How To Make Your Own Pre Workout From Scratch

Have you ever felt disappointed with a pre workout?

Well, those days are gone.

As the title of this article suggests, I’m going to show you how to make your own pre workout supplement from scratch using a bunch of raw ingredients you can buy from any good supplement manufacturer.

I’ll link you off to my favourites below.

When you make your own pre-workout it allows you to control the dose of each key ingredient, making sure that you’re getting enough of the compounds which can have the biggest impact. It also enables you to exclude any unnecessary “filler” (e.g. those silly pre-workouts which claim to have “27 active ingredients!”), and it’ll even save you a bunch of money in the long run!

I learned this trick way back in 2013 from none other than Dr. Jim Stoppani, and it’s something I still do to this very day whenever I fancy a break from traditional pre-workouts.

DISCLAIMER: This article is for information purposes, and just because it’s what I do doesn’t mean it’s what you should do – there are important things to take into consideration like allergies, tolerances, etc. You should always consult with your physician before trying any new supplements.

The Four Key Pre-Workout Ingredients

The biggest attraction to making your own pre-workout (for me at least) is that it allows you to control the doses of each ingredient, so you can focus your attention on the stuff which has been shown to work the best.

They are:

• Caffeine (capsules not powder)
• Citrulline malate
• Beta-alanine
• Betaine anhydrous

Before we get stuck in to the science behind each of these ingredients, let’s address the elephant in the room:

“Why do most pre-workouts contain 5, 10, or even 15 more ingredients?”

There two reasons for this.

1. Product individuality. From a legal perspective you cannot have the exact same formula as another brand, so supplement companies often pad their formula with tiny doses of additional ingredients.
2. Marketing claims. Most of these extra ingredients do very little at all to improve the quality of the pre-workout, but they can certainly improve the sales! That’s because including them in the formula enables the manufacturer to use any claims about said ingredient in their marketing campaign. So although the links between something like CLA and fat burning is miniscule, the fact that the link does exist allows them to legally call their product a “fat burning pre-workout”. See what I mean?

The PROS And CONS Of A DIY Pre-Workout

There’s two of each, so let’s take a look:

• PRO #1: You control the dose of each key ingredient.

You can make sure each ingredient delivers maximum results by using a clinical dose. I’ll show you how to do this below. This gives you the power to play with the caffeine content, too, so you can scale your intake up or down depending on your tolerance levels.

• PRO #2: You will save money.

I’m going to demonstrate this on a six-monthly basis so you can really see the difference. A decent pre workout costs around £30 per month, which is £180 over six months. By purchasing these four raw ingredients and using the clinical doses I show you below, you’ll get a six month supply for just £73! Oh, and at this stage you’ll only need to top up on one of the ingredients (CitMal) as none of the others will have run out yet! That’s insane value, especially when we consider that your little DIY pre-workout contains fully clinical doses of each key ingredient, unlike the vast majority of standard pre-workout supplements.

• CON#1: It won’t taste as nice.

Most pre workouts have a distinctive tangy taste because they combine several different compounds into one drink. They also add a bunch of ingredients to soften the taste, which is a luxury which a DIY pre-workout doesn’t offer. However, you can mix it with fruit juice quite easily.

• CON #2: It isn’t as convenient.

Most pre workout supplements are little more than over-priced “caffeine water”, but the fact that they’re ready to go with one scoop in a glass of water goes a long way to convincing people to fork out £20-30 for it! Making your own pre-workout is still easy as fuck (3-4 scoops instead of 1?) but it requires a bit more prep time.

How Much Of Each Key Ingredient?

Let’s take a look at the four key ingredients now.

I’ll explain why we chose these particular ingredients over others, and show you how much of each to include in your pre-workout.

• 200mg Caffeine

Caffeine is (by far) the world’s most popular stimulant.

It’s best known for its energy-boosting characteristics, but it also offers us range of training-related benefits including better mental focus, greater power output, a slightly increased calorie burn. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

However, the effectiveness of caffeine depends on your personal tolerance to it, so you might have to play with this one a little. Studies show we need at least 165mg to unlock any of the training benefits it offers, and we can go as high as 400mg for those who are particularly tolerant. I recommend starting off around 200mg and moving up or down accordingly. (7, 8)

Get it here.

NOTE: Never buy caffeine in powdered form. It’s too difficult to measure (even if you have drug dealer scales), so get capsules as they’re much safer!

• 6g Citrulline Malate

This is the real “powerhouse” of your pre-workout, as it uses the body’s nitric oxide pathway to improve the delivery of crucial nutrients to your muscles as you train.

This enables you to train harder for longer, and achieve a monstrous pump!

