Energy Drinks vs Pre-Workout Supplements


I am recently recovering from a nasty virus followed-up by a sinus infection.  During that time I have not been working out as much (if at all) and subsequently I have not been taking my pre-workout supplements.  I noticed I started getting some pretty ferocious headaches.  At first I thought it was just from being sick, but I soon realized it was a form of caffeine withdrawal.  Since I was not working out, I did not want to bomb some C4 just to alleviate a caffeine headache, so I resorted to an energy drink and/or some coffee.  This got me thinking…
The vast majority of people agree that energy drinks are junk, but freely consume pre-workout powder.
I started thinking about the effects my pre-workout was having on my body and why I would really want to consume anything that, when I stop consuming it, makes me feel like shit.  In a way, I was chemically addicted to my pre-workout powder – since not taking it resulted in a pretty nasty headache.  So, to conduct my “research” I grabbed the energy drink can that I consumed – Rockstar Pure Zero (a calorie-free energy drink) and compared the ingredients in to common nutritional pre-workout supplements.
Much to my surprise, I was able to find every single ingredient listed in my energy drink in one or more pre-workout supplements.  This really means that the “bad-for-you” energy drink really does not contain anything different than “healthy” nutritional supplements.  Sure I did not opt for the sugar-filled energy drink, but my calorie-free energy drink, on the surface, appears to have the same ingredients as popular pre-workout supplements.  Marketing?  Hype?
The Conclusion:
There really is not a conclusion here.  I am not conducting any scientific research, this is merely a thought to ponder.  I simply wanted to compare the ingredient list of an energy drink to pre-workout supplements.  This would really only leave us with two options:  Energy drinks are not as bad as they a re perceived to be OR pre-workout supplements are just as bad for you as energy drinks.  The energy drink may actually be better for you as it only contained 160mg of caffeine – far lower than most main-stream pre-workout powders.
The whole premise of this article was just to investigate the ingredients in an energy drink and see if they could be found in pre-workout supplements.  Conclusion is that I was able to find a pre-workout supplement that contained every ingredient in my energy drink.  This article is not suggesting to drink an energy drink as opposed to a pre-workout supplement as pre-workout drinks contain other ingredients to promote muscular endurance, NO Boosters, etc.  They are definitely not equals, just a simple science experiment on ingredient matching.  That’s all.

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