If you’ve ever chugged on a pre-workout you’ll know exactly how effective they are for shirt-ripping, weight plate-smashing strength and power.
Relentless drive, no fear motivation and maximal-effect energy are just a few things that you can expect from a high-quality supplement.
And it gets better too.
Adding creatine to the mix only supercharges your results. It’s like throwing petroleum on an already furnace-like fire. It provides the power to not only singe your eyebrows but blow up in your face with its gains.
The problem is though that buying creatine powder and adding it into your pre-workout can be a pain in the a$$.
Creatine doesn’t always mix that great when you have it separately. You might leave one of your supps in your other gym bag by mistake – ultimately you just want to keep things simple.
That’s where pre-workout supplements with creatine already in them are your best bet.
The Bro-down: Article Key Points
- Creatine is a natural compound that helps generate more energy during intense exercise such as sprinting or lifting chunks of iron.
- Pre-workout supplements are well known for their ability to boost stamina, power production, focus and motivation.
- Taking a pre-workout and creatine together will improve results.
- Aim to find a pre-workout supplement with creatine already in it. It’s simpler and designed to mix well with zero effort.
A quick word about Pre-workout supplements…
We guess you could call this section an introduction. Or preface maybe.
Don’t skip it though as it’s the most important part.
Just before we go balls deep into the bar-bending world of creatine, it’s worth highlighting exactly why you should be chugging a pre-workout to get the best from your strength and cardio workouts.
- Athletes should use pre-workouts to crush fatigue and compete the best they can
- Bodybuilders should hit up the PW for max gains and ripping barbells
- Hell, even your grandma should double scoop before she starts lifting those grocery bags.
Imagine being able to pick up a sports drink and use it to improve every single angle of your workout. Not just energy but power, strength and focus too.
Whether you want to smash your way through a tough endurance workout, deliver muscle pumps that squeeze every inch of blood to your muscles or break the bar on your latest PR in the weights room – you NEED a pre-workout.
That’s exactly what a pre-workout does.
Packed full of natural ingredients such as caffeine, citrulline malate, red beet extract and the awesome L-theanine, these supplements get you where you need to be, fast.
…and like any other supplement; a product is only as good as the nutrients inside it.
There’s nothing worse than a sh*tty workout
You set foot in the gym and you just know it’s not your day.
Even your warm up weights are feeling heavy and you just can’t get out of first gear. You’re unmotivated and probably one more bad rep away from smashing a dumbbell through the gym mirror.
The best pre-workouts on the market put a stop to those days. They guarantee energy, focus and drive.
You need one to get the best results in the shortest amount of time.
It’s all about the ingredients… don’t cut corners
Cheap and nasty pre-workouts are full of poor formulas that are either under-dosed or over-priced. Either that or they’re rammed to the eyeballs full of caffeine and nothing else.
Yeah, they get you jacked from the energy boost, but the feelings of jitters and anxiety ruin your workout.
A great supplement thinks about exactly what you need from your pre-workout, and why. They use the right ingredients in the right way.
This is the reason why we always stick to the best natural pre-workout supplements.
and one of those is creatine…
[infobox]Just the tip: Pre-workout supplements are a must for any serious bro wanting to triple results in the gym. They’re used by athletes, bodybuilders and everyone between.
[/infobox]What is Creatine?
Creatine is a natural compound made up of three amino acids. It has numerous roles, but the most important here is that it helps you produce more adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
Hmm, long nerd words right there.
But how does it help?
ATP is the primary fuel system used during high-intensity exercise such as weightlifting, mass building, sprinting and so on.
The problem is that without supplementing creatine, you don’t store much of it in your body.
Within a few seconds it’s gone. And it takes a good few minutes to re-synthesize.
Adding creatine to your daily supplement regime helps you store more in your muscles, ready for even the toughest of workouts.
Learn more about the different types of creatine here.
Creatine reduces fatigue and boosts physical performance, power and strength
The most important thing about creatine is that it supports your performance goals just as much as a pre-workout.
In fact, combining the two is like combining PB & J, Lennon and McCartney, or Arnold and Columbo.
You get the idea.
It just works.
Because of the way creatine is stored in muscle, it also makes you look more jacked than normal, adding volume to your muscles and making you appear bigger and fuller than normal (never a bad thing in our eyes).
Why should you take Creatine?
A recent meta-analysis concluded that creatine supplementation results in an increase in strength of nearly 1.5% per week with enhanced muscle mass of 0.36% per week.
Check out the above conclusion from a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. That’s a huge boost in muscle performance each week.
That’s not all. Research also shows that creatine boosts the following elements of performance:
- Maximum oxygen consumption (VO2 max) by over 10%
- Running capacity and ‘critical velocity’ by as much as 23%
- Slashed body fat (because training capacity was higher) by 3%
- Improved muscle (lean mass) by 1.4 kg
- Higher overall training volume of 12%
All in all, creatine provides several benefits that work alongside and compliment your pre-workout in a number of ways.
