Pre-Workout for Evening Sessions?

Diet and Nutrition
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Any suggestions on pre-workouts that do not have caffeine and will be less likely to interrupt sleep for those of us who have to work out in the evenings?

I don’t care if it’s a commercial mix or if it’s just some sort of juice, fruit, or whatever.

Frequently my job is mentally taxing (thankfully it’s a good sort of mental challenge) and I’m looking for something to give a little mental clarity like caffeine does. Just, I can’t do caffeine after 1pm otherwise I’ll be going to sleep far too late.

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If you’re thinking more about mental energy, focus, etc. look into Power Drive or Caffeine Free Brain Candy:

Good article here on Power Drive by Christian Thibaudeau:

https://t-nation.com/t/the-mood-booster-for-lifters-and-athletes/

For workout nutrition, performance enhancement, and recovery, can’t beat Surge Workout Fuel:

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I would think that Surge would be perfect. I stopped all caffeine before workouts.

4 Likes
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Imma just say - no one needs a pre workout. Even those who do, need it a few times a month.
If u cant function without external stimuli most likely its your body saying you need rest. Rest and actually feeling good and wanting to train more than anything are super overlooked aspects of life. If you cant train without stiming yourself up, then you have to understand that the recovery is fucked also. Even if you take whatever, feel great and train to 120%, you are just borrowing that energy. You can even be digging that hole deeper. For example, your recovery is at 10% and u feel bad and do a poor session worth 10% - you at least recover. Now if you stim up and do 120% , your recovery is still 10%. You will feel worse and worse and then either injury happens or you get depressed.

Supplement industry has fucked people with this. First they dig you a recovery hole with letting you stim up when you should rest. Then they sell you shit thats supposed to aid in recovery, when you should have just skipped a session. And then they will sell you stuff and procedures to heal injuries. Top that off with relaxants to help you come off the stims which they sold you in the first place.
This is ok if you make money in sports, and this is your life for 2 years which is a limited time window to make money for the rest of your life.
But the problem is that this is a life of average joes, whose life wouldnt be any different if they would never even train ever again.

You say you have a stressful job. That means you are the “pro athlete” in that field already. Now you want to put on extra stress of an athlete in sports also. Pro athletes who can handle the life i mentioned, dont do what you do on the side. So you shouldnt do what they do also.

Everyone makes his own choices and i respect that. I just wanted to remind people that the fact that you need a pre workout, is a sign of something that needs to be tought about.
Using stims, or relaxants, or injury aids is like taking a painkiller and slapping a band-aid on a snake bite. You dont feel the pain or see the bite, but the poison is still there, you will still die.

The priorities in your case should be :
1)Think how to minimize stress in your life. Work hard on this. Minimize it to the max, control the rest.
2)Think, how much energy you have left. Make a workout plan according to how YOU FEEL, not what some article said. Many advice givers havent worked a real job in their lives, keep that in mind.
3)Understand, that if your life is stressful, then you wont make it to the big leagues. Best athletes dont do anything else. So what you do is a hobby. It is for you. Why would you dig that hole deeper by borrowing health which you will have to give back sooner or later? Its like a person who takes a mortage on twice the amount of money he will ever be able to pay back, and then he re-finances it in one bank, then the other. Sooner or later it all comes down, and its still you paying the price.

I know i made a much bigger deal out of a “pre-workout” but the point i wanted to get across is not anti-preworkout, its just that people need to listen to themselves and fix stuff in a way that matters and makes their lives easier, not just buy another supplement to add to their cabinet that already has probably 10 medicines ,and 20 supplements for everything.
Its like we cant even think anymore. Red Bull made 250ml cans and was considered a heart-attack in a can. Nowdays we chug 500ml Monsters with 3 scoops of pre wrokouts just to do bicep curls.

I love how one of the powerlifters in Dave Tates podcast said it - sometimes its not about what you do, but what you dont do.
Sometimes we dont need pre workouts. Actually - most times we dont. Most times we need to take a rest day. A rest week. A rest month. Go for a walk. Breathe some air. Have some laughs. Walk bare feet on some grass and some pine cones and some rocks. Listen to a bird or a river.

I mean, when was it, that people who asked for supplement recomendations, actually got replied to with advice to take 3 weeks off, and just walk, and just look at the sun and stars? That will help you with stress more than any drug or supplement.

4 Likes
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Before we condemn caffeine, it is a substance that spares muscle glycogen so that some fat can be preferentially burned instead of muscle glycogen. I rotated a number of stimulants throughout the week to minimize down regulation for contest prep before finishing up with Clenbuterol (Caffeine, ephedrine, nicotine-gum)

But if you need a stimulant to workout says more to your lack of drive than the benefits of the stimulant.

I never had a sense of whether I had over trained, but I often used AAS, which helps to minimize overtraining. So there is that.

1 Like
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AAS only minimize overtraining if your workloads remain the same. Since AAS also enhances the amount of work you do, you end up exactly in the same place only you did more before you crashed. In a way, AAS does nothing for this because serious overtraining and the harshest problems connected with it, come from the world of enhanced athletes.

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Hank, I read every word of what you wrote and appreciate it. I actually agree with you, more than my original post would indicate. You’ll notice that in my original post I didn’t actually specify that I was looking for a stimulant, nor was necessarily trying to avoid one other than those which would wreck my sleep.

I should have worded it better, in retrospect. Many times I’m going into a workout somewhat fasted, my last meal being 5 hours prior. I probably just need some calories. That’s probably how I should have asked it.

I’ve made “pre-workout” shakes before with a scoop of whey mixed in with 8oz of orange juice that seemed to work well but I wanted to see what other suggestions are out there.

Regarding rest, I’m still in the learning process about what my balance is. I’ve been lifting for about 2 years now. Winter is when I’ve historically done 4 days in the gym, 1-1.5 hours per session.

During the warm season, I usually do 3 days in the gym, and on Saturday I hit the beach early while parking is still available and do a 5-9 mile walk. Or I take the kids swimming, fishing, or whatnot. Either way, I’m having some low impact fun.

Also have a 2.5 mile long bridge I walk (5 mile round trip) sometimes that is glorious in warm weather. Cold weather sucks because the wind is usually 20mph+

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What if you are going more so for the performance benefits instead of workout motivation etc.

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Yes. Exactly right - performance benefits its a great tool. If u have a fight in an hour, id suggest you take every stim u can, that won’t ruin the performance. But the problem is that people nowdays think that the training itself is a performance. It isnt. If u cant train without stims, you wont be able to fight/run/lift when the performance is needed. Its like Wendler said : training for strength and displaying strength are two different things. For example, smelling salts and screaming or getting slapped before a lift can be a great tool for breaking a PR on a platform but if u need that for your regular workout at 85% then something is very wrong with your lifestyle. Athletes do their most training at 70-80% with rare occasional jumps close to 90%. The actual performance is done at 102-105%. Different stimulations, like psychological, adrenaline, fear etc, along with external stims if they work good for u, can and should be used to peform at these percentages.

But there is a huge difference between needing a stim 30min before a fight, and just swallowing pre workouts for your average boxing class.

1 Like
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Sounds great. I never use stims before training. But love them before my track and field sprinting events. This year I’m playing around with power drive and 50mgs of dmaa. I missed having my halo or cheque drops couldn’t get them in time.

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I don’t know where you compete, but check the banned list on this one. I remember it being problematic for NCAA, but I’m also 1000 years old so that may not be the case now