When you’re young and new to the gym the variety of different pre-workouts on the market can be dazzling to say the least. You have the big brand names that spend millions in marketing, you have flashy packaging and influencer partnerships, and then on top of it all you have ingredient profiles to contend with, some of which can be downright opaque with some supplement brands.
None of that is the case with Opti-Nutra’s Pre Lab Pro brand. From the ground up this pre-workout was designed to check every box with science-backed ingredients to be essentially the “perfect” pre-workout.
Having drank literally gallons of pre-workout over my 15 year fitness journey I’ve tried pretty much every major supplement and I can count on just one hand the number of pre-workouts that truly impressed me.
At the top of that list is Pre Lab Pro and below I’ll explain why this stuff is worth every penny.
The Days Of Jittery Pre-Workouts Are Gone
If you’re still getting the jitters from your pre-workout in 2023 then you’re buying the wrong pre-workout plain and simple. It’s not 2008 anymore and no longer are pre-workouts measured by their pure caffeine content or the insanely rickety energy they impart.
No, sir there’s no need for any of that. Today we’re living in a world where the active ingredient refinement, in terms of compound extraction as well as dosing, means bodybuilders and gym rats can finally have their cake and eat it too.
Pre Lab Pro has a very modest 80mgs of natural caffeine from coffea robusta seeds, which are essentially green coffee beans that provide a more linear energy delivery.
The rad part is you can have intensity without simply dumping massive amounts of caffeine into your pre-workout. In Pre Lab Pro you have 160mg of L-theanine from green tea, L-Tyrosine, and a bunch of D3, B6 and B12 vitamins for a sustained level of energy.
A Pre-Workout That Supports All Stages of Exercise
As pre-workouts have evolved they’ve also lengthened the duration in which they assist you in your gym goals. Previously caffeine-loaded non-transparently labelled pre-workouts were more about getting the ball rolling, injecting some energy to get you in the gym and into your sets.
Unfortunately many pre-workouts stopped there, leaving you to your own devices once actually in the gym or worse yet, crashing you hard mid-workout as your body metabolizes the insane caffeine load and drops you off a cliff because the pre-workout only lasts a fraction of your total gym time.
Pre Lab Pro has a “Setria Performance Blend” of beetroot powder, NutriGenesis potassium, and Himalayan pink salt to promote blood flow and replenish electrolytes that are inevitably lost during intense exercise.
L-Citrulline courtesy of Kyowa Quality and L-Glutathione (Setria) help maintain muscle endurance for blasting through long and arduous workouts.
The end result here is a pre-workout that lifts you up gently with a reasonable dose of caffeine, and then carries you through your entire workout without crashing, slowly tapering off after your workout so you aren’t left wired and thus can more easily rest and recover for your next workout.
Skinny Yoked Summary
As I started with I’ve drank hundreds of pre-workouts over the course of my life, some of them I actually regret because of how shady the labelling systems were. If anyone remembers things like Jack3d original formula or to a lesser extent Nitraflex will understand where I’m coming from when I say pre-workouts have evolved a lot in the last decade or so.
Early pre-workouts were like rough untamed, somewhat dangerous American muscle cars. Big engine in the front, rear-wheel drive, hold on and go fast in a straight line, don’t die.
Today’s generation of pre-workout are entirely different beasts. There have been so many advances in active compounds like AstraGin, Senactiv, Nitrosigine, NeuroFactor, Setria, Kyowa Quality, the list goes on.
As a result today’s pre-workouts are more like finally tuned luxury sports vehicles. They are better engineered and aren’t all about sheer strength but factor in other considerations like focus, clarity, pump, replenshment, and recovery.
In testing Pre Lab Pro over the last month or so I have to say, this may be my new all-time favorite pre-workout supplement. I love how smooth it is. I personally HATE getting jittery in the gym, it distracts me and erodes my confidence when lifting heavy so having something that dials me in without tweaking me out is critical.
I have to say I found Pre Lab Pro MOST useful on leg days. Having a steady calm energy with plenty of vitamins and sodium for keeping my sweaty ass going for an hour at a time is something that is immensely helpful with long grueling leg days.
The packaging, the texture, mixability and flavor all are great. No clumping when you mix and a serving size is a very reasonable 1-scoop, so you aren’t having to drink gallons of the stuff to reap the benefit.
The flavor I got was “Natural Berry Flavor” and it was solid, I suspect in part because instead of cheaper sugar they use a combination of monk fruit extract and stevia to sweeten it. The flavoring comes courtesy of Swerve natural flavors. If I had to describe the flavor I’d say kind of like a cherry-raspberry drink that’s a little thicker than cheap sugar drinks.
On the whole if you’re looking to try a new pre-workout that will fuel intense workouts without the jitters or peak/crash of some brand then I encourage you to check out Pre Lab Pro. The company started in 2015 making nootropics which is an entirely unique approach for a business to make a pre-workout and I think they hit it out of the park here with Pre Lab Pro.