A 2010 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research showed that regular CitMal supplementation generally leads to an improvement of one more rep per set on every exercise in your workout. It doesn’t take very long for those kind of gains to stack up! (9, 10)

Get it here.

• 3.2g Beta-Alanine

It’s mainly famous for it’s skin-crawling effect, but there’s a lot more going on underneath the hood here.

You’ll have a much higher pain tolerance, and it also provides your muscles with a temporary “buffer” against the build-up of waste product (metabolites, a.k.a. “the burn”). A 2008 study found that trainees supplementing with beta-alanine saw a 25% increase in the number of reps they could perform to failure, and a 2012 study from England discovered that boxers’ were able to improve their power in the closing stages of 3-3-minute rounds by a whopping 2000%. (12, 13)

Get it here.

• 2.5g Betaine Anhydrous

Betaine anhydrous (a.k.a. trimethylglycine) has been popular with sprinters for many years, and is finally starting to transition over into the bodybuilder world.

It’ll make improvements the length of time you can spend working at maximum intensity, so that means more reps per set and higher power output for you. In recent years betaine has been used across various sports (weightlifting, cycling, swimming, and sprinting), and it’s never failed to deliver the goods! (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)

Get it here.

The Popular Ingredients I Left Out

You may have noticed there’s a few “big names” missing, huh?

Some of these were left out because they’re unnecessary, and some because they’re downright useless, but many people have been conditioned by the supplement industry to believe they “need” them in their pre-workout.

Let’s take a look at them and I’ll explain why they’re excluded.

• Creatine

I love creatine, but it doesn’t really need to be used in a pre-workout formula. You see, you can unlock the full benefits of this ingredient by grabbing 5 grams at any time of day, so there’s no need for us to bulk up our formula and make it hard for the body to digest. Or you can add it if you really want to.

• BCAAs

These are thrown into pre-workouts because they’re cheap, and there is some (weak) evidence to suggest that they may be useful for increasing energy output. However, you are already unlocking those benefits if you’re eating a high protein diet so you don’t need a supplement. Also, research shows is that taking BCAAs immediately prior to exercise can actually lead to early CNS fatigue. We don’t want that! (21, 22)

• Taurine

Taurine can provide a boost to mental focus, but it also happens to be the arch nemesis of caffeine. The two ingredients clash like Rocky vs Drago, and the result of this battle will leave you feeling “sluggish”. (23, 24, 25)

• Arginine

Citrulline malate is broken down into arginine once it enters the body, so many people theorise that taking arginine directly would be an even better option. Sadly that’s not the case, because this amino acid has a terrible absorption rate and as little as 1% of it makes it beyond the liver and intestines to the muscle cells. (11)

• Agmatine Sulfate

This one rose to popularity in the 2010s with reports of it being “the next big thing” in channelling the body’s nitric oxide pathway. Sadly the research has since revealed it’s not up to the task, so you don’t need it as part of your pre-workout. (26, 27)

• Exotic Stimulants

I love me some exotic stims because they can greatly improve your training experience, but sadly they’re just too dangerous to fuck about with. For example, two of the most popular ingredients in this category (DMAA and DMHA) have caused the deaths of several gym goers over the years. It’s just not worth it.

In Summary

There you have it.

Now you know exactly how to make your own pre-workout supplement from scratch.

And not only that, but you also know how to make sure each of your four key ingredients (link link link link) are fully dosed for maximum results, and which commonly used pre-workout ingredients we want to avoid because either a) they do nothing, or b) they hinder the effectiveness of one of “the big four”.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. Jump on my free email list at the bottom of this page for more tips, then go lift something heavy!

Further Reading:

If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.

>> The Top 10 Pre-Workouts Of The Year
>> Russ’ Guide To Supplements
>> Citrulline Malate: A Pre-Workout Powerhouse!

References:

1. Duncan M. J., et al. The effect of caffeine ingestion on mood state and bench press performance to failure. J Strength Cond Res (2011).
2. Childs E., et al. Subjective, behavioral, and physiological effects of acute caffeine in light, nondependent caffeine users. Psychopharmacology (Berl) (2006).
3. Kim T. W., et al. Caffeine increases sweating sensitivity via changes in sudomotor activity during physical loading. J Med Food (2011).
4. Cook C., et al. Acute caffeine ingestion increases voluntarily chosen resistance training load following limited sleep. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab (2012).
5. Del Coso J., et al. Dose response effects of a caffeine-containing energy drink on muscle performance: a repeated measures design. J Int Soc Sports Nutr (2012).
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24. Moloney M. A., et al. Two weeks taurine supplementation reverses endothelial dysfunction in young male type 1 diabetics. Diab Vasc Dis Res (2010).
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26. Piletz J. E., et al. Agmatine: clinical applications after 100 years in translation. Drug Discov Today (2013).
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