{"id":9393,"date":"2021-12-09T16:02:15","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T22:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/?p=9393"},"modified":"2021-12-22T11:13:43","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T17:13:43","slug":"when-should-i-take-a-pre-workout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/when-should-i-take-a-pre-workout\/","title":{"rendered":"When Should I Take a Pre-Workout?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>The best pre-workout supplements can take a normal workout and make it a great one. But are you giving yours long enough to kick in?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><script src=\"https:\/\/cdn.jwplayer.com\/players\/XCoW14MH-5L2UHiXt.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For many athletes and lifters, taking <a href=\"https:\/\/sculptnation.com\/products\/pre-workout\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a pre-workout supplement <\/span><\/a>is a crucial part of their training ritual. But if you look around the gym or watch training videos online, you&#8217;ll see people taking them at different times: everything from &#8220;at home before I get in the car to drive to the gym&#8221; to &#8220;right before I pick up the weights and do my first warm-up set.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re like Vince Sant and you like to slam a pre right before you start training, there&#8217;s nothing wrong with that. But for most people, it&#8217;s not the ideal way to see the real benefits across the entire workout &#8212; which are things like controlling fatigue, helping you stay focused, and allowing you to pump out more reps than you would without it.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s why: Science has shown that the caffeine in a pre-workout <a href=\"https:\/\/jissn.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/1550-2783-7-5?report=reader\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">takes 15-45 minutes to kick in<\/span><\/a>, and up to an hour to reach peak levels in your bloodstream.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, if you wait until you&#8217;re at the gym to take it, you might be several exercises into your workout before the caffeine is doing much. So it might help you with the last round of a tough circuit, or the last couple of exercises in a strength or muscle-building workout, but that&#8217;s about it.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re afraid that taking a pre-workout an hour before training will leave you short on energy halfway through your workout, well, think again. Depending on your tolerance, you probably have more like 3-4 hours before the caffeine level in your blood goes down by half &#8212; and possibly as much as 6-8 hours.<\/p>\n<p><b>How to Take a Pre-Workout:<\/b> If you can remember to, take your pre-workout at least 15 minutes before training, and even better, more like 30-45 minutes before training. And if you can&#8217;t remember until your workout starts, that&#8217;s OK &#8212; it&#8217;ll still help boost your energy for hours afterward.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Should I take a Pre-Workout Every Day?\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>You don&#8217;t have to take a pre-workout every day to see benefits from it. Unlike some supplements like creatine, whose benefits are systemic and build up over time, a pre-workout offers acute benefits. This means it enters your system, and is gone a few hours later.<\/p>\n<p>If you have a decent caffeine tolerance and don&#8217;t see negative impacts on your sleep, there&#8217;s no reason you can&#8217;t take a pre-workout every time you train. Alternately, you could also save it for your most intense workouts of the week, like a brutal leg day, or a pump-focused arm workout or shoulder workout.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-8506\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/preworkout-sp-infographic-01-unisex.jpg?resize=528%2C660&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"528\" height=\"660\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/preworkout-sp-infographic-01-unisex.jpg?resize=240%2C300&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/preworkout-sp-infographic-01-unisex.jpg?resize=819%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 819w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/preworkout-sp-infographic-01-unisex.jpg?resize=768%2C960&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/preworkout-sp-infographic-01-unisex.jpg?w=1080&amp;ssl=1 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 528px) 100vw, 528px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><b>Why Should I Take a Pre-Workout?\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>The ingredients in pre-workouts &#8212; and caffeine in particular &#8212; have been shown in study after study to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/6850650_The_Acute_Effects_of_a_Caffeine-Containing_Supplement_on_Strength_Muscular_Endurance_and_Anaerobic_Capabilities\">increase strength and endurance<\/a>, and even to make workouts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/723503\">more effective at burning body fat<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But if you&#8217;re wondering why anyone would bother to take a pre-workout supplement, maybe it&#8217;s because your workouts aren&#8217;t challenging enough to deserve one &#8212; yet!<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re following one of V Shred&#8217;s most popular programs like <a href=\"https:\/\/vshred.com\/sp\/fat-loss-extreme-f\/sku_CKcwR4TEg54IeG\">Fat-Loss Extreme<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/vshred.com\/sp\/toned-in-90-days\/v1\">Toned in 90 Days<\/a>, or the legendary <a href=\"https:\/\/vshred.com\/member\/ripped-in-90-days\">Ripped in 90 Days<\/a>, a pre-workout can help you get the most out of every workout. But if you&#8217;re looking for a personalized solution, we can help you there, too.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vshred.com\/sp\/custom-diet-plan\/reup\">You can get your customized meal plan here <\/a>or email <a href=\"mailto:coaching@vshred.com\">coaching@vshred.com<\/a>\u00a0to get a healthy menu that will fit with your schedule and push your fitness where it&#8217;s never been before!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The best pre-workout supplements can take a normal workout and make it a great one. But are you giving yours long enough&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":8544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7508,45,46,1],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[804,1754,2522,126,887,423,1053,899,1909,379,108,1291,2157,1010,3501,303,125,177],"class_list":["post-9393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-frequently-asked-questions","category-for-energy","category-for-muscles","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/preworkout-sp-productimage-01-unisex.jpeg?fit=2000%2C1333&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NWy7-2rv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9393"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9655,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393\/revisions\/9655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9393"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vshred.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}