What to take pre workout I What to eat before workout
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts outlines a comprehensive approach to optimizing workouts by focusing on both long‑term lifestyle fundamentals and short‑term pre‑workout tactics. He begins by emphasizing that performance is shaped by sleep, hydration, and nutrition in the 24‑48 hours before a session, not just the hour immediately prior. He then reviews supplements, stating that most commercial pre‑workouts are essentially caffeine, and recommends using caffeine (e.g., coffee) for an energy boost. He discusses creatine (5 g daily, timing irrelevant) and beta‑alanine (optional for a modest endurance edge). The core nutritional guidance is to consume 20‑30 g of carbohydrates and 20‑30 g of protein 30‑120 minutes before training, choosing quick‑digesting foods such as oatmeal + protein powder, Greek yogurt with rice cakes, or a protein shake with fruit. He advises against heavy, slow‑digesting meals close to training. For early‑morning sessions, he stresses a quality dinner the night before and suggests a small pre‑workout snack (e.g., half a banana and a half‑protein shake). Additional performance hacks include a modest dose of pink Himalayan salt (¼‑½ tsp) to aid muscle contraction, CNS activation, and hydration, and a proper warm‑up to prevent injury and improve neuromuscular readiness. Throughout, Roberts stresses that the “big rocks” – adequate sleep, consistent protein intake, and overall nutrition – outweigh any supplemental tricks. The video concludes with a call for questions and a reminder to prioritize foundational habits before layering on the finer details.
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YouTube, what is going on? Welcome to the video. Welcome back to the channel. In this video, we're going to be covering everything you need to know about what you should do before your workouts. We're going to talk about what you should do an hour before, 30 minutes before, what supplements should you take, what should you eat, what should you not eat. I'm going to give you some other tips that can be massively beneficial as well that One of my followers on Instagram, which if you don't follow me on Instagram, follow me here. One of my followers told me, as you can see here, increased and hit a PR on his lifts. So I'm going to give you those tips later in the video as well. But overall, let's dive right in. You're going to learn everything you need to know about pre-workouts. Okay. Now, number one, we have to remember before I get into all of the sexy stuff, everything, everybody wants to hear the sexy stuff, which supplements to take? What food should I eat? How long before? What should I do? What should my warmups be? Before we get into any of that, we have to remember that your workouts and optimizing your workouts and what you should be doing for your workouts are not just 30 minutes before or 60 minutes before or 90 minutes before. Yes, there are things you can do to optimize your workouts, and we're certainly going to talk about those in those videos, in this video. But remember, it's not just about 60 minutes before your workouts. It's about 6 hours before your workouts, 12 hours before your workouts, 24 hours before your workouts. One of the biggest reasons why people say bodybuilding is a lifestyle is because you have, you know, the food— if you're working out on Wednesday, for example, the food you eat on Tuesday is going to have an impact on your workout on Wednesday. 'Cause the food you eat on Tuesday is normally going to be your fuel for the workout on Wednesday. This is why it's kind of a nonstop thing. Now, I'm not saying you have to go to the extreme and like only eat healthy food all the time and freak out over it. No, unless you're stepping on a bodybuilding stage, then maybe, but like it's not that serious. But you know, the old adage, for example, food is fuel. Listen, food is much more than fuel. Yes. It's, you know, we have food for Thanksgiving, it's social gatherings, whatever it is. It's much more than fuel, yes, but it is fuel because it is calories. And in the calorie consumption, the macronutrient consumption, protein, carbs, and fats, the micronutrient consumption, you know, potassium, magnesium, all those things as well, they play a role in how your workouts are gonna be and how you're gonna feel and your energy levels. That's why, you know, for example, if you go from eating, Big Macs and Twizzlers every single day to having foods high in protein, to having foods that are, you know, salads, chicken, pieces of fruit throughout the day, whatever it is. Normally every single time people come to me and say, wow, I feel so much better, I have so much more energy, it's because the fuel you're putting into your body is better quality. Now again, not to say you have to go to that extreme every single meal of every single day, but it is fuel. So that's one example. Same thing, water, for example. If you are going to work out on Wednesday, but all day Tuesday you drink no water and just expect to have a great workout on Wednesday, well, you're