Pre-Workout (Multi-Ingredient)

Multi-ingredient pre-workout supplements (MIPS) are blended products taken before training. According to the 2018 review by Harty and colleagues in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, the most common ingredients are caffeine, beta-alanine, citrulline, arginine, creatine, taurine and B-vitamins, in widely varying doses and combinations.

What published research reports

The JISSN review reports that acute MIPS use has been shown in some studies to improve muscular endurance and subjective ratings of focus and energy, and that longer-term use alongside resistance training has in some trials improved training adaptations; it attributes much of the acute effect to the caffeine content. It also raises the issues of proprietary blends — labels that hide individual ingredient doses — and of products containing ingredients in doses below those shown effective in isolation, and advises consumers to scrutinise labels. The IOC consensus statement on dietary supplements (2018) reports more generally that multi-ingredient products increase the difficulty of predicting effects and the risk of inadvertent doping violations from contaminated or mislabelled products, and points athletes to third-party-tested products.

References

• Harty PS, Zabriskie HA, Erickson JL, Molling PE, Kerksick CM, Jagim AR. Multi-ingredient pre-workout supplements, safety implications, and performance outcomes: a brief review. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2018;15:41. JISSN
• Maughan RJ, et al. IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete. Br J Sports Med. 2018;52:439–455. PubMed