The Pre-Workout Game

April 18th

Alright. So some schlemiel has been using [insert popular pre-workout drink] for a while. He wants to try something new cause the old one isn't really working as much. What does he do?

"I need something better, I don't really like this one. What else is good?"

Keep in mind, he hasn't told me he's been using the product for a month or two without stopping. 

Here try this one, [insert other popular pre-workout drink]. You get sick pumps and just absolutely sick work-outs. It gets a lot of really good reviews on bodybuilding.com and it's a top seller.

One month later...

"Hey man, that pre-workout you sold me wasn't that good...I don't know... I feel like it just didn't really work. What else is good?"

I could have called this one. 

This is when we hit the pause button. Or as the French say, Pa-ooh-say. This is the perfect case of someone ALWAYS TAKING PREWORKOUT AND NEVER CYCLING OFF. Before we move on with this conversation however, let's analyze what just happened, and why just giving this poor bastard another different pre-workout is arguably a crime.

Who reading this remembers their first beer? Or your first time drinking alcohol in general? What happened? IT GOT YA FUCKED UP. You can probably pound six or ten beers now and be fine. Not me. One or two beers and I'm gone. Yes ladies, I'm a cheap date, and no, none of you can have my liver. I'm getting buried with that shit. Anyways, my point is that the first time you expose your body to some new chemicals, drugs, compounds, stimulants, whatever the hell you want to refer to them as, you will get the strongest effect that first time. After that, you will start receiving diminishing returns. Caffeine is an amazing example of a particularly strong stimulant that when NOT CYCLED CORRECTLY, your body WILL build up a tolerance to it. You also run the risk of burning out your ADRENAL GLANDS. Yes, those two little sacs of shit sitting on top of your kidneys actually do something, and too much caffeine too often makes them say,

"Yo, fuck this shit. I don't know what you want from me. If you're gonna make me on edge with all that Caffeine stuff all the time, I'm not doing my job anymore. I'm out. Lata."

Basically when this happens, you lose the ability to get "stimulated" from stimulants. This is why pre-workouts stop working, fat-burners, you name it. Adrenal Fatigue is a very controversial subject, and I don't want to start diagnosing it and throwing that term around. Most regular doctors and mainstream medical journals/websites don't and won't even acknowledge it, whereas Naturopathic doctors do. I'm neither, so I won't even go there. I will however gladly speak from personal experience. Pre-workouts stopped working for me. Stimulants stopped working for me. I bought an "Adrenal Cleanse" type product and took it for a month. I started using caffeine and other stimulants and sure enough, they hit me like a ton of bricks again. Boom. Done. You be the judge.

OKAY, SO. Back to that person who asked me for another pre-workout drink. What the hell was his question again? I'll cut and paste it so you lazy bastards don't have to scroll up.

"Hey man, that pre-workout you sold me wasn't that good...I don't know... I feel like it just didn't really work. What else is good?

I'm not going to give him another different pre-workout. He needs to cycle off, desperately. It's not the product, it's how he's been using it.

Most of them are good, but I don't think its the product you need to change. The one you just bought has really good ingredients in it that will give you a very good pump, and the first one you used has some really powerful stimulants that can really put your training into overdrive. I think you should cycle off of them, as the bottle suggests. If you READ THE DIRECTIONS you'll see that it says to discontinue use after 8 weeks. Do you use this stuff everyday?

"Yeah I use it everyday I work out. I didn't know you had to stop. So you're saying I shouldn't use anything? What am I gonna do?"

This poor bastard is hooked on pre-workout. He's far into the pre-workout game as I like to call it. They keep buying a different one every month, not realizing maybe they should stop for a bit. It's really sad to see.

When people ask me what pre-workout I take, I usually respond with "None." Again, people don't like to hear that, they want to hear, "YEAH I USE THIS ONE IT MADE ME WANT TO FIGHT A BEAR I THREW THAT FUCKER LIKE 80 FEET." It's true though. Not the bear part, or that video, but I really don't take pre-workout anymore. I'll have some black coffee, 5 grams of creatine monohydrate, a nice pre-workout meal with B-Complex, and about 200 to 400 mgs of Co-Enzyme Q10. Arginine and Citrulline are optional, but not required. 

Having said all of this, am I against the pre-workout blends that are extremely popular today? No, but I'm not crazy about them. They do have their strong points with some having some really good ingredients. I do make it a point however, that when people buy them, THEY NEED TO READ THE DIRECTIONS. You need to cycle off of that stuff properly, or else it WILL NOT WORK ANYMORE.

What are some conclusions we can draw from this blog?

1. Follow the directions on a supplement product. Companies usually give precise and exact directions on how to use something as to AVOID NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS.
2. Cycle off of pre-workouts. Do not depend on them. Save them for a day when you want to break a PR or a day when you just can't get rolling.
3. Eat energy filled foods with B-Vitamins before the gym and take some non-stimulative supplements that encourage ATP production/synthesis like Creatine, or CoQ-10. These will fuel your workouts with actual energy.
4. Lou Ferrigno was a fuckin' beast as the Hulk. It's a shame Trump had to fire him on the Apprentice.

Matty D