dehydrated. So no, your workout's probably not going to be as good. Sleep, for example, probably the most important thing that people just completely overlook. When you sleep is when your body recovers. Your body can't recover during the day because if you're like me, you're just going 24/7. Your body recovers when you're sleeping. So if— this is why when you have poor sleep, your workouts kind of suffer because your body can't recover. So you're trying to, you know, push your body to the limits and do these things, but you have no energy. You can't recover very well. You can't push yourself because you can't— because you did not recover. And so all of these things play a factor. For example, talking about, um, let's say if you work out in the morning, if you work out in the morning but you only got 5 hours of sleep and you didn't eat Yeah. From, you know, let's just say, and we're gonna talk about what to eat here in a second, but let's just say you didn't eat from 5 PM that night until, you know, the next morning when you still have an 8 to go work out, your body doesn't have any fuel and it's now under-recovered because you didn't sleep at all. So it has no fuel and you're under-recovered. Those 2 things combined are gonna lead to a pretty, for lack of better terms, shitty workout. And so just remember, it's not just the pre-workout, it's Everything combined. It's the day before's food, it's the day after's food. For example, again, if you work out on Wednesday, the food you eat on Thursday is going to help you recover from that workout. It's kind of like this never-ending thing. I don't want to intimidate you by saying that because again, you don't have to take it to that extreme. You don't have to take it to the extreme of what bodybuilders do and all those kind of things. No, you don't have to do that, but just know in the back of your head it's not just like The magic trick of 60 minutes before, take this pre-workout, take these 2 pills, eat this and be good to go. Like it's more so the not so sexy things, hydration, sleep, good quality protein, good quality foods that are going to have a much more massive impact on your pre-workout and on your workout than what we're really going to talk about here. So that's just first and foremost, that's the groundwork. If you don't have the foundation, then these things we're going to touch on right here really won't matter that much. So that's number one. Now, number 2, let's talk about supplements because everybody always wants to know what's the best pre-workout to take, what's the worst pre-workout to take, should I take this one, should I take that one. Let me be very honest with you and very clear. Your boy right here used to work at GNC for about 2 and a half years. GNC is the supplement store. I learned a ton about supplements and what goes in them and what's the best ones, what's the worst ones, what's the best quality, so on and so forth. I'm gonna give it to you straight. Pre-workouts are really just caffeine. That's all it is. For all the ones out there, and there's so many ones out there, I haven't been in that world for a while and I have not looked at any of them in a while because I don't take any caffeine personally, but like, there's so many ones out there. Out of all the ones, it's really just caffeine. So if you want to take like a cup of black coffee before you work out, like, it'll give you the same effect because that's really What the biggest driver of pre-workouts are is just caffeine. So if you have a different source of caffeine you want to take to go before you work out, you can do that as well. If you want to take pre-workouts, you can do it as well. I'm not saying don't take pre-workouts because if you want some extra energy, yeah, caffeine is going to help you with that. But what I would say is don't get too caught up in like what is the best one to use and just pick one that you might like and try it and see if you like it. But it's really just caffeine, so don't spend too much time on pre-workouts because they're not that important and there's not that much like magic behind each and every single one. It's, it's just, it's just pre-workout. So that's number one. Number 2, other supplements you can take. You know, for example, um, let's just say creatine. For example, people ask me about creatine. You can take creatine pre-workout. You can take creatine post-workout. You can take creatine in the morning, take it at night. In terms of creatine, it doesn't really matter when you take it as long as you take it consistently every single day. If your routine is to take your creatine pre-workout, awesome. Take it then. And as long as you take it, you're good to go. Because the biggest thing with creatine is you just want it in your system. Because when it gets in your system, your creatine levels in your body elevate. And as long as you have consistently elevated creatine levels, you're going to get the benefits of more strength, more muscle endurance, more muscle gain, so on and so forth, right? So as long as you take it consistently, you'll see the benefits, but it doesn't matter when