I love summer workouts as much as the next guy, but when it comes to choosing a pre workout vs energy drink, some lifters are left flipping a coin to decide what they want to use.
Walk into any gym, and you’ll see various cans of energy drinks and pre-workout tubs in gym bags. To say there is an insane number of both on the market today would be an understatement.
Personally, I absolutely love both. That said, there is a clear difference between them that we need to discuss so that you understand exactly what you’re getting with each and the benefits that come from them.
Your choice can make or break your training results, as these drinks affect your body in different ways.
In this article, we are going to dive deeper into a pre workout vs energy drink and unpack when the best time to use both would be so that you can crush your summer workouts.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to treat or diagnose any condition. It is recommended that you speak with your doctor before starting any exercise program, making changes to your nutrition plan, or adding any new supplements to your current regimen.
Pre-Workout Supplements: Designed for Athletic Performance
When you’re looking at a pre workout vs energy drink, a pre workout supplement will usually always have a deeper ingredient profile than an energy drink, which is typically a one-dimensional beverage.
Pre-workout supplements are loaded with powerful ingredients to help boost your training results. The goal of a solid pre-workout is to help enhance strength, endurance, and focus when training.
There are three key categories to look for in your pre-workouts that can be the difference between finishing your workout as strong as when you first started and hitting the wall halfway through your training session. You need a pre-workout that supports muscle pumps, hydration, and recovery.
These formulas contain specific doses of performance enhancers like caffeine, beta-alanine, creatine, and amino acids.
Solid pre workout supplements deliver anywhere between 200mg and 350mg of caffeine to sharpen focus and delay muscle fatigue during intense training sessions. The beta-alanine content of 3.2-4g helps muscles work harder for longer periods.
Many pre workout supplements combine ingredients like BCAAs and taurine to support muscle recovery and reduce muscular fatigue. These ingredients work together to help enhance physical performance and build strength.
The science-backed doses make pre-workouts more effective than basic energy drinks for serious training. Pre-workout supplements feed your muscles with compounds that boost nitric oxide production.
This increased blood flow helps deliver oxygen and nutrients exactly where your body needs them during exercise. The sustained energy from pre-workouts keeps you strong throughout your entire workout without the sudden energy crash.
RELATED: What Makes an Essential Pre-Workout Perfect for Every Gym Session?
Something else to take into consideration is the formula and understanding the ingredient profile. Knowing what’s in your pre-workout is super important. You want to feel confident in what you’re purchasing and buying, right?
NutraBio leads the way with clear and transparent labels that show the exact amounts of every ingredient — no proprietary blends.
Energy Drinks: Quick Boost or Short-Term Solution?
If you need a pick-me-up and a quick boost of energy, the use of an energy drink helps hit the spot. I know for me, if 2 pm rolls around and I’m dragging, I’m going to reach for an energy drink to help push me through the rest of my day.
The goal of energy drinks is to give you a quick boost through caffeine and sugar. Most energy drinks pack 80-200mg of caffeine plus lots of sugar or fake sweeteners. These drinks target quick mental energy but lack key workout nutrients that you’d want to get the most out of your training session.
If you’re trying to fuel your summer workouts, unfortunately (despite tasting great), an energy drink is lacking performance-specific nutrients that support serious training.
You’d rather grind through a brutal workout than sandbag it and leave the gym knowing you didn’t (or couldn’t) give it your all, right? Of course.
Your body needs specific ingredients to build muscle and strength during training. The basic mix of caffeine and B-vitamins in energy drinks falls short for serious training results.
Worse of all is that your workout results can suffer from energy drink crashes and dehydration. Energy drinks aren’t really designed or formulated for training — they’re more for a quick energy boost and possibly some mental focus.
The high sugar content in many energy drinks leads to energy spikes followed by major drops in the middle of training. You want something that provides a steady release of energy throughout your workout without causing you to hit the wall before you can even finish your last set.
