Energizer
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 | 5. Alani Nu Pre-Workout
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 | 6. Cellucor Super HD
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 | 7. Organic Muscle Organic Pre-Workout
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 | 8. Garden of Life Sport Energy + Focus
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 | 9. Raw Synergies ThermoPre
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 | 10. RSP Amino Lean
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1. Ladder Pre Workout
Ladder’s Pre-workout is perfect for women looking for a clean and pure option. It’s deliciously sweetened and contains very little sugar, making it ideal for dieters.
The inclusion of beta-alanine and creatine help ensure your muscles have the energy they need to push longer and harder – giving you the best workout possible. With just the right amount of caffeine included, this is one of the best options for women who train hard.
2. Naked Energy Pure Pre-Workout Formula
Its plain packaging and simple design formula make it clear: this is the go-to pre-workout supplement for women who want to keep things simple.
It has a few key vitamins and minerals: folate, vitamin C, and calcium, plus beta-alanine, creatine, and L-arginine, which work to improve your explosive power, muscular strength, and anaerobic energy.
Well-suited for high-intensity workouts, long cardio, and weight lifting sessions, this supplement is an all-around great pick.
3. Hilo Energize Pre-Workout Gummies
Hilo focuses on energy and endurance, with beetroot, maca root, vitamin B12, and rhodiola plus lion’s mane mushrooms. It’s a simple, caffeine-free formulation that’s great for HIIT or endurance training, though it lacks a bit when it comes to benefits for strength athletes.
If you want a clean, simple, stimulant-free pre-workout and don’t want to bother with mixing up a powder, Hilo is a great option.
4. RedLeaf Pre-Workout Energizer
RedLeaf is a strong candidate for the best pre-workout supplement that focuses on burning fat.
With a combination of green tea extract (one of the most proven fat burners out there), raspberry ketone, a small dose of caffeine (40 mg to be exact), it’s highly effective at turning up your body’s ability to burn fat.
Add to that the amino acids included and you’ve got a winning formula for fitness and weight loss.
5. Alani Nu Pre-Workout
Alani Nu is a potent and ultra-simple pre-workout supplement that focuses on delivering just the most powerful performance enhancers: citrulline, beta-alanine, tyrosine, caffeine, and theanine.
It’s great for intense training sessions though the 200 mg of caffeine might be too much for people who are caffeine-sensitive.
6. Cellucor Super HD
Cellucor Super HD is a high-powered pre-workout formula whose focus is clearly burning off fat by up-regulating your body’s metabolism and its ability to oxidize fat during exercise.
It may not perform as well if your goal is high intensity interval training, since it lacks some of the anaerobic boosters of other supplements, but the strong kick of caffeine will work well for burning fat.
7. Organic Muscle Organic Pre-Workout
Despite the name, Organic Muscle Organic Pre-Workout isn’t so focused on people looking to pack on muscle. Its formula is instead centered around antioxidants and natural metabolism boosters.
The lack of amino acids and performance boosters makes this supplement less suited for high intensity workouts, but great for long sessions of cardio.
8. Garden of Life Sport Energy + Focus
Can you make an all-natural plant-based pre-workout? That’s what Garden of Life has set out to do with this product. You get a powerful dose of nitric oxide boosters, caffeine, and vitamin B12.
Unfortunately the pre-workout falls flat for many users because of its fairly high sugar content (11 grams per serving). It’s a great idea but doesn’t quite live up to its promise.
9. Raw Synergies ThermoPre
ThermoPre is designed for a strong fat burning and energy boosting effect, but with 250 mg of caffeine per serving, plus other energizers like yerba mate and theacrine, it might be too much for many women to handle without getting jitters or irritability.
10. RSP Amino Lean
Amino Lean from RSP has a wide range of ingredients, but the presence of artificial flavors and coloring agents will be a big turn-off for many users. Moreover, it’s got a lot of ingredients thrown together in a the proprietary blends is not an attractive feature either.
Category winners
Best overall pre-workout for women: Ladder Pre-Workout
Ladder Pre-Workout features a super clean formulation that boosts athletic performance across the board: creatine for strength, a moderate dose of caffeine for more energy and higher workout intensity, and betaine and beta-alanine for anaerobic power.
Best pre-workout for women over 40: Hilo Energize Gummies
Hilo Energize Gummies are stimulant-free, making them great for women over 40 who want more energy for their workouts but don’t want to deal with the sleeplessness and jitters that caffeine-heavy pre-workouts can cause.
Best pre-workout for women with B-vitamins: Naked Energy Pure Pre-Workout
Naked Energy leverages the energy and mood-elevating properties of B vitamins, as well as arginine and caffeine, to improve workout performance. If you want to combat fatigue and sluggishness at early-morning gym sessions, Naked Energy is the way to go.
Best pre-workout for female endurance athletes: Ladder Pre-Workout
Ladder Pre-Workout has a great combination of supplements for endurance performance: beta-alanine improves high-intensity interval performance, the modest amount of caffeine is a great all-around performance booster, and citicoline sodium salt boosts the electrolyte content.
Best pre-workout for women without caffeine: Hilo Energize Gummies
Hilo manages to boost workout performance without caffeine by focusing instead on ingredients like beetroot, maca root, rhodiola root, and lion’s mane for workout performance, and vitamin B12 for energy. If traditional pre-workouts keep you up at night, give Hilo a shot instead.
Best pre-workout for women’s weight loss: Ladder Pre-Workout
Boosting weight loss with a pre-workout supplement calls for proven fat burners like caffeine and green tea extract. Ladder Pre-Workout delivers on this front, making it our pick for a weight-loss oriented pre-workout supplement for women.