you take it, pre-workout, post-workout, whatever, as long as you take it. That's all that really matters. And so how much should you take? Take about 5 grams of a creatine monohydrate per day. Some people are going to tell you to load it by like taking 20 grams a day for a week. I'm not the biggest fan because either way your creatine levels are going to elevate whether it takes a week or 2 weeks. And so to me it's just not worth it to load it. I don't really think it's that big of a deal. So I would just say take 5 grams of a creatine monohydrate every single day. Creatine monohydrate, very inexpensive. It should not cost you a lot. I have one right now. I think it cost me $25 for like 600 servings. And so if you're like spending tons and tons and tons of money on creatine, you're probably getting one that has all this other extra fluffed up shit in it that doesn't really help you. So creatine monohydrate, 5 grams per day. And yes, women can take it too. And yes, it may cause some water weight retention, But it's not a bad thing because it's extra water inside your muscle cells that are going to help your muscle cells recover and grow stronger, more defined muscles. It's a good thing. That's what you want. Creatine pulls water into the muscles. So it's not a bad thing and you shouldn't like get rid of it, but it is going to happen. But it's a good thing because it's going to have a positive impact on you in the long run. So that's number 2. And number 3, I'll talk about here. There's something called beta-alanine. This is the— if you've ever taken a pre-workout, this is what kind of makes you tingly and makes your skin itch and so on and so forth. Um, some people love it. Some people hate it. I personally didn't mind it 'cause, I don't know, I'm weird, I guess. Beta-alanine can help with endurance and it can help possibly with some strength increase, but again, unless you have 8 hours of sleep per night, unless you're hitting your protein goal, unless you're properly recovering from workouts, unless you're following a properly designed workout program, which by the way, if you need a proper workout program to follow, check out my video right here. Unless you're doing all those things, I wouldn't really pay much mind to it. Again, it might give you an extra 2% advantage, but I just don't really think it's that big of a deal. That's what I would say for supplements. There's all kinds of supplements out there. Just from my 2 cents, I wouldn't really put much emphasis on it because I put more emphasis on what we're going to talk about right here, which is what to eat pre-workout. What to eat pre-workout? I would do this: take 20 to 30 grams of carbs, take 20 to 30 grams of protein, and eat that 30 to 90/120 minutes pre-workout. Now, we're gonna cover all this here in depth. Number 1, why are we having protein? Why are we having carbs? Carbs are your body's main source of fuel Of energy. Because again, we talked earlier— excuse me— food is fuel. Yes, yes and no, but in this case, yes, food is fuel. So when you have carbohydrates, that is your body's main source of fuel, main source of energy. So pre-workout, if you give your body its main source of fuel, its main source of energy, before you go push it to the limit, you're gonna have a better workout. You're gonna have more energy. You're gonna have more fuel. And I've had so many of my clients They were not having food pre-workout. A lot of people probably say, oh, I can't eat pre-workout and I feel upset, whatever it is. I get it. Listen, to each his own, but I've just seen literally hundreds of people who didn't eat pre-workout because they weren't hungry or they didn't want to eat or whatever it is, and then they had some sort of— we'll talk about foods here in a second, but they had some sort of protein, some sort of carbs, and they felt so much better. They had such a better workout. They had so much more energy. They lifted more weights. They did more reps. They felt better. And they're like, oh, okay, sweet. I'm doing this from now on. 'Cause they saw the benefits obviously. And so giving your body protein and carbs pre-workout gives your body some fuel for the workout ahead. 'Cause again, yes, your body will use earlier food and food from yesterday for fuel, but if you give your body your main source of energy before your workout, well guess what, man? Your body's good to go. It has some food to kind of push yourself. And so, Number one, that's why you should have protein and carbs pre-workout. And so in terms of like what to eat, and again, so for protein, protein is the main and only macronutrient that's gonna help build and retain lean muscle mass. So obviously when you're going to go work out, you wanna be able to help your lean muscle mass as much as you possibly can. So protein mixed with carbs pre-workout, good to go. Why would you eat 30 to 120 minutes before? Again, just for the same reason of you wanna get that fuel food in your stomach and that fuel in your stomach and have it digest and so on and so forth before your workout. I wouldn't— I would try to eat at the very latest 2 hours before