If you like that running high you get and appreciate how good you feel after your workouts, even when you are not an athlete, you will be happy to know that there is a way for you to make your runs more fun, and not run out of energy too soon.
Keeping at it is one of the things you could do, but picking up some of the best pre-workout supplements for running might be exactly what you need to pick up your pace.
Best Pre-Workout Supplements for Running
In our opinion, Cellucor C4 Pre Workout is the best for running. If you need the long-lasting energy to keep you running further, this is the supplement to try first. Continue reading to find out why and where to get it…
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C4 Original Pre Workout Powder for Men & Women
C4 is regarded as America’s leading brand of pre-workout supplements, not just for running, but for all other types of exercises.
With 150mg of caffeine, zero-sugar, creatine, and beta-alanine, this supplement is an excellent mix of ingredients that will boost your focus, performance, and energy. These ingredients will, as a result, yield long-lasting effects, allowing you to last for hours in some of the highest-intensity workouts.
Cellucor, the brand behind this supplement, has also enriched this supplement with essential minerals and vitamins, all formulated to ensure quick muscle recovery and performance after a long, high-intense workout.
Beta-alanine and creatine nitrate incorporated into this pre-workout supplement are the most effective ingredients when it comes to lean muscle mass growth, support, and strength.
It also contains mood-boosting and energy-boosting ingredients that will keep your blood cortisol levels low, while also improving your overall mental state. These ingredients include caffeine, velvet bean extract, and theanine.
Together, all these ingredients make this one of the most powerful pre-running supplements on the market. If you are looking for the most powerful workout and performance booster for your runs, then this Cellucor C4 might be exactly what you need.
- It is sugar-free
- 150mg caffeine per serving for increased focus, alertness, and increased blood flow to the muscles
- Enriched with vitamin C for improved immune function
- 6g carnosyn beta-alanine for explosive energy and top-performance
- Safe ingredients
- The exact dosages for the ingredients is not specified
- There is clumping
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Transparent Labs PreSeries Stim-Free Pre-Workout
Transparent Labs is one of the big brands of pre-workout supplements on the market, and this PreSeries Stim-Free Pre-Workout supplement might be a good option for you if you are looking for a safe, and stimulant-free supplement.
Its formulation with nitric oxide ensures enhanced muscle strength and performance, thanks to the boost in blood volume, which causes an increase in oxygen and nutrients to the muscles. The supplement contains citrulline malate and L-Norvaline for enhanced muscle strength.
This Transparent Labs supplement will increase your endurance and performance levels, reducing the risk of extreme muscle fatigue and muscle gains. For these benefits, this supplement is formulated with taurine, BCAA, Beta-alanine, and betaine.
The other component that makes the best of the pre-workout supplements caffeine, and you need it for a clear-headedness and enhanced mental focus. Caffeine anhydrous, L-Theanine, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, Synephrine, and Hordenine all allow you to enjoy these advantages.
- It is tasty
- Free of artificial coloring, sweeteners, preservatives, and gluten, and GMO ingredients
- Stimulant-free
- It increases endurance significantly
- Clinically-effective ingredients
- Ingredients boost muscle strength and cause gains in lean muscle mass
- It comes with a little itch
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Evlution Nutrition Pump Mode Nitric Oxide Booster
For the most intense muscle pumps, a high level of performance, and the vascularity you need on your runs, this nitric oxide supplement booster might be exactly what you need.
This pre-workout supplement promises maximum strength from its unique formulation, which makes use of cutting edge and patented ingredients, which will increase your body’s nitric oxide levels, boosting blood flow, hence the skin-ripping pumps. This nitric oxide booster also enhances muscle vasodilation while enhancing your overall strength and endurance.
With no stimulants added to this pre-workout supplement, you won’t have to worry about feeling jittery or struggling with palpitations.
This Evlution Nutrition pump mode contains a wide range of the most effective muscle pump ingredients, designed to combine some of the strongest nitric oxide enhancers. Some of these enhancers include NO3T betaine nitrate along with HYDROMAX, which is designed to provide enhanced muscle hydration.
HYDROMAX is a new, innovative ingredient that is designed to deliver up to 10 times the normal glycerol concentration, pulling large volumes of fluid into the muscle cells, keeping you well-hydrated.
Betaine nitrate or NO3-T increases the metabolism of the nitrate molecules, resulting in the increased production of nitric acid for oxygen transportation and blood flow. The result of this ingredient is an increased nutrient shuttling to the cells for improved performance, and better blood flow.
This muscle pump pre-workout supplement contains antioxidants as well as vitamins, which will cause muscle engorgement, creating the best muscle pumps, and allowing you the most powerful sprints.
