The 6 Best Pre-Workout Supplements, According to Registered Dietitians

While you don’t need pre-workout to build muscle, it can be helpful if you need an extra ‘push’ to get through your workout if you’re a bit more fatigued one day or if you’re in a calorie deficit, explains Nicole Ibarra, RD, LD, a registered dietitian specializing in sports nutrition, gut, and hormonal health. Pre-workout supplements include ingredients that supply energy, help you push harder, improve focus, and can help your body more easily build muscle and recover from your workouts.

We examined products for effective formulas, caffeine, testing, user experience, and overall safety to find the best pre-workout supplements to help support your workouts and fitness goals.

What to Consider

Caffeine

Caffeine is the primary stimulant in most pre-workouts. Doses typically range between 150 mg and 300 mg per serving, but more isn’t always going to give you the better workout experience—especially if you’re sensitive to caffeine jitters or love a late-night workout. While caffeine is not needed for a workout, the compound might improve your performance and focus. Research has found that consuming caffeine within 60 minutes of your workout can improve aerobic and anaerobic running capacity, strength, and power.

Considering a stim-free or caffeine-free pre-workout? We did a little investigation into this product category ourselves, and found them to not be as effective. You would likely be better off taking the supplements found in stim-free versions like beta-alanine and creatine in individual doses.

Other Ingredients

Pre-workout supplements also like to advertise all the other stuff they include on top of the caffeine. Citrulline for blood flow. Beta-alanine for muscle fatigue. Creatine for creatine’s sake. Deer-antler velvet for who the hell knows. But for a lot of the products making these claims often don’t have enough of the stuff to matter. For example, some products claiming to contain creatine only have a single gram of it, which is not even a quarter of your recommended dosage. It hardly seems worth it. Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Pre-Workout at least has 3.3 grams, a much more reasonable offering. For the more esoteric ingredients, there isn’t a whole lot of science behind how they combine in a pre-workout. This brings us to our next point.

Safety

“​​I always recommend looking for supplements that are third-party tested, which ensures that the pre-workout contains what it claims and is free from contaminants or impurities,” says Boufounos. Ibarra says that she would also avoid any pre-workout supplement that includes a “proprietary blend.” These blends include a wide array of ingredients and often don’t disclose the exact amounts of ingredients used. In any case, it’s always a good idea to talk to your primary care physician prior to taking any supplement in order to avoid health complications.

How We Selected

I’m a NASM-certified nutritionist who has spent years covering the intersection of fitness and nutrition. I started with input from the Men’s Health editors, including Deputy Editor Paul Kita and Fitness and Commerce Editor Charles Thorp, NASM. We then tested several dozen pre-workout supplements over several months, along with our own previous experience using the products. Our editors, certified trainers, and product testers evaluated each product based on key criteria: ingredient quality, effectiveness, side effects, taste, mix-ability, and overall value.

Testing notes from the editors were used to guide selections and call out specific benefits and drawbacks of each pick. We also had experts Melissa Boufounos, CHN, sports nutritionist and owner of MB Performance Nutrition near Ottawa, ON and Nicole Ibarra, RD, LD, a registered dietitian specializing in sports nutrition weigh in. All of the products in this guide are available online, widely reviewed, and meet our editorial standards for safety and transparency.

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