your workout. So if you're working out at 6:00 PM, I would try to eat at the very latest 4:00 PM. I wouldn't go like, oh, I ate lunch at noon, so I'll go work out at 6:00. Like, no. Um, I've seen so many people do that. When I used to train people in person, they would say, oh, the last time I ate was lunch. And I'm like, when the hell was that? They're like, 12. I'm like, it's 7:30. They're like, yeah. And I'm like, You're gonna like pass out, man. And sure enough, they like didn't have a good workout. They felt like shit. A lot of people like would have to like, you know, take some time and so on and so forth. And so try to eat at the latest 2 hours before your workout. Everybody's different with this. Like myself, for example, I can have like, you know, 2 rice and packed burritos from Chipotle and be totally fine 60 minutes pre-workout and I'm good to go. Like, you know, an hour later I'm like, all right, cool, let's work out. Some people that would literally, you know, that would be their number one, probably all their calories for the day. But number two, like it would upset their stomach. And so try things. Um, two things. Number one, I would try to get more, um, quicker digesting foods, right? So like, for example, I wouldn't have, you know, pounds of pasta before your workout. 'Cause like, that's gonna be very heavy and like, you're probably not gonna have a very effective workout. Um, number two as well, I know a lot of people have to work out in the morning and they're like, Eric, there's no way I'm eating before my workout. I work out at 4 AM or 5 AM. And listen, I totally get it. I used to train people in person all the time and we would have a— our first one started at 5 AM, so I had to get to the gym at 4:15. I get it. Um, here's what I would say. If you are working out early in the morning and you do not want to eat, I'd say 2 things. Number one, just be damn sure your dinner the night before is a good Quality dinner. Make sure it has good quality carbs, good quality protein, and make sure you really, you know, and good quality water. All 3 of those things, because your body's gonna use that for the workout ahead. Your body's gonna use that fuel primarily for the workout ahead. So definitely try to have a great dinner. Also though, on top of that, I will say like, you know, even something small like a half a protein shake and a half a banana. I've seen this so many times as well. People start off with like, I don't eat anything. I can't eat anything. It's too early. Da da da. I get it again. But then they have half a banana and they're like, oh wow! I kind of notice the difference. And then they have half a protein shake, and then they have a full protein shake and a full banana. And then they're having Greek yogurt with some strawberries and some rice cakes. And like they're like getting a full breakfast because like wow, I see the difference in how I feel and how I perform. So I would say that as well. Start small. Half a banana, like you know a clementine, whatever it is. Take that, eat it, go work out. You're gonna see a difference. I know for a fact, I've seen it thousands of times. You're gonna see a difference and you're probably gonna keep doing it. So, that's what I would say. Now, in terms of like foods and combinations and so on and so forth, I'll give you a few of my kind of like favorite combinations and whatnot. I'm a very— I am not a chef. I'm the farthest thing from a chef. I'm a very simple person. I'll just give you some of my kind of like go-to things. Alright, so my top little 3 things here are number 1, oatmeal with protein powder. This is way off, isn't it? Oatmeal with protein powder. That is one of just the staples. Like, so what I do is I just take oatmeal. It's like the Minute Oatmeal. I take the Minute Oatmeal, put it in the microwave. I think it's like a minute and a half. Take it out, get a scoop of protein powder, put it in the oatmeal, mix it up. You can even add like some fruit or some whatever else you want in there, but scoop of protein powder, put it in, mix it up, eat it. Good to go. Protein and carbs, 20 to 30 grams of each, right? Next one, Greek yogurt with some rice cakes. And for me, again, I'm simple, very plain. I just take, I take like 2 or 3 Greek yogurts, but you can take a Greek yogurt and just have, you know, 2 or 3 rice cakes. Something as simple as that. Very easy digesting, very quick to digest. Rice cakes are super easy to digest, super quick to digest, and doesn't take a ton of time to make or stuff like that. Do those 2 things right there, Greek yogurt, rice cakes. Again, you can add some fruit if you want to. Put some raspberries in your Greek yogurt. That would be an amazing pre-workout meal. The last one is gonna be, um, This is what I do. This is literally what I do right now in the mornings before my workout. I do a protein shake, I do a clementine, I do a Greek yogurt, and I do a banana. For me, again, I'm eating more calories. You can scale that how you want to. Just have a protein shake and a banana. Sweet. Good to go. Super simple, super easy. Like, doesn't take a lot of time. You