So I get this question a lot because most people think more is better. With fully dosed supplements like PRE and ENS, more is not always better, and in many cases, the excess active ingredients can hurt your end result by causing competition for bioavailability. There is no need to combine PRE and ENS because much of what is in ENS is also in PRE. Taking both at the same time would double your dosage of creatine, arginine, citrulline, and beta-alanine without giving you much benefit in return.
Ninety percent of our gains come from that last ten percent of effort that we put in. We use pre-workout supplements because we want that extra push: more training intensity, focus and energy to help us slam out that extra rep. Too often we focus on just the stimulant effect and forget about the equally important role supplements play in muscle growth and recovery.
Combining a pre-workout with post-workout supplementation will give you more intense training while also improving muscle size and strength, and giving you faster muscle recovery. The recovery components of ENS, which are glutamine and OKG, are not in PRE because PRE is designed to be used in conjunction with POST, NutraBio’s muscle recovery supplement. ENS is designed to be a convenient all-in-one muscle building/recovery product while PRE and POST are more focused and comprehensive hardcore formulas designed to give maximal effect.
If you are taking PRE, then POST would be the recommended recovery supplement to go with it. As an alternative to POST, ENS can be taken for recovery. So here are the recommended stacks for these two products for twice-a-day usage: PRE + POST, PRE + ENS, or ENS + ENS. Whether you are taking POST or ENS for muscle recovery, it should not be taken directly after training because you want to separate it from your pre-workout as much as possible so the two don’t compete for bioavailability.
So if you train in the morning, take PRE before your workout, take your protein directly after your workout, then take either POST or ENS later in the day. If you train at night, just reverse it and take POST early in the day to recover from the previous night’s workout. Many people get great results using PRE and POST on workout days and ENS on non-workout days.
I also use CarboMax at varying times during the day depending on my energy and caloric needs. I’ll mix CarboMax with my PRE before an early morning workout when I haven’t eaten and need energy for training. I also mix it with my post-workout protein shake to replenish my glycogen stores (depending when I plan on eating breakfast and whether I want the extra carbs). I mix it with my BCAA (branched chain aminos acids) and use it for intra-workouts as well, which I am doing more and more and getting great results from.
Here’s my current supplement routine for workout days:
(Click product names to see more about each product)
1. PRE 30 minutes before my workout with ½ scoop of CarboMax 2. BCAA with 1 scoop of CarboMax sipped throughout the workout as an intra 3. Whey protein isolate (fast absorbing) within 20 minutes after working out (with or without CarboMax depending on when I’m eating breakfast) 4. POST between breakfast and lunch 5. BCAA (second dose) between lunch and dinner 6. Micellar Casein (slow-absorbing protein) right before sleep
On non-workout days, I follow pretty much the same routine with some slight variations. I use the PRE non-stim version in the morning instead of the extreme version, so I’m not taking caffeine every day. I also drop from 2 doses to 1 dose of BCAA per day by skipping the morning intra. I then move my POST to between lunch and dinner. PRE comes in three versions: the extreme, which is the full formula with stimulants; a non-stim version, which is caffeine free; and a creatine-free version. The creatine-free formula is mostly used by fighters who need to make weight, such as MMA fighters, boxers, and wrestlers. I hope this was helpful. Let me know how it goes. – Mark Glazier, NutraBio CEO & Founder.
