Tag: workout

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Is a non-stim pre workout supplement worth it?

We often get asked: “Why would I take a pre-workout supplement if there’s no caffeine in it?” It’s an understandable question, especially since most “pre workout” supplements out there are nothing more than artificially sweetened mega-doses of caffeine. 

But caffeine isn’t always the “holy grail” pre workout ingredient. It’s probably not even in the top five most important ingredients for a high-quality pre-workout. The right ingredients with proper doses can make a significant difference in your workout. 

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant that can perk you up when you’re feeling lethargic, can help with athletic performance, and can even improve cognitive performance. However, caffeine does have side effects, such as an increased anxiety, nervousness, jitteriness, elevated blood pressure and heart rate, decreased quality of sleep and/or insomnia, and risks during pregnancy. 

We love caffeine when consumed safely and in moderation. In fact, our classic PR Pre Workout contains a total caffeine profile of 200mg. This includes a 2:1 ratio of L-Theanine to caffeine to blunt the blood pressure response for a smooth energy with no spike or crash. Additionally, 50mg is from DiCaffeine Malate, a slow-release caffeine that extends your energy boost, reduces jitteriness and enhances digestion. 

However, there are many reasons you may want to steer clear of a caffeinated supplement. Some people may want to enjoy their morning coffee or tea without adding to their overall caffeine intake. Some may avoid caffeine altogether due to undesirable side effects. Some who exercise later in the day may want to avoid disrupted sleep. 

Enter The Non-Stim Pre Workout

Fortunately, Non-Stim PR Pre Workout is packed with powerful, fully dosed ingredients that will help you crush your workout without impacting your sleep schedule. 

4g of CarnoSyn® Beta-Alanine helps to increase muscular endurance and reduces fatigue. By buffering lactic acid in the muscles, it reduces the “burning” feeling you get when doing a sprint or high reps of an exercise.

8g of L-Citrulline Malate helps to increase strength and power output so that you can do more sets and reps than your baseline before fatigue sets in. It also helps to reduce muscle soreness and speed recovery.

3g of Betaine increases your max power output, helping specifically to improve sprint performance. It’s also been shown to improve V02 max (aerobic capacity, aka longer duration cardio output) and capacity to handle higher training volumes.

600mg of Rhodiola Rosea, an adaptogen, helps to reduce cortisol levels during stressful events (like exercise). Rhodiola also helps to reduce rates of perceived exertion and lowers fatigue during exercise. There’s even some evidence that it may have anti-aging and pro-longevity effects.

Fully dosed nootropics: L-Theanine, L-Tyrosine, Alpha GPC, and Huperzine A to optimize cognitive function in both the short term and long term, helping increase your focus, sharpness, memory, and reducing harmful stress responses on the brain.

We hope you now know that caffeine isn’t the only ingredient that drives performance, and a well-formulated non-stim pre-workout can be just as effective in helping you train harder and recover better.  With Non-Stim PR Pre Workout, you get all the performance benefits of a high-quality pre-workout—without the caffeine. Our science-backed, fully dosed Non-Stim PR Pre Workout is the smart choice for peak performance at any time of day.

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Will Creatine Make Me Gain Weight?

If you’ve been in the fitness world for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard of creatine. Creatine is a naturally occurring compound widely used as a supplement among all ranges of athletes, from your casual gym goer to bodybuilders to professional athletes.

Creatine is one of the most researched and widely used supplements in the fitness world. The scientific literature shows that creatine enhances athletic performance, improves muscle strength, and decreases recovery times. It’s also been shown to have positive benefits for our cognitive health, such as increased memory and cognitive performance, protection against neurodegenerative diseases, better moods, helping to reduce the effects of sleep deprivation, and even possibly improving symptoms of depression. 

However, a common concern among the creatine-curious is weight gain due to creatine supplementation. So, let’s break down this concern and explore why the clinically studied benefits of creatine outweigh the potential side effects.

What is Creatine?

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound found in small amounts in foods like red meat and fish and is also produced by the body. It’s stored in the muscles and used as a quick energy source for high-intensity, short-duration activities like weightlifting, sprinting, and jumping. Taking a creatine supplement on a regular basis helps to maximize these benefits, increasing the body’s ability to regenerate ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the primary energy source for fast muscle contractions. 

Creatine’s benefits extend far beyond gym-goers. Research shows that creatine plays a crucial role in brain health, cognitive function, and overall energy production, making it valuable for people of all ages and lifestyles. It has been linked to improved memory, mental clarity, and reduced mental fatigue, especially in individuals who do not get enough from their diet, such as vegetarians. Additionally, creatine has neuroprotective properties that may help slow cognitive decline in aging populations and support overall brain resilience. Beyond cognitive benefits, creatine also aids in cellular energy production, which can enhance daily energy levels and combat general fatigue, making it useful for anyone looking to improve their mental and physical well-being—not just those focused on fitness.

The common concern: water retention

Creatine works by drawing water into your muscles, which can increase intracellular water content. When you first begin creatine supplementation, some individuals may notice a slight increase in total body weight. However, most of this weight gain is due to water retention in the muscle cells. The average water weight gain is usually between 2-4 lbs and happens within the first few days of starting creatine supplementation.

Why the benefits are worth it

People with weight loss goals may consider this a reason not to take creatine altogether. We’ve already outlined the multitude of creatine’s benefits above, but there are even benefits to the water weight itself: 

  1. Enhanced Muscle Definition: The few extra pounds of water accumulate inside muscle cells, not the fat cells, giving the muscles a fuller, more volumized appearance. If you already have a bit of muscle definition, the fuller muscle tissue can enhance that.
  2. Muscle Strength & Performance: The added water in muscle cells can also improve muscular endurance and overall performance during workouts by keeping your muscles hydrated and allowing for better nutrient transport, essential for muscle growth and recovery.
  3. Body Composition: Reliable body composition measuring devices (such as imaging like a DEXA scan, air/water displacement like the Bod Pod, or bioelectrical impedance like the InBody) will register the water as fat-free mass, not fat. 
  4. Proven Safety: Creatine is one of the safest supplements on the market. For most people, the benefits far outweigh any minor concerns about weight gain.

