Ok, you are probably wondering what is the best pre-workout, right?

Before we get into this, what should the ideal pre-workout contain?   That all depends on what you want it to DO. 

Here is my list:

  1. Increase performance – I know, this is a… um DUH part, although it gets lots many times.
  2. Decrease perceived effort – This can be rated as Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and the lower number indicates that the work was easier. Yes, the goal is to make it feel easier over time.  For example, if you are doing the old skoool Bill Starr 5 x 5 on deadlifts at 315 lbs and your average RPE this week was 7 out of a 1 to 10 scale and then you do the exact same thing next week – same weight, same time, same everything; but your RPE was a 6, that is easier.  Boom.  You = winner
  3. Increase recovery – Recovery?  But I have not trained yet you say.    In my book, you may need to do some things before lifting to help speed recovery as soon as you are done.   By recovery here I am looking for things that will allow you to train sooner thus increasing your frequency.   Just by making a few tweaks I routinely take someone who has been lifting 3-4 times a week to 4-5 times a week.  That may not sound like much at first blush and then you realize that one additional high-quality training sessions per week for 1 year is an additional 50 training sessions.

For recovery, we need to look at 2 main items

  1. Muscle recovery
  2. Soft tissue/ tendon recovery

These are not the same thing.  Your body is always tearing down (catabolic) and building back up (anabolic).   To me, you want to speed up BOTH processes to replace “older / less adapted tissue” with “newer / better adapted” tissue.   

For many lifters, soft tissue injuries eclipse muscle injuries by a landslide.  Other than direct trauma, you almost never even hear of an athlete damaging the muscle acutely in most gym athletes.  You do hear of it more in track athletes who are bouncing off soft tissue structures all the time.  This always made me wonder what the rate of soft tissue injuries was in kangaroos, but I digress. 

Enough yammering- tell me what to do you say! 

Phase I – General Recovery and Energy

If you are new, start here. 

You want a blend of protein and carbs.   The protein will help repair muscle tissue and the carbs will provide energy.    

I recommend 20-40 grams of protein and 40 -80 grams of carbs about 30 -90 minutes before training.  

This can be real food or supplements, although the digestion time with real food will be longer and for some, it may be as long as 2 hours before training. 

The supplement can be 1-2 scoops of a whey protein and 1-2 scoops of a fast-acting carbohydrate such as Vitargo –which is my favorite as there is data on the absorption.

Phase 2 – Muscle and Tendon Recovery plus Energy

This is one of the coolest bits of research I have seen this year and something I have been following for a long time.   

New research from Dr Keith Baar showed that gelatin and vitamin c helped increase collagen synthesis (aka soft-tissue repair).    Yep, we have data now to use nutrition to help increase the speed of soft tissue 

  1. a) whey protein at 20-40 grams
  2. b) carbs at 40 – 80 grams
  3. c) collagen or gelatin protein at about 10-15 grams
  4. d) 500 mg vit C

The catch is that the collagen/ gelatin must be taken about 60 minutes before training.  Other times of the day do not appear to be nearly as beneficial.  

Phase 3 – Muscle and Tendon Recovery plus Mo’ Energy

Same as Phase 2 but include some caffeine at a dose of 200 – 400 mg or more for strength training. 

This is about 1 large cup of coffee. The downside is that the caffeine content varies a ton with coffee. 

Endurance work

What about endurance work?  

The same rules above apply, although if you are doing lower intensity work you may opt to not have as many or any carbohydrates.   As insulin goes down it does push your body to use more fat.   

Here is my preferred option 

Ingredients:

  1. Whey protein around 20 grams. This is to promote muscle recovery and yes whey will bump insulin up a bit
  2. MCT oil – MCTs can be used as energy and have no insulin release.
  3. Collagen protein = About 10-15 grams. 1-1.5 scoops of collagen below.
  4. Caffeine / Coffee – Bumps up performance

I am traveling, though, and this sounds like a monster pain to make?

That is a downside since MCT or coconut oil is not easy to travel with, can be a bit messy, may open in your bag (which has happened to me), and making coffee takes more time plus the caffeine content will vary.   

Coffee Source for travel:  Starbucks VIA coffee packet

My good friend Dr. Lonnie Lowery and his students have studied the effect of VIA on performance with good results (mostly strength training right now) and there is other data on the caffeine and endurance performance. 

The two great things about VIA is that the 1) the caffeine content is very stable from one to the next clocking in at about 256 mg.   This makes it easier to use for performance.  2) it is a powder – just bump it in.  No brewing needed. 

Whey protein

1 scoop whey protein and my fav is from Driven Nutrition

No blender needed – just mix in a large shaker cup, shake and drink.   You have a great energy source (MCT), soft tissue repair help (collagen), muscle repair (whey), and an energy boost (coffee) – all in a pretty tasty concoction. 

If you are looking for a tasty source for pretraining with a standardized dose of 200mg caffeine, MCT,  15 gm collagen plus neurofactor that tastes amazing and mixes up with a spoon, my go-to is Strong Coffee.  

Science wins again!

Dr Mike T Nelson 

 

References

  • Creatine and Caffeine: Considerations for Concurrent Supplementation – PubMed
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  • Caffeine and Exercise: What Next? – PubMed
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