Why Most Pre-Workouts Are Not Good Pre-Ride Supplements

Pre-Workout drink mixes consist of a smorgasbord of random ingredients with the hopes one will work. While this might help set a new PR in the gym, as a dirt bike or mountain bike rider (which is endurance focused athletics), your body requires a bit more sophistication.

Our bodies are extremely smart and have developed 3 metabolic systems to supply energy:

• ATP-C/Phosphagen System - Anaerobic system that supplies energy for very intense activities <0:30 seconds in duration (Weightlifting, sprinting)
• Glycolysis - Anaerobic system that supplies energy for intense activities lasting 0:30-2:00 minutes in duration (400m run)
• Oxidative - Aerobic system that supplies energy for less intense activities lasting longer than 2:00 (Endurance sports, moto, mtb)

You will notice that weightlifting and endurance sports sit on opposite ends of the spectrum! In fact, weightlifting is an anaerobic activity (doesn’t require oxygen) while MOTO and MTB are primarily aerobic (requires oxygen)! This begs the question; as an endurance athlete, why are you still using a pre-workout designed for throwing weights around?

A Pre-Ride Is Focused On Endurance Performance

Unlike pre-workouts designed to stimulate your nervous system for 30 mins, pre-ride/pre-endurance drinks (like our product PREPARE+) are formulated to support your performance for hours. By sticking to the fundamentals, pre-endurance supplements meet your physiological demands for the long ride.

Pre-Ride Can Help Mitigate Dehydration

Water is the single most important compound you put in your body that affects performance. Just a 2% drop in body weight from water loss causes a measurable decline in endurance performance. Proper hydration before a race is as fundamental and basic as it gets. This is why it’s a focal point for pre-endurance preparation.

Endurance Requires Proper Fuel: Carbs and MCT’s

Just like shoveling coal into a furnace to power trains, an endurance athlete must shovel food to power their muscles.

Because your body is so smart, it’s able to turn any food you eat into energy. As an athlete, “any food” doesn’t cut it. High level endurance performance requires high-quality foods.

For example, maltodextrin has been found to cause an imbalance in the gut biome which can lead to numerous issues including decreased immunity and potentially even Crohn's disease. While many other supplements still choose to use maltodextrin, we opted for better.

PREPARE+ utilizes two fuel sources:

• Carb10 for complex carbs
• MCT's for fast digesting fats

Unlike maltodextrin-based supplements, which can cause unnatural spikes in blood-sugar levels (and the crashes or bloating that typically follow), Carb10® is a source of clean, sustained energy derived from pea starch. It is perfectly suited to the physical demands of all types of endurance athletes including moto and MTB riders.

PREPARE+ also includes MCT (Medium Chain Triglycerides) to take advantage of the body’s ability to use fats for fuel. MCTs have become the fat fuel of choice due to their ability to be broken down faster and they come from coconut oil.

With these two sources of fuel, an endurance athlete has better access to more energy.

Electrolytes: It’s What Endurance Athletes Crave!

Our sweat contains a bunch of these cool ion-containing minerals called electrolytes. Inside the body, these electrolytes form an electrical gradient that allows communication to occur between the brain and muscles. If you sweat out too many electrolytes, your brain stops communicating and your muscles stop working.

That’s why It’s imperative to hydrate with a liquid enhanced with electrolytes BEFORE and DURING intense activity. A pre-endurance drink that contains electrolytes will get you closer to an isotonic state before you even start to guarantee a smooth ride.

Both PREPRE+ and SUSTAIN have been formulated with the ideal ratio of electrolytes. They use natural ingredients, like pink Himalayan salt for sodium, to provide a premium drink superior to the rest.

Focus

Focus, Focus, Focus!

Whether you’re riding by yourself or it’s race day, things happen fast… Hopefully really fast! That’s why PREPRE+ delivers the perfect size dose of high-quality caffeine from green tea to prolong your mental focus and keep you on target.

Caffeine is the most consumed drug in the world and one of the most studied AND beneficial ergogenic aids (A compound that improves performance). It has been shown to improve performance, increase time to exhaustion, and increase mental focus.

