Before taking pre-workout, you need three things: enough carbs to fuel your muscles, at least eight hours of sleep, and NSF Sport Certified products. Only then can caffeine actually help your performance.
Pre-workout for athletes. Should you be taking it? If you can say yes to these 3 rules that I have, then yeah, you could probably be taking it. Rule number 1, are you eating enough? The biggest problem people have with caffeine and pre-workout and all these things is they use it as a Band-Aid and not an aid. Your body is optimized to create energy from carbohydrates. So caffeine being used as just the only energy source for your body is not going to help you perform the best. You need carbohydrates in the system. You need your muscle energy tanks, glycogen storages, being full so that you can perform the way you want to in the game or the workout. So rule number 1, eat enough food, especially carbohydrates. Then rule number 2, you're not getting enough sleep. So if you're staying up till midnight and then have to get up for a 6:00 AM training and you only got 5.5 hours of sleep and you're using caffeine as like a way to slap a Band-Aid on it and perform well, and you're never gonna be able to replace the benefit that sleep is gonna give you in your training and in your gains. Get at least 8 hours of sleep. Rule number 3, make sure that it's NSF Sport Certified. This is gonna make sure that there's no traces of illegal substances or anything that could be harmful for an athlete's body. So you wanna make sure that whatever caffeine source that you're taking is NSF Certified. If you can follow these 3 rules, caffeine is a great way to enhance your performance and get more outta your workout.