As a nitric oxide supplement, it will improve your performance and the growth of lean muscle mass by increasing the flow of blood, transporting oxygen along with nutrients to the muscles. Increased blood flow to the muscles will also delay muscle fatigue, which means that you can push yourself further, and harder, for longer.
The Vitamin C and D complex incorporated into this supplement also adds to the efficiency of this supplement. Vitamin C is one of the most powerful antioxidants in the body, and its presence in this supplement allows your cells optimal performance, repair, and growth.
Vitamin C also supports and enhances your immune system’s health. You also need vitamin C because it will combat and also neutralize the free radicals in the body, which subsequently results in a longer nitric acid life.
Vitamin D is also important because it enhances the production of the enzyme eNOS, which is important for the production of nitric acid. Vitamin D is also important for muscle contractions, immune function, and bone health, and its presence in this supplement means that you get to enjoy the best runs because your body will have everything it needs to function optimally.
Finally, this supplement is free of stimulants and sugars, making it a safe pre-workout supplement.
- It’s free of stimulants, hence no jitters
- Sugar-free
- It’s a performance enhancer
- Powerful ingredients for building muscle pumps
- It increases blood flow and boosts muscle strength
- No crashes
- Betaine nitrate increases blood flow to the muscles, which results in increased muscle endurance.
- Excellent pre-shred workout supplement
- It increases muscle hydration
- Only ideal for high-intensity workouts
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Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pre-Workout
The best pre-workout supplements for runs are formulated with some of the best ingredients to ensure a boost in overall muscle performance and endurance on your runs.
This pre-workout powder by Optimum Nutrition contains 175mg of caffeine, 3g of caffeine monohydrate, 1.5g of beta-alanine, as well as vitamin D.
The caffeine monohydrate in this supplement will fuel your body and mind, meaning that you will be able to train at the highest levels, making your runs more fulfilling. If you want to lose weight from running, this workout supplement will ensure that you meet your goals with ease.
Creatine in the supplement will enhance your body’s overall power and running performance, while the carnosyn beta-alanine is effective in the enhancement of the body’s level of endurance.
The other ingredient that makes this pre-workout supplement a good pick for your runs is citrulline malate, which is a precursor to nitric acid. The nitric acid produced will increase blood flow to the muscle of the legs and the core, which means increased oxygen and nutrients supply to the muscles and an even higher level of endurance and running performance.
The other ingredients in this supplement include 250mg n-acetyl-l-tyrosine and 375mg of acetyl-l-carnitine HCL. It’s been tested for banned substances, which makes it one of the safest running supplements on the market.
The components of this supplement will also boost your mental focus and overall workout performance in strength training and cardio.
- The supplement comes in 4 delicious flavors.
- It improves focus, energy, performance, and your endurance levels.
- High-quality supplement with high-quality ingredients to keep your endurance and muscle performance at its highest before and during your workouts
- Caffeine in the supplement increases your performance and perceived motivation.
- Works for men and women
- Safe, natural ingredients
- No lethargy, or dizziness
- A little jitteriness the first time you use it
- The caffeine concentration is a little too high.
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Vaxxen Labs Keto1 Ketogenic Preworkout
This pre-workout supplement is one of the most powerful supplements on the market. It derives its power from the high caffeine from natural sources, in addition to green tea extracts, and nootropics that will enhance your mental focus and muscle performance.
Unlike other pre-workout supplements on the market, this supplement is more of a ketogenic supplement that stimulates the ketosis state in the body, allowing your body to utilize fats for fuel over carbs, and the reusable fatty acids into energy, hence fat burning and enhance running performance.
This keto pre-workout supplement encourages the body to convert fatty acids into BHB/ Beta-hydroxybutyrate. And by being a supplemental ketone, it ensures that your body is fueled up before, during, and after your workouts.
Along with the introduction of ketone bodies as an energy source, this pre-workout supplement is an ideal option for running and all other workouts because it enhances muscle performance, giving you the muscle pump. For you to achieve the muscle pump, your body needs increased levels of arginine, which further stimulates the production of nitric oxide for that muscle pump and increased muscle strength and endurance.
L-Citrulline incorporated into this supplement enhances vasodilation, and this will, in turn, reduce muscle fatigue, boosting your muscle’s performance.
But the muscle pump isn’t all that you get from this supplement. The presence of beta-alanine means that your muscles will have access to more amino acids, which ensures the increase in your lean muscle mass.
Caffeine, beta-alanine, L-Citrulline, and green tea extracts, also work to improve your focus and muscle performance, while also increasing your endurance. All these ingredients allow you to push yourself harder and longer on your runs and in the gym.
