Is Pre-Workout Bad For Your Body
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In the month of January in early 2021, a man named Thomas Anthony Mansfield died almost instantly after consuming a pre-workout product. He accidentally consumed more than a few hundred cups of coffee worth of the recommended amount of caffeine that his pre-workout drink contained. He sadly died almost immediately as a result of the sheer amount of caffeine he consumed. He was a very young and healthy family man, and he was a personal trainer too. This man sadly wound up dying as a result of over-measuring pre-workout by mistake. Luckily, the company which produced the pre-workout is now taking steps so that is less of a possibility for someone to accidentally consume too much, but these steps will not bring this man back.
If you are not careful when you are measuring the proper amount of pre-workout when making your drink, you could pass away just as this unfortunate man did. On the other hand, though, admittedly, pre-workout can be very helpful for some athletes and trainers, etc. However, these products need to be consumed with a high amount of caution if you do in fact do choose to use it. In this article, you will learn the pros and cons of having pre-workout as a part of your day. Is using pre-workout the right choice for you and are you consuming it safely? Find out below!
Do you actually know what is in pre-workout powders? Pre-workout powder products have a distinct purpose: it is made up of a lot of different ingredients and sorts of different supplements like caffeine, creatine, and vitamins and those are to go into your body before you work out. These supplements in the powder can benefit athletes and those looking to start heavy athletic training and add certain supplements into their
diets. A Men’s Health article agrees and wrote,
“A study published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports reported that combining pre-workout with HIIT workouts resulted in significant increases in VO2 max, training volume and lean body mass while also speeding up the rate at which moderately-trained recreational athletes lost body fat.”
So, after looking at different pieces of information regarding pre-workout, these products are not all inherently bad necessarily if you are into HIIT workouts. If you are in the right situation and have the need, utilizing pre-workout in the proper way can be beneficial for you. This product has the potential to be helpful to you depending on your fitness goals and if you utilize it correctly. However, I do not think all of the benefits outweigh the many dangers that can occur from pre-workout side effects and the different ways it can harm your body if it is not used properly. Not only are the various ingredients potentially dangerous, but there also are ways to easily mismeasure it. Additionally, there have been trends popping up lately regarding pre-workout drinks appearing on the internet. Trends on social media platforms have proved dangerous very recently due to the many partakers in these trends and “dry scooping”.
The practice called dry scooping, where one takes pre-workout by just swallowing the powder without mixing it in a liquid first has seemed to become a trend on social media platforms lately. There are hundreds of videos you can watch where daring individuals dry scoop and record the interesting aftermath they experience. The people in the videos think it is amusing that they are experiencing the side effects as a result of their actions to post it for the world to see, but they obviously do not realize the full extent of harm that they are doing to their bodies. According to Poison Control, dry scooping can actually be quite dangerous to do, believe it or not.
“Swallowing a large amount of powder can result in choking and breathing difficulties. Also, consuming a full scoop of pre-workout powder without diluting it in water first, results in the delivery of a large dose of the ingredients all at once. Caffeine is a common ingredient in these supplements; when used in excess or consumed too rapidly, caffeine can cause anxiety, rapid heart rate, chest pain, heart problems,
dizziness, and tremors.”
When the pre-workout powder is not mixed with some sort of liquid, it becomes a stronger substance and therefore is more hazardous for consumption as the powder is just going into your body at full force. If you are a user of pre-workout or are considering using it, make sure you pay attention to its instructions. Use it how it is instructed to be used and mix it with the proper amount of liquid before you consume the product. Following the directions is absolutely vital if you want to avoid dangerous side effects of the products and the supplements it contains. If you have dry scooped before, think twice before you think of dry scooping before your next workout if you use pre-workout.
When you go to buy products at the grocery store to put into your body, you should know exactly what is inside of them. Some pre-workout products can and have historically contained some very harmful and borderline illegal substances. This is very concerning. You definitely need to make sure that if you were to buy a pre-workout that the one you purchase does not contain these materials or other materials that can debatably be found as harmful and/or illegal. Agatha Milholland said in her article regarding pre-workout and its ingredients that,
“In 2014, several pre-workout supplements were found to have DMBA. This is a substance pretty close to another chemical banned by the FDA, DMAA. Both DMBA and these supplements containing it were banned later in 2015 for increasing risk of
heart attacks, bleeding of the brain and even death.”
If you buy pre-workout, you really need to pay special attention to its ingredients to make sure it does not contain harmful chemicals the supplements. Additionally, in regards to the 2014 case regarding DMAA and later DMBA, it took a year for DMBA to be declared banned. Who knows if all of the other materials in pre-workout are 100% safe for consumption or not as our science gets better and as we learn? The supplements and boosts which might help you train better do not seem to be worth the risk of death or putting harmful chemicals into your body.
Whether you decide for yourself that pre-workout is worth it or not after reading this article and the information enclosed in this article, that is a choice that is solely up to you. It is completely your choice on what pre-workout products you buy, supplements you consume, how you consume them, etc. However, it is nevertheless important to keep in mind that it can be extremely hazardous if you use pre-workout products incorrectly. One needs to be careful when using it. When pre-workout is not used with caution, you are at risk of having health complications or even death as a result. Just make sure the next time you go to the grocery store and glance in the pre-workout powder aisle, keep in mind the dangers of pre-workout if you go to use it.