Studies suggest athletes consume 1.5-3.0mg per pound of bodyweight. However, our pre-endurance formula is built for the long-run. That’s why we choose a modest amount of 120g. This amount provides the benefits in a controlled manner without the unwanted anxiety or jitters.

Of all the benefits you get from PREPARE+, an increased sense of awareness and focus is the one that may help you stay rubber side down.

Metabolism

When people think about “increasing your metabolism”, they think of burning fat for weight loss or aesthetic goals. When we say metabolism, we are talking about the fundamental energy creation and processing systems of your body.

During prolonged exercise, your body breaks down your carbohydrate (in the form of glycogen) and fat stores to create cellular usable energy in the form of ATP. We all have plenty of fat that gives us almost an unlimited supply of potential fuel! However, compared to carbs, fats are much more difficult to break down (seems like some sort of cruel trick)!

Your body has a tendency to preserve its glycogen stores in long bouts of exercise because the brain needs it to function. So you can run into a scenario where you feel foggy and tired if you are A) running low on glycogen and not replenishing carbs during activity and/or B) your body is not well adapted for fat utilization.

One of caffeine’s lesser known benefits is that it actually improves your body's ability to break down fat for fuel and the same is true for green tea extract. To enhance this effect, taurine has also been added as it too increases fat utilization while limiting the use of glycogen stores. 

VO2 Max

VO2max is the measurement of your body’s ability to utilize oxygen during incremental exercise. It’s the most important physiological variable to measure an athlete's endurance capability making any increase extremely valuable.

Usually improved through training, research has discovered certain natural compounds can cause significant increases with consumption. This is why PREPARE+ has included Ashwagandha and the patented PEAKO2 Organic Mushroom blend. 

MTB And MOTO Athletes Should Stay Away From Creatine

Creatine is one of the most studied and effective supplements on the market for muscle building and strength support. However, it’s not suitable for every situation.

Creatine supplementation works by increasing your muscles creatine stores to allow a greater amount of ATP to be synthesized. This ATP then provides energy for explosive and high-intensity movements such as weightlifting. However, if you remember the 3 metabolic systems above, endurance sports rely on a completely different set of mechanisms making creatine’s benefits on endurance moot.

In addition, creatine will make you gain weight from water retention. In fact, this is one of its most desired effects. On a linebacker or weightlifter, this extra weight can definitely be beneficial. As an endurance athlete, it’s going to slow you down. There is also some evidence that creatine may actually increase arm pump due to this water retention.

Gastrointestinal distress is also the most common side effect reported when taking creatine. As a MOTO or MTB athlete, you’re getting tossed around a lot. Having excessive gas, bloating, or worse is not going to make for a fun day in the woods.

Avoid Gastro Distress Caused By Artificial Flavors And Sweeteners

In the quest to make their supplements taste like “Fruity Starburst Jolly Rancher Blast”, companies have resorted to using an excessive amount of unnatural flavors and sweeteners in their product. Beside the fact you can taste these supplements in your teeth, a large portion of individuals do not digest these unnatural compounds well. As a result, they’re left with gastro distress when they’re in the middle of the action.

Again. Not a fun day in the woods.

Avoiding this is simple. Only use products that use natural flavors and sweeteners, like our products.

Beta-Alanine For Explosive Strength

MTB and MOTO are not pure endurance sports. Of course a lot of time is spent in a steady state. That’s until you find the need to break away from the pack or you see that sweet finish line and sprint to glory.

During these intense bouts of exercise, lactic acid is built up and must be metabolized. This process produces a build-up of hydrogen ions which disrupts the muscles pH levels causing the burning sensation and muscle fatigue.

Instead of just accepting this fate, prime yourself with beta-alanine. Beta-alanine is the precursor to carnosine, the muscles primary pH buffer. By supplementing with beta-alanine, you increase your body’s muscle carnosine levels and delay the burn. You can now ride harder and longer.

Beta-alanine might even be useful as an Arm Pump reliever.

If you have questions on your personalized nutrition plan or any of our products, be sure to Contact Us! Simple performance nutrition is what we do.