Green tea ensures consistent energy flow, and it’s also enriched with antioxidants which protect the cells from free radicals, while also encouraging fat loss.
To ensure that you feel good about yourself during and after the workouts, this product also contains nootropics, which ensure enhanced mental focus, memory, and sharpness, making the runs even more fun.
The supplementation with this product might also be a good option because of citicoline, which encourages muscle performance, making you feel better each time, even as it boosts the recovery of torn muscle fibers.
- Best keto pre-workout supplement
- Green tea extracts encourage fat-burning, and it’s energy boosting
- Beta-alanine encourages lean muscle mass growth
- L-Citrulline boosts vasodilation and reduces muscle fatigue
- Caffeine will enhance your performance
- Nootropics boost your mental sharpness, focus, and memory
- It blends well and easily
- It’s not jittery
- Delivers a good muscle pump
- No BCAAs
- The caffeine levels might be too high
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MusclePharm Assault Pre-Workout Powder
This pre-workout supplement is an excellent supplement to take before your runs, thanks to its formulation with some of the best ingredients for muscle function and endurance.
The creatine incorporated into this supplement gives you a boost of energy, the mind focused, and the muscles strengthened. Taurine is also present in this supplement to boosts muscle endurance and strength.
Each serving of this pre-workout contains 200mg of caffeine, enough to fire up your body and with more than sufficient energy coursing throughout your body. There’s also beta-alanine in the supplement, which works in tandem with creatine for increased muscle strength and performance.
If you are looking for a pre-workout supplement that will increase your athletic performance, then this would be a good option for you. Other than the formulation with some of the top-performance ingredients, it tastes great, and it will leave you energized, pushing your performance to its limits.
And with zero carbs and zero calories, this supplement helps you stay on track with your fitness goals.
- No banned substances incorporated
- It boosts athletic performance
- No carbs or calories incorporated
- 200mg of caffeine to keep your body fired up
- Beta-alanine increased your muscle strength and overall performance thanks to carnosine muscle support which ensures the best muscle support
- Made of effective and scientifically-tested ingredients, for example, taurine, L-glycine, beta-alanine, creatine, acetyl-l-carnitine, and vitamins B6 and B12.
- Pricey
- You might feel a little twitchy
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Red Leaf Pre-Workout Energizer Powder
This Red Leaf pre-workout energizer powder is one of the renowned pre-workout brands on the market. It comes enriched with numerous important ingredients that ensure optimal muscle strength and performance at all times.
With 40mg of caffeine, this pre-workout supplement is a good option for anyone looking for a mild pre-workout supplement. So, if you are not much of a coffee person, then this supplement might be a good option for you. The low caffeine content also means that this supplement will not cause any crashes.
It contains 1g of beta-alanine for increased muscle endurance, stamina, and muscle performance. There’s also 1500mg of BCAAs, which is great for your muscle gains in terms of increased muscle growth and fast recovery.
This energizer supplement tastes great, and it might be a great substitute for coffee or other high-caffeine energy drinks. It’s also a good pre-workout supplement for high-intensity workouts like CrossFit, bootcamps, running, and other workouts.
- It tastes good
- Modest levels of caffeine, hence no jitters
- It has BCAAs and beta-alanine for muscle growth, endurance, and recovery
- The antioxidant blend from green tea and cranberries protect the cells from free radicals
- It contains L-Glutamate to encourage muscle repair
- High-quality ingredients
- It’s a little gritty as you get to the bottom of the container
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Kramp Krusher Extreme Training & Endurance Chews
The best pre-workout supplements ensure top muscle performance before, during, and after workouts, and this Kramp Krusher Extreme supplement offers all these benefits and more.
For starters, this supplement represents a unique 3-in-1 chew formula that contains calcium lactate, dextrose, and sea salt. These ingredients deliver and reload the cells with electrolytes, ensuring maximum cellular hydration.
With more than 84 minerals that fortify the body, including copper, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, this supplement will ensure optimal performance, as well as an advanced level of nerve-muscle performance.
The mineral components aside, this supplement is designed to enhance your endurance levels, thanks to high-quality ingredients that will boost your energy levels and relieve muscle cramping.
This chewable electrolyte stops energy depletion along with the loss of electrolytes, meaning peak muscle performance at all times, whether you are running or training for a triathlon.
The electrolytes in this supplement keep muscle cramping at bay, it also enhances muscle recovery, supports cardiac function, restores energy, and it will further reduce muscle fatigue, soreness, and stiffness.