- Improves high-intensity workloads for both cardio and strength training
- More strength and power
- Elevates testosterone levels
- Increases anabolic signalling process, meaning more muscle mass
- Reduced myostatin levels – a growth inhibitor that otherwise ‘caps off’ muscle growth
- Boosts mental sharpness, productivity and cognitive abilities
Give me some of that!
At this stage you’re thinking of stacking your creatine and pre-workout together.
Good. After all, who’d blame you.
You’ll get the energy, drive, focus and all of the performance benefits from the pre-workout. And once you throw in the creatine, you’re hitting supersaturation point of full-on gym carnage.
It’s like adding a NOS power shot to a 5-liter turbo engine.
If you’ve ever wanted to make the gym you little b*itch, this is exactly how.
[infobox]Just the tip: Creatine is one of a the most versatile and effective supplements you can add to your supplement utility belt. It’s a must have for any athlete wanting to boost sports performance.
[/infobox]
When should you take creatine?
It’s an age old question. And the ‘simple’ answer is it depends.
The most common method is to take creatine with your pre-workout. That way you know you’re prepping your body with higher saturation of creatine in muscle tissue prior to when you need it most – before your gym session.
When you need that ATP you can tap into the creatine stored in your muscles and away you go.
Ultimately, when you take your creatine is down to preference.
You could take creatine after your workout to help with recovery and fatigue. There’s some evidence to suggest that replenishing creatine after you’ve used it up in the gym helps to re-synthesize depleted stores.
But…
After a tough workout when you can only just remember your name, let alone to take a creatine supplement, it’s easier to just take it beforehand.
So, to answer the question, “can you take creatine and pre-workout at the same time?”…
The answer is a resounding hell yes!
[infobox]Just the tip: From a physiological point of view, taking creatine with your pre-workout makes total sense. You’ll saturate muscle stores and prepare your body for the war against the barbell.
[/infobox]The Best Pre-workout with Creatine
SpotMeBro is all for gainz. Like, that’s pretty much what we live for to be honest.
We’re supplement connoisseurs and demand the best from what we take.
Only you’ll not find us in the basements of wine cellars discussing oak notes and hints of clover.
Instead, you’ll catch us in the gym, measuring how jacked our pre-workouts have made our arms, or how dilated our pupils are in anticipation of ripping the gym a new one.
But we also like to keep things simple.
Having to take creatine and pre-workout on their own can be time-consuming. it leaves you with more and more to remember, and also trying to mix that shit like some kind of gym bro lab scientist.
That’s why we want to have our pre workout with creatine already added in there.
It’s easy, it’s simple and it guarantees that within 20-30 minutes of taking it, you’re full of jet fuel for the workout to come.
Pre-workout ingredients that go well with Creatine
We have hopefully, and slightly altered your view on a pre-workout with creatine.
As we’ve mentioned, for creatine to work you need to be having higher and more regular doses than pre-workouts can offer.
So, by separating out creatine supplements and your pre-workout supplement you’ll benefit much more from the performance enhancing properties of both.
Let’s say you’ve listened to our advice and decided to get a nice bag of creatine that you can supplement daily, which pre-workout should you choose to go alongside it?
Complete this sentence; “I want a pre-workout that makes me ……..”
Your answer probably fell into the below list. And by choosing the right pre-workout ingredients to stack alongside creatine, or without, you can still achieve some incredible results.
A good pre-workout ingredient should make you…
- Stronger and Pumped
- Faster
- Energized
- Avoid unwanted side effects
You might’ve said something different. But if you said ‘invincible’, ‘into the hulk’, ‘900 times as strong’ or ‘better in bed’ then you can read through the below. It’s all the same, sort of.
Stronger and pumped
L-Citrulline is the order of the day here. Not only will this allow your body to pump more blood to those muscles, it also provides one almighty muscle pump by dilating your blood vessels.
Faster and more powerful
Caffeine is a key component of almost every pre-workout available on the market and has been scientifically proven to enhance workout performance. Not only will it improve performance, it will increase metabolism. Helping you strip away some unwanted fat.
This should be top of your list.
Energized and focused
L-Carnitine at a dose of 300 mg or more can help your body produce energy more efficiently. This will aid performance and see you going beyond expectations.
Combine this with the calming effects of non-essential amino acid L-Theanine and you are really onto something special.
Avoid unwanted side effects
Nasty side effects like stomach cramps, anxiety or nausea can really ruin a workout. What’s even more annoying is that you won’t be able to use that pre-workout again. By buying something natural that isn’t a proprietary blend, you can be sure you’ll avoid any side effects.
Conclusion – Buying a Pre-workout with Creatine
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with us. Now comes to the crunch time.
At Spot Me Bro we have tested and tried, and tried, and tried, all sorts of pre workout blends with and without creatine.
As such we know that pre-workouts and creatine should be taken together. Taking this brutally-effective combo supercharges results and gives you the best workouts possible.
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