Maybe I’ll start my own supplement business.

Because when I see how easily – and how profitably – some of these companies are able to sell poorly made, cheaply sourced products to a wide audience who doesn’t seem to know the difference, it’s mighty tempting.

Of course, I’m not going to do that.

Instead I’m going to separate you from the masses by teaching you how to spot the biggest “red flags” when you’re looking for a potential new pre-workout supplement. If it does more than one of the things below, throw it in the sea!

🚩 It’s A Proprietary Blend

Many brands hide their formula behind what’s known as a proprietary blend.

This means you’ll see a list of the ingredients without the dosages.

The law which enables this was created during the early 2000s, when pre-workouts were fairly new to the market and brands were wary of rivals stealing their formulas.

It’s not really something we see nowadays, because we know that if a rival brand wants to discover a formula they can simply take a product to a lab and have it tested.

We’ve known this since 2006, when i-Satori released the ground-breaking H-Blocker. This was the first world’s pre-workout to use beta-alanine, and they slapped a proprietary blend on it to stop competitors from stealing their idea, only for beta-alanine to appear in tons of new pre-workouts later that same year!

Fast-forward to now and the proprietary blend technique simply gives manufacturers a shady way to hide an under-dosed formula from customers. This can be a way for them to charge premium prices for very poorly made products which are dirt cheap to create.

The loser is the customer.

🚩 It Contains Both Taurine And Caffeine

These two ingredients provide some great training benefits, but they should never be used simultaneously.

A study which was published in Pharacology, Biology & Behavior confirmed that taurine is an antagonist of caffeine, so when we combine the two ingredients it can sometimes leave you feeling fatigued and/or sluggish. (1, 2, 3, 4)

Have you ever noticed this when you drink your pre?

If yes, this is why!

“When taurine and caffeine are consumed simultaneously, taurine appears to reverse caffeine’s effects on vigour.”

Now, both of these ingredients are great for us (taurine for increased blood flow and mental focus, and caffeine for increased energy and mental focus), but we must make a choice – and when we consider caffeine’s huge impact on performance it makes sense to focus on that.

(Don’t worry, you can still use taurine at any other point in the day!)

Try to find a pre-workout which contains 200-400mg caffeine and zero tarurine.

🚩 Motherfucking BCAAs

Bodybuilding.com is gonna hate me for saying this, but BCAAs do not belong in a pre-workout!

I’m not saying BCAAs are “bad for you”, it’s just that when we consume them as part of a pre-workout formula they can get in the way and prevent other – often more important – ingredients from doing their jobs properly.

For example, the University of Texas recently discovered that the BCAA leucine blocks the amino acid l-tyrosine from entering the brain. L-tyrosine is often included in pre-workouts because it can assist in the production of extra dopamine, which is incredibly useful during rigorous exercise, and the net result of this cock-blocking action is that it can cause early central nervous system fatigue, which fucking sucks. (5, 6)

🚩 Concentrated Formulas

This strange trend of “making everything smaller” occurred in the early 2010s.

During this time, supplement companies would often boast that their so-called “concentrated formulas” (basically a shrunken pre-workout) could provide you with all the bang of your old pre-workout from a tiny little scoop.

But riddle me this:

How do you fit 20+ grams of active ingredients into a 5 gram scoop?

The truth is you can’t.

Because what was really happening here (and continues to this day) is that supplement companies caught onto a trend which enabled them to charge you full price for a product which was dirt cheap to make. With a handful of caffeine and very little else, the cute litte tubs they came in actually cost more to manufacture than the formula!

So listen up; there’s nothing wrong with having a big pre-workout scoop. In fact I’d argue your product is significantly better for it! You see, we need quite large doses of certain ingredients in order to unlock their benefits – citrulline malate (6g), creatine monohydrate (5g), beta-alanine (3.2g), etc – so a 5 gram scoop isn’t gonna cut it!

🚩 It Claims To Have Found “The Next Big Thing”

There are only a few pre-workout ingredients which are 100% proven to increase performance.

We’ve known about those ingredients for 20+ years, but supplement companies are always trying to find “the next big thing”, and this often leads to them including ingredients which are untested, unproven, and occasionally downright dangerous.

We can see good examples of this with DMAA, N,a-DEPEA, and DMHA.

DMAA (1,3-dimethylamylamine) is the stimulant which shot to fame via the Jack3d pre-workout in the mid-2000s. This thing made you want to crush dumbbells and headbutt walls! However, the manufacturers (USP Labs) should have waited until more research had been done on the safety of long-term use before releasing it to the public – but they didn’t, and it caused the death of several people.

It was eventually banned worldwide, and Olympic champion Usain Bolt was famously stripped of a gold medal after a relay teammate tested positive for it.

Soon after, in a moment of classic fitness industry dumbfuckery, supplement companies quickly went in search of the NEXT next big thing and found N,a-DEPEA (N,a-diethyl-phenylethylamine).

This exotic stimulant was used in the popular Craze Pre-Workout (DS Sports), which was everywhere in the early 2010s until it was later discovered that it’s fucking methamphetamine!

WHAT?!

And still the fitness industry did not learn a damn thing and went in search of the NEXT next next big thing, leading to the discovery of DMHA (dimethylhexylamine 2-aminoisoheptane).

This was essentially a watered down version of the original DMAA, and the entire body of research for behind this product consisted of just one single study dating all the way back to 1969. Spoiler; it is also now banned. (7)

Can you see where I’m going with this? These ingredients often lack any research with regards to their safety or effectiveness. They’re usually just a gimmick, but in many cases (all of the above) they throw the product into a grey area where athletes can be flagged on drug tests and labelled “cheats” for something they had no idea about.

Fuck that with a capital fist.

Further Reading:

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

>> How To Make Your Own Pre-Workout From Scratch
>> Russ’ Guide To Supplements
>> Never Use An Energy Drinks As Your Pre-Workout

References:

1. Kim S., et al. Taurine Induces Anti-Anxiety by Activating Strychnine-Sensitive Glycine Receptor in Vivo. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism (2009).
2. Moloney M. A., et al. Two weeks taurine supplementation reverses endothelial dysfunction in young male type 1 diabetics. Diab Vasc Dis Res (2010).
3. Giles G. E., et al. Differential cognitive effects of energy drink ingredients: caffeine, taurine, and glucose. Pharmacol Biochem Behav (2012).
4. Peacock A., et al. Energy drink ingredients. Contribution of caffeine and taurine to performance outcomes. Appetite (2013).
5. Walker D.K., et al. Exercise, amino acids, and aging in the control of human muscle protein synthesis. Med Sci Sports Exerc (2011).
6. Choi S., et al. Oral branched-chain amino acid supplements that reduce brain serotonin during exercise in rats also lower brain catecholamines. Amino Acids (2013).
7. Hedman K. Studies on Orchidaceae Alkaloids. XV. Phenethylamines from Eria jarensis Ames. Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Stockholm (1969).