What Truly Is The Best Pre workout Drink?
The other day I was asked by a young man in my gym what is the best pre workout drink? As a longtime South Austin personal trainer, I hear an awful lot of what I refer to as the best questions. What is the best way to lose weight? What is the best way to gain weight? What is the best way to get stronger? There’s no shortage of these questions, but unfortunately for the inquisitor, there’s no shortage of both truthful, and untruthful answers either.
What is the best pre workout drink is not a question that will have the same answer for everybody. For some, it may be water. For others, it may be a mixture of complex carbohydrates for fuel. Still yet, for others, it may something that contains caffeine or other stimulants. The reason for the differences, besides different people having different genetic makeups, different goals, different needs, different health situations, etc, is that what works on one day for one person of a similar story, may not work at all for another, or even the same person, the next time around.
Anytime you are trying to quantify what the best something or other is, including asking what is the best pre workout drink, you must weigh in all of the aforementioned factors, plus one more that nobody, not even the best and most experienced Austin personal trainer, can answer for you. That is how do you feel? I can certainly draw conclusions and make speculations about clients while training them, but I can’t feel what you are feeling on every level. Nobody could. Therefore, is a caffeine laced beverage the best pre workout drink on a day when you are already bounding with energy or perhaps buzzing with anxiety? Likely not. On a day when your allergies are a mess, a soothing green tea may not be in order either.
The purpose of any pre workout drink, no matter the goal or the state of the trainee, is to get you through the workout, and allow you to have the most energy possible and hopefully as a result, a better workout. This is generally without exception for the most part other than when some bodybuilders are starting their post workout protein intake while still working out in an attempt to minimize the anabolic window, and keep it from shutting before they’ve had a chance to take in their prescribed amount.
I personally don’t subscribe to the notion that we need a pre workout drink. In fact, when people ask me what is the best pre workout drink, I usually tell them that there is none. You need to eat properly and be properly hydrated. If you have a big heavy leg day, for example the next day, then that night you need to be loading up on good quality carbohydrates, as well as proteins in order to fuel that workout. Drinking a bunch of sugar, caffeine, or other stimulants won’t substitute for a well placed fuel laden meal/s. I fully understand if someone enjoys a cup of coffee en route to the gym, but if the coffee is what you are using to get amped up and motivated for the workout, you obviously don’t want to be going to the gym in the first place. That motivation and desire comes from within. Not from Starbucks. The same can be said for all of the supplements that people take before working out in order to have more energy. Examine the term supplement, and ask what you are truly supplementing. Did you eat poorly the day before, perhaps skip breakfast today, and decide that the latest and greatest sugar bomb will turn your workout into a bar bending affair? It won’t, despite all of the advertising, misleading labels, and false scientific claims that run rampant in the supplement industry. Want to know the best pre workout drink? Water and whatever glycogen stores you have in place from your nutrition. If you want to get results in the gym, go get busy eating properly instead of getting distracted with snake oil, stimulants, and sugar.
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Andy
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