Pre-workouts promise to deliver the kind of change you’d expect to see in a Marvel comic. Your shirt strains under your new size. You become enraged. You’re saddled with too much energy to sit still. And if you ever feel like not going to the gym then it’s easy enough to blackmail yourself by taking a few scoops and sitting on the coach. You’re sure to get up and go. More energy is good, right? Well, yes, but to a degree. The problem is that supplements are often hard to remember to take. You probably get keen and always throw them down right after you’ve bought them, but it can be tricky to upload them into your daily habit loop. Pre-workouts are different. You train and you always want more oomph so they’re an easy win to remember. However, since this is the case, you should expect more from your pre-workout supplement. It shouldn’t just overload you with an inhumane amount of energy. It should have some added extras that earn their keep. These are the vital extras you should be looking for and why you should take them before your workout.
- Vitamin C
You learned about this crucial vitamin in school. It stopped pirates from getting scurvy and is essential to human health. What you may not know is that it’s a potent training partner. It’s a boss at cutting stress to your system and exercise is a serious stress. A good stress, but a stress none the less. Taking vitamin C before a workout can reduce stress on your body because it’s a weapons grade antioxidant that can reduce the exercise-induced free radical damage done throughout your body. It won’t reduce muscle damage, but you don’t want that because the more damage you can do to them, the more they’ll adapt and grow. What’s more, it is also a powerful immune booster and training in a gym full of people who are sweating and breathing their DNA all over the shared equipment does put you at an increased risk. The easy win is to shore up your defenses with this vitamin before you train so you’re always walking away from the training session stronger inside and out.
- Magnesium
You’re probably deficient in this mineral. It’s the second most common deficiency after vitamin D. It’s famous for improving sleep quality, which makes it an odd inclusion to a pre-workout, but by providing a counterbalance to all the energy increasing ingredients, it’s actually a very smart move. You need sleep to be a better athlete in all respects, regardless of whether you want to build muscle or lose fat. Magnesium has a hand to play in helping your muscle to contract and neuromuscular transmission. This is possibly why it was used to treat cramps. While the jury is still out about whether it will help with cramps, which can be a complicated beast, it doesn’t hurt to make sure you’re adding a little yin to the yang of your pre-workout’s energy.
- Calcium
Everyone knows it’s what makes your bones strong, but what you may not be aware of is that it regulates muscle contractions. In other words, it’s acts like a messenger that helps your muscles flex. Muscles that are optimized for performance, thanks to a steady supply of the nutrients they need to perform, are muscles that work at their best in every session. Calcium gets the job done.
Don’t let your pre-workout fall short of your expectations. Try something like American Metabolix’s Keto Lift that has all these extras in abundance. If you make the right choices when you’re at the supplement shop, you’ll be rewarded with both muscles and health that’s always improving. Make your pre-workout, work out harder for you.
REFERENCES
https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-019-0269-8
Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash.
