How you fuel your body before a workout directly impacts your ability to perform during the workout.
Many people get their pre-workout energy from nutrient-rich foods (like fruits and veggies), while others consume pre-workout supplements -- often loaded with caffeine -- to provide a boost of energy that can kick their workout into high gear.
What are Pre-Workout Supplements?
Pre-workout supplements (often just called “pre-workout”) are a broad category of supplements that are intended to boost workout performance. Even if you’ve never taken pre-workout supplements like this before, you’ve probably seen someone prepping for their workout by gulping down a shaker bottle full of a brightly colored drink.
Unlike other supplements, there isn’t necessarily a common set of ingredients at the core of all pre-workout supplements. The term “pre-workout” has become a catch-all for any product that provides an energy boost. However, many of these products include potentially harmful, unregulated ingredients. There’s a good chance you’ll find at least one of the following ingredients in any pre-workout supplement:
- Caffeine: Just as it does in coffee and energy drinks, the caffeine in many pre-workout supplements acts as a stimulant for the body’s central nervous system that boosts alertness and mitigates fatigue. It’ll often cause jitters and eventually a crash as it wears off in your system.
- Beta-Alanine: Beta-Alanine is a non-essential amino acid commonly marketed as a supplement that can improve athletic performance and endurance. Beta-alanine does help boost the production of carnosine, a compound that helps reduce muscle fatigue, but it has not been scientifically proven to increase muscle strength or endurance. It’s also known to cause the tingly, itchy skin sensation that people commonly feel when taking traditional pre-workout supplements.
- Creatine: Creatine is one of the most widely-used sports supplements on the market. It’s an organic compound that aids in the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – the energy source that powers your muscles. It’s most commonly used by active individuals looking to build lean muscle mass and improve their overall athletic performance.
What is Nitric Oxide and how does it work?
If you’re looking for a pre-workout supplement that will improve the quality of your workouts and boost your endurance, nitric oxide is the key.
Nitric oxide plays a crucial role in blood vessel health and is one of the few molecules produced by nearly every type of cell in the body. It acts as a vasodilator, meaning that it helps to both increase blood flow and reduce blood pressure by relaxing the walls of blood vessels and allowing them to expand.This increase in blood flow better nourishes muscles and allows for more of a “pump” during workouts.
When your blood flow is enhanced through vasodilation, the effects of fatigue from lactic acid are delayed, thus improving your endurance and allowing you to push even harder during a workout.
What We Recommend: We recommend looking for all-natural products and staying away from anything that describes itself as “explosive,” “extreme ,” or anything even close to that – and the fewer ingredients the better.
VitalFit’s RedRoot is the optimal pre-workout choice for health-conscious athletes and active people who want a natural, plant-based energy boost before exercise. The naturally-occurring nitrates from the raw red spinach and beetroot found in RedRoot work to stimulate improved blood flow and ultimately reduce the buildup of lactic acid throughout the body during exercise.
Lactic acid buildup occurs when the body gets low on the oxygen it needs to convert glucose into energy. You’ll usually feel the effects of lactic acid buildup in the form of cramps, muscle fatigue, and acute muscle pain as you get deep into a long run or a hard workout. The naturally occurring nitrates in VitalFit’s RedRoot blend help improve muscular endurance by increasing the flow of blood and oxygen throughout the body – thus delaying the onset of lactic acid buildup and allowing you to keep going even longer.
Why We Love RedRoot:
- Only Two Ingredients. VitalFit’s RedRoot contains two all-natural ingredients: Red-Violet Beetroot Extract, and Raw Red Spinach Extract. It contains no added chemicals, sugar, colorings, or other unnecessary additives – only the best possible natural sources of nitric oxide
- No Jitters or Tingles. RedRoot is a clean source of pre-training energy that naturally boosts endurance and fights muscle fatigue without the jittery, tingling feeling that comes with traditional pre-workout supplements. Unlike many pre-workout supplements, it contains no beta-alanine.
- No Crash. RedRoot provides a natural energy boost without relying on stimulants like caffeine, so you won’t experience a sudden crash during or after your workout.
- Proven Results. Beet root extract has been studied extensively for more than 10 years. This review from 2017 found that studies of beet root extract have continuously shown that it increases the body’s nitric oxide supply and improves cardiovascular endurance as a result. Another clinical study in 2016 found that supplementation of the extract from red spinach causes an increase in plasma nitrate, which also ultimately increases the presence of nitric oxide in the body. VitalFit chose two of the most nitric oxide-rich ingredients available for RedRoot, making it the ultimate natural source of pre-workout energy and endurance.
- No Additives. RedRoot contains no sugar, sweeteners, or artificial flavors, and is gluten, grain, & dairy free, as well as vegan.