What to look for in a creatine supplement

There are a lot of different forms of creatine on the market. By a long shot, the most research has been published about creatine monohydrate. Creatine monohydrate is also cheaper than other forms, such as creatine hydrochloride, creatine citrate, and creatine malate. Look for a creatine monohydrate that is pure and unflavored, with no additives. If you love gummies or flavored creatine, by all means, take them, but also know that they usually include sugar and/or artificial sweeteners and other additives and will also be more expensive. 

You should supplement with creatine daily, so we don’t recommend taking a non-daily supplement (like pre-workout) combined with creatine. It doesn’t matter what time of day you take it, so long as supplementation is consistent. An average of 5 grams per day is generally recommended. 

Our creatine monohydrate has zero added ingredients, has no taste, and can easily be mixed with water or any other beverage. 

For the best supplements on the market, you can trust NorthStar Nutrition for clean, transparent, effective, clinically studied products with no artificial junk to aid you on your health and fitness journey.

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TFX Weekend Recap

Thank you to everyone we had the pleasure of meeting at The Fittest Experience Championship! We had great conversations with attendees and saw some amazing athletes throw down. 

The TFX Championship is an annual competition with both individual and team competitors in multiple divisions, including Rookie, Intermediate, RX, Pro, and Masters divisions. It’s held at the Williamson County Expo Center, just northeast of Austin. The weather was beautiful and reached the 60s and 70s—and if you went to the TFX Championships last year, you froze with us out there with temps in the 30s so you know how much of a blessing that truly was!

We spent the weekend slinging samples, educating about our products, cheering on the athletes, seeing old friends, and making new ones. We also reached a huge milestone in our growing business: we sold out of our first product, the Mango Electrolyte+! (Don’t worry, more is on the way!) 

Wishing the best of luck to everyone moving on to the TFX Invitational in May in Oklahoma City!

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Do I really need a pre-workout?

I wouldn’t be a responsible coach, a business representative, or just an honest human being if I said pre-workout is essential; in fact, I’ll even say that it’s not essential for everyone. In contrast, proper macro & micronutrients, adequate hydration, and even creatine are critical in your everyday life. Your fitness and health foundation comes from how you eat, hydrate, train, and recover. 

No pre-workout on the market will ever magically take you from a beginner to an advanced-level athlete on its own. Only hard work and smart lifestyle choices can do that. If a company makes a claim that sounds too good to be true, it is most likely too good to be true! 

However…

The real question becomes whether certain compounds can help improve your daily workouts. They absolutely can! In the correct dosages, certain ingredients are clinically tested to take your workout from “good” to “great.” And guess what, they’re safe, too. You won’t become a professional-level athlete after one dose, but consistent use over time can improve your workouts’ quality, effort, and intensity. Combined with good nutrition habits and consistent, well-programmed workouts, pre-workout supplementation can be a fantastic tool to help you reach your fitness goals. 

How does that work? First, ensure that the ingredients in your pre-workout have scientific evidence backing up their claims. Here are some ingredients that we love:

Beta-alanine can help to delay the lactic acid buildup in your muscles, or the “burn,” especially when you’re pushing yourself in a cardiovascular activity like a bike, row, run, uphill hike, or a high-rep set of resistance exercises. A serving size of 4,000 mg is the dosage shown to be effective in multiple clinical studies.

Citrulline malate can help you push out more reps in each set of exercise. For example, if you’re training squats to failure, citrulline malate supplementation may help you do more than you would have without supplementation. Citrulline malate can also delay the point where your mind tells you you’re exhausted—in other words; it decreases your rate of perceived exertion. A dosage of 8,000 mg of citrulline malate has been shown to achieve these results in multiple clinical studies.  

Betaine can help increase your aerobic capacity, maximum strength output, and maximum power output. That means that the amount of power that your body can produce (while doing a max lift, a sprint, or an explosive exercise) is increased with betaine supplementation. A dosage of 3,000 has been shown to be effective in clinical studies. 

Nootropics such as AlphaGPC, L-Tyrosine, L-Theanine, Huperzine-A, and Rhodiola Rosea help with mental sharpness, memory, and focus, helping you stay locked in on your workout. Without the dreaded “brain fog,” your mind can focus on things like accurate rep counting and proper form and technique. (There’s also compelling evidence of the long-term benefits of these ingredients for preserving cognitive function and being protective from cognitive decline!) 

However, throwing all of those ingredients into a supplement isn’t enough—you also have to ask if the amount of the ingredient is enough to actually make a difference. That’s what makes NorthStar Nutrition different. Our PR Pre Workout is unique: effective ingredients, no under-dosing, and no “proprietary blends” that don’t disclose how much of each ingredient you’re actually getting. 

Finally, your pre-workout shouldn’t have anything that you don’t need. Artificial sweeteners, colors and flavors are a cheaper way to make supplements come off more appealing to consumers, but can have negative impacts on your health. Some pre-workout brands hang their hat solely on mega-doses of caffeine. Other ingredients that supposedly improve performance may have little to no research backing those claims.

In conclusion, you certainly don’t need a pre-workout supplement to get a good workout and to reach your fitness goals. However, a quality pre-workout with correctly dosed ingredients can take your workouts to the next level! 

Read more about our ingredients that we carefully researched and chose to formulate the best pre-workout on the market.