Supplement Guide · Pre-Workout

Pre-Workout Supplements: What Actually Works

Pre-workout is the most marketing-driven category in supplements, packed with long ingredient lists where only a few items are dosed at levels that do anything. The trick is to ignore the label theatre and focus on whether the handful of evidence-backed actives are present at real doses.

Caffeine is the engine of most pre-workouts, effective for focus and perceived effort at roughly 3–6mg per kg of bodyweight. We heavily penalise products that push past 400mg per serving, as that crosses into territory where side effects outweigh benefits for most people. If you train in the evening, consider a stim-free option.

Citrulline malate (6–8g) supports blood flow and pump, and L-citrulline at 3–4g is the cleaner equivalent. Beta-alanine at 3.2g per day buffers fatigue in higher-rep work and causes the harmless tingling many people feel. These are the actives worth checking for; many products under-dose them to save money.

The single biggest red flag is the proprietary blend, where everything is lumped into one total so you cannot see how much of each ingredient you are getting. This almost always hides under-dosing, and we apply a severe penalty to any product that uses one.

Plenty of pre-workout ingredients are there purely for the label: tiny amounts of exotic-sounding compounds that have no effect at the dose provided. A short, transparent formula with properly dosed caffeine, citrulline and beta-alanine beats a 15-ingredient blend every time. Our scores reflect that.