Before, During and After a Workout: What to Take, and What to Skip
The supplement industry has managed to sell most lifters three products for a job that usually needs one. This is an attempt to lay out what each phase is actually for, including the parts where the answer is that you can skip it.
One thing first. None of this matters much if training and total daily protein are not in place. Supplements work on the margins of something that is already happening. If the foundation is not there, you are improving the edges of nothing.
Before
The main reason to take anything before training is caffeine, and caffeine has genuinely good evidence behind it for performance. It reduces how hard a given effort feels, which tends to show up as more reps or a slightly heavier set.
Most commercial pre-workouts are caffeine plus a handful of other things at varying doses. What is often worth having alongside it:
Citrulline supports nitric oxide production, which is the mechanism behind the pump people are chasing. Doses in the research are generally in the 6 to 8 g range for citrulline malate, and plenty of products use far less.
Beta-alanine has reasonable evidence for high rep, sustained effort work. It is also what causes the tingling face and arms. That sensation is harmless and has nothing to do with whether it is working.
What is usually not worth it: enormous proprietary blends, a dozen ingredients at unstated doses, and anything relying on the tingle to convince you it is doing something.
Timing is about twenty to thirty minutes before you start. And keep an eye on the clock, because a strong pre-workout at seven in the evening is still substantially in your system at midnight. SUPPIES Pre-Workout is our version of this, and the same caution applies to it as to any other.
During
For most sessions, water.
This is where the industry sells the most and delivers the least. Intra-workout formulas make sense in specific situations: long sessions past the ninety minute mark, training in real heat, endurance work, or anyone who sweats heavily enough that they are losing meaningful electrolytes. Under those conditions replacing electrolytes as well as fluid is genuinely useful, which is what our hydration powders are for.
For a forty five minute session in an air conditioned gym, water does the job and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
After
Protein is the one that actually matters, and the reason is boring: it is easier to hit your daily target when one of the meals is a shake. The anabolic window turned out to be much wider than the marketing of the early 2000s suggested, so the urgency is overstated, but total daily intake is not. SUPPIES IsoBoost is a whey isolate, which digests quickly and is lower in lactose than a concentrate.
If you are already eating enough protein across the day, a shake is convenience rather than necessity. That is a perfectly good reason to buy one. It is just a different reason than the one usually given.
Creatine goes in the after column mostly because that is when people remember it, although the timing genuinely does not matter. It is the best evidenced supplement in the category, and we answered the five questions people actually ask about it in this piece. Plain monohydrate, 5 g a day, is the whole protocol.
The one we will talk you out of
BCAAs are the clearest example of a supplement that made sense in a narrower context and then got sold to everyone.
Muscle protein synthesis needs all nine essential amino acids. BCAAs give you three of them. If your overall protein intake is adequate, you are already getting those three in far larger quantities from your food and your shakes, and adding more of them separately does not do much.
Where they can be reasonable: training fasted and wanting something in your system, or finding that sipping a flavored drink keeps you hydrated through a long session. Those are real, they are just modest reasons. If you are buying BCAAs for the first of those reasons rather than because you think they will build muscle on their own, you are buying them accurately.
We would rather sell you one tub of protein you will use than three tubs of things you will not.
If you were starting from zero
Protein if you struggle to hit your intake. Creatine. Caffeine before hard sessions. Electrolytes when you are actually sweating hard.
That is the list. Everything else is refinement, and refinement is only worth paying for once the basics are boring.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication or managing a health condition, talk to your doctor before starting any supplement.