Who should buy a pre-workout supplement for women?
If you’re a woman who is serious about getting in a quality workout, you’re a prime candidate for a pre-workout supplement for women.
Women who want to work out hard and avoid a caffeine crash: Taking a generic pre-workout might land you with too much caffeine, tingling and red skin from too much niacin and beta-alanine, but not enough in the way of other sources of energy.
A pre-workout formulated specifically for women can help avoid this problem.
Women who want to hit peak performance: Not every woman needs to take a pre-workout before going to the gym. If all you do is exercise to stay healthy or keep generally fit, you probably don’t need a pre-workout.
However, if you take your fitness seriously and want to perform your best at strength, power, or endurance-based sports, pre-workout supplements can help you achieve peak performance.
Athletes training to compete and lifters looking to set personal records can both benefit from a pre-workout supplement.
How we ranked
When formulating our rankings of the top pre-workout supplements for women, we had several strict criteria for inclusion.
Formulated for women’s hormonal profile: We excluded products that were too heavy on caffeine and too light on any other beneficial ingredients straight away—we dumped Legion Pulse, NO-Xplode, and other popular general-purpose pre-workouts for this reason.
Focused on workout performance and recovery: Next up, we looked for key ingredients that would boost workout performance and decrease post-workout soreness. These included antioxidants like vitamin C, as well as amino acids (particularly branched-chain amino acids or BCAAs for short).
Since amino acids are the building blocks for muscle fibers, they’re critical for workout recovery.
Ingredients for anaerobic power: Peak workout performance in sports like Olympic lifting and CrossFit depends to a great extent on your body’s anaerobic energy systems, so we put a strong emphasis on pre-workout supplements that contained ergogenic aids for anaerobic power, like beta-alanine, arginine, and creatine.
Oxygen delivery boosters for endurance: For endurance events, delivering oxygen to your muscles is more important. We rewarded products with nitric oxide sources, like beetroot extract, since they’re proven to boost endurance performance.
Clean supplement design: Finally, we looked at the overall composition and quality of the supplement.
Did it use minimalist design, with little or nothing in the way of artificial flavors, colors, and additives? Or was it sugary, full of artificial sweeteners, or colored with potentially undesirable synthetic coloring agents?
Products that scored well in terms of overall supplement design ended up at the top of the rankings, while those that scored poorly ended at the bottom, or got dropped completely.
The remaining products, in order of quality, represent the best pre-workout supplement choices for women that are on the market right now.
FAQ
Q: What should be in a pre-workout drink for women?
A: To be prepared for optimal workout performance, you want to look for ingredients that will support three broad categories of athletic tasks: muscular strength, anaerobic power, and aerobic endurance.
On the muscular strength front, a pre-workout drink with BCAAs are a real winner for boosting recovery.
Creatine is another critical ingredient for building muscular strength, and its advantages bleed over into anaerobic power as well.
For better anaerobic power, you want beta-alanine and L-carnitine, as they increase your body’s maximum power output.
When it comes to aerobic endurance, electrolytes and beetroot are the way to go.
Caffeine boosts athletic performance across the board, though understandably not everyone wants a lot of caffeine right before every workout they do.
Q: Do you need to use pre-workout?
A: If all you do is go to the gym to stay healthy or say generally fit, pre-workout probably isn’t necessary. Pre-workout supplements are good if you are a serious athlete who wants to achieve your personal best, or take your training to the next level.
Pre-workout supplements are great for athletic tasks governed by muscular strength, anaerobic power, and aerobic endurance, so they’re not likely to help with something like yoga, no matter how serious you are about it.
The benefits of pre-workout tend to scale with the intensity of the activity, and the level of seriousness of the athlete. That’s why they are so popular among high-level athletes and competitors.
Q: What does a pre-workout supplement do?
A: Pre-workout supplements prime your body for top performance by increasing nervous system output, buffering lactate during intense exercise, and supplying amino acids to the muscles to accelerate recovery and prevent muscle damage.
While these effects stimulate different physiological systems, the ultimate goal is the same: better workout performance.
Q: How long does a pre-workout supplement last?
A: The elimination time for different pre-workout ingredients varies, but it’s reasonable to expect a pre-workout to last for at least two to three hours.
That’s based on the expected absorption time and elimination half-lives of the most common key ingredients in pre-workout supplements: caffeine, beta-alanine, BCAAs, creatine, and B vitamins.
If you’re doing a very long workout, or splitting your time between two different workouts, you might opt for an intra-workout supplement to keep your energy levels up, but in most cases, this won’t be necessary.
Related articles
- Pre-workout supplement
- Intra-workout supplement
- Post-workout supplement
- Fat burners for women
- BCAA for women
- Protein powder for women
Recap
A pre-workout supplement that’s specifically formulated for women can help you perform at a higher level in the gym, whether your training is focused on endurance, strength, or power.
Pre-workouts can amp up your energy levels for early-morning workouts with caffeine and B vitamins, and thanks to ergogenic aids like creatine, beta-alanine, and carnitine, you can hit peak performance more reliably in your workouts.
A good pre-workout for women can help you avoid the jitters and sleeplessness that can come from relying on stimulant-packed pre-workout blends that are formulated for male athletes with a very different hormonal makeup.
Looking to push your performances at the gym to the next level? Try one of our top-ranked pre-workouts for women.
For BodyNutrition’s #1 recommended pre-workout supplement for women, click here.