know, you can, you can have just a protein shake with a clementine or protein shake with rice cakes or, you know, find some foods you enjoy and eat them, right? I wouldn't I only put 3 here. I'm not gonna go too in-depth because 20, 30 grams of protein, 20, 30 grams of carbs. Find something in there to kind of help you with that. These are 3 examples. I guess a 4th one could be like if you're looking for like a meal like, you know, I don't know, chicken and rice or steak and rice or potatoes or like, you know, just find some good quality carbs, find some good quality protein, eat those 30 to 90 minutes pre-workout, 120 minutes max, and you'll be good to go. Alright? Alright. And now my final 2 tips are going to be, number one, I'm gonna talk about the picture I showed you earlier with the person who hit a new PR on their deadlifts. Salt. Salt pre-workout. Anywhere from a half teaspoon to a fourth teaspoon. Anywhere in between there. A fourth teaspoon to a half teaspoon of pink Himalayan salt pre-workout, just straight. I just do it straight to the head. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen me do these, like, Just straight to the headshots. This is going to help with a few things. Number one, salt pre-workout helps a few things. Muscle contractions. When you are doing a bicep curl or a squat or a hip thrust or a deadlift or whatever it is, your muscles have to contract. It's called contract. They have to contract to move the weight. That's how you move the weight. That's how you work your muscles. It's muscle contractions, right? When you do a bicep curl, this is a muscle contraction. You're, you're curling the way you're contracting your muscle. Salt helps with muscle contraction. So if you're getting salt pre-workout, you're going to have better muscle contractions, which is going to lead to better energy, better endurance, better strength, better pumps, all those things, right? That's number 1. Number 2, salt helps your central nervous system. Your central nervous system controls pretty much everything when you're working out, right? Especially if you're going into more of like heavier work. It controls— again, it can help with like lighter work as well, but especially if you're going to heavier work, it helps your central nervous system. So it'll help you again do more reps, do more weight, push harder, have more energy. It also helps with overall hydration. We talked over here about, you know, being hydrated. Salt is one of the main components of hydration because when you When you sweat, you excrete salt. So, if you can put salt into your body beforehand, you are going to have better hydration for the workout ahead. So, those are the 3 main reasons why salt helps. I've seen over and over and over and over again, it works every single time. I am not a doctor, so, you know, if you wanna check with your doctor beforehand, please feel free to. But again, a 4th tape— a 4th teaspoon, I'm sorry, a 4th teaspoon to a half teaspoon, 30 to 60 minutes pre-workout. It makes a huge difference, I promise. And the last one is going to be having a proper warmup. And I'm not going to go too in-depth because I actually did an entire video on warmups above. I did a video on before an upper body workout and before a lower body workout. So if you want to go watch that, so if you want to go watch that video, just kind of head there. Again, I go in-depth on upper body, lower body. I show you what exercises to do, why they are beneficial, why you should do them. But a proper warmup is going to save— is going to help you with a few things. Number one, not get injured, which is if you get injured, you can't work out anyway. So it's going to help you with that. But more so, number two, again, it's going to increase muscle contraction. It's going to increase your mind-muscle connection. It's going to increase your strength, your central nervous system. It is going to help you massively. And people who— whenever my clients come into my program and they aren't doing a proper warmup and then they start a proper warmup, They see the big difference in the rest of their workout because your muscles are ready to go and they're warmed up and they're firing and working properly, which is going to help you when you get into more of the actual workout that you're doing. So proper warmup is huge as well. So guys, this was pre-workout 101, everything you need to know about pre-workout, supplements, foods, you know, little tips like salt, every single thing you need to know. But again, remembering that the main rocks first, nutrition, sleep, Protein goals, those sex, those things that aren't sexy. Those are the biggest things that make the biggest impact because you can do every single thing we said on this list right here. But if you're sleeping four hours a night and eating forty grams of protein, you're not going to optimize your workouts and they're probably going to be very subpar. So just make sure you get your big rocks first and then these things you can sprinkle like fairy dust on top. All right. Any questions? Any concerns? Let me know below and we will chat soon. I.