I learned this lesson after trying energy drinks before lifting — my performance was all over the place before leaving the gym, wondering what just happened. The mix of caffeine and sugar definitely caused my energy levels to spike to start my training session, but I was left riding a rollercoaster of energy for the rest of the workout.
And, unfortunately, most of that ride felt like my ride was in an extreme descent until eventually the bottom totally fell out from under me, and I had nothing left to give in my workout.
Not only from my own experiences but also the clients that I regularly train find that proper pre-workout supplements work much better for steady energy through intense gym sessions and provide us with the hydration, focus, energy, and muscle pumps we’re looking for.
Choosing the Right Option for Your Summer Fitness Goals
Your summer fitness goals need clear fuel choices, and you need to weigh your options between a pre workout vs an energy drink.
Is there a right and wrong choice? Actually, there is. It simply depends on the application and what your goal is by using a certain beverage.
Pre-workout supplements have a bunch of specific ingredients that help you train harder. That’s the main goal and reason for using one. These products can help you train harder and longer, maintain strength and muscular endurance, support proper hydration levels, and provide you with a crazy pump.
Hot weather workouts demand smart choices for your body. Pre-workouts give you better hydration support and steady energy release. They skip the sugar crash that many energy drinks can cause. This is a massive advantage when it comes to your training goals and results.
Summer heat puts extra stress on your body during workouts, especially those outdoors.
Something I learned as a trainer, strength coach, and sports nutritionist is that pre-workouts with clean ingredients work best for training. They help control your heart rate, avoid jitters, and don’t allow for sugar crashes that can completely derail your training session quite quickly.
Overall, your body works better with targeted nutrition than random sugar spikes. And when you need a pre-workout supplement that works as hard as you, NutraBio has you covered with our various pre-workouts. We offer pure formulas (both with and without stimulants) that match what athletes like you need to maintain peak exercise performance.
RELATED: PRE vs PRE Stim-Free — Which Pre-Workout is Best for You?
Now, does that mean when it comes to using a pre workout vs energy drink that energy drinks are worthless? Absolutely not. As mentioned earlier, I’m a huge fan of energy drinks — only in certain scenarios.
Energy drinks are great for providing you with a quick boost of energy, and depending on the product and formula, even some mental focus. They’re perfect for long days where you need a little pick-me-up to keep you going and productive, help keep you awake when you’ve had a poor night’s rest, or when you’re engaging in casual activities where an increase in energy would be advantageous.
So, when choosing between a pre workout vs energy drink, you simply need to know the reason why you would use one over the other (which is what we’ve laid out in this article).
A bigger picture that we need to focus on when it comes to summer workouts is hydration. Staying hydrated is key, as even becoming slightly dehydrated can drastically reduce your exercise performance. Consume water regularly and sip it throughout your training sessions. You can even leverage some electrolytes in your water to replace key minerals and nutrients you lost through sweat.
Becoming dehydrated is a real concern when the summer heat hits, so do everything you can to ensure you stay properly hydrated at all times (even when you aren’t training).
Conclusion
Let’s wrap this all up and put a nice bow on it.
Pre-workout supplements are the clear winner for serious summer training. These products provide you with everything you need to get the most out of your training sessions and help you get the best results possible.
Energy drinks, on the other hand, might give a quick boost, but they lack the complete fitness benefits of pre-workout formulas and, therefore, should really only be used for casual activities or when you need a little bit of extra energy to get you through a long and tiring day.
Hopefully, this article helped guide you on the debate of pre workout vs energy drink and provided value.
The right choice of a pre-workout depends on personal fitness goals and what you’re looking to accomplish. If you’re sensitive to stimulants, use a stim-free formula. If you want the extra boost of energy and you can tolerate stimulants, there are plenty of options available.
Be safe this summer, stay hydrated, and as always… TRAIN HARD.
Author:
Matt Weik, BS, CSCS, CPT, CSN, is the owner of Weik Fitness. He is a globally recognized and prolific writer. With a passion for creating health and fitness content, Matt’s work has been featured on thousands of websites, over 100 magazines, and he has authored over a dozen published books.