- It tastes good
- It’s free of GMOs, flavors, and preservatives
- Made in the USA
- The electrolytes improve muscle strength and endurance levels
- No more muscle cramping from electrolyte deficits
- Perfect for runs and bike rides
- It enhances overall body functions, including muscle-brain communication
- A little too sour
- Its dispensation when running is not very easy
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Legion Pulse Natural Pre-Workout Supplement for Women and Men
Legion Pulse by Legion Athletics is a super-powerful nitric oxide pre-workout that’s quite effective in keeping up your endurance and for weight loss.
One of the reasons why this supplement makes an excellent option for running is that it is an all-natural pre-workout powder, naturally flavored and sweetened with ingredients that have been backed to be science.
Some of the ingredients in this supplement include nitric oxide, beta-alanine, caffeine, alpha GPC, L-theanine, betaine, and L- Citrulline malate. All these ingredients work in tandem to encourage blood flow into the muscles, enhancing muscle power and endurance for some of the most strenuous workouts.
The ingredients in this supplement are also effective in keeping your motivation and mood upbeat, making your runs more fun.
The other advantages of this supplement and the ingredients formulated in it include enhanced muscle strength and endurance, as well as an improved focus and energy.
- Effective ingredients for muscle gains and better muscle pumps
- Safe, all-natural ingredient for enhanced muscle strength and endurance
- Ideal for use by men and women
- Creatine in the supplement builds muscle and increases your muscle strength
- No artificial ingredients added
- It contains all the ingredients in the best pre-workout supplements, like anhydrous caffeine, theanine, alpha-GPC, beta-alanine, citrulline, and betaine.
- Nitric oxide supplement for improved performance and bigger muscle pumps
- No jittery feeling
- No upset stomach or the post-workout crush
- It has some bitterness
- A little expensive
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Transparent Labs BULK
If you love running and need an extra boost, this Bulk supplement by Transparent Labs might be a good option for you.
With 4g of beta-alanine, this supplement works well for long runs, and with the high levels of Citrulline, your muscle’s endurance will be at its highest since it enhances the production of nitric oxide, which ensures that your muscles have an adequate supply of oxygen and nutrients.
The other ingredients which ensure maximum muscle performance on your long runs include theanine, taurine, and tyrosine.
- No additives or preservatives
- It increases muscle mass
- Nitric oxide reduces muscle fatigue
- It reduces muscle soreness
- This bulk supplement is vegan-friendly
- It’s enriched with BCAAs for better muscle strength, muscle growth, and recovery
- No harmful additives
- Ideal for series runners and athletes
- High-quality ingredients incorporated
- The green apple-flavored supplement is a little too tangy
- It foams up, making you burb
So, how do you choose the best pre-workout supplements for running?
There are numerous pre-workout supplements for running on the market, and they are not all created the same way. Some of the supplements you use might leave you feeling tingly minutes after you take them, but other supplements might leave you all fired up, allowing you to surpass your running goals for the day.
But regardless of how the supplements make you feel, you need to remember that our bodies all work and react differently to different ingredients, and there is pretty much something for everyone.
With the best pre-workout supplements, you will be in the right mental space, with no tingling, and the most powered-up runs.
So, do you really need to take some coffee or tea before you go for your run?
Which are the best pre-workout supplements for running?
Whether you live for your cup of joe or are more of a glass of water or smoothie before your workout, an understanding of how running pre-supplements work would be a great place for you to start.
An athlete or not, introducing some healthy components to your diet and pre-workout routine would go a long way in keeping you on the tracks for longer. At the very least, the best of these supplements will boost your endurance and help you keep up your pace, even in the worst settings.
With ingredients like vitamin B, green tea extracts, ginseng, Rhodiola, creatine, and essential amino acids, the supplements will make you more effective.
Some of the benefits of the pre-run supplements include increased muscle endurance, enhanced respiratory fitness, increased use of fats as a source of energy, reduction of your body’s perceived effort, and increased metabolism. The supplements would also improve your overall muscle gains.
The best bit is that you wouldn’t have to use the pre-run supplements before all your runs. Naturally, you will have days when your body is all fired up on its own to keep you running and to push you further.
Note that pre-run supplements don’t help with cardio directly, but they will increase blood flow to the muscles, keeping you energized and focused on your long runs.
An increase in blood flow to the muscles, especially your muscle legs and the core, will help run faster while keeping fatigue at bay.
Your muscles would also have a higher capacity to dispose of waste products, such as lactic acid, helping you avoid muscle cramps and pain, especially during high-intensity runs. Keep in mind that these supplements will also enhance and support your heart muscles too.
The boosters in these supplements, especially caffeine, will improve the results of your workout by increasing your muscle’s growth, muscle recovery, leaving you with the high energy boost you need.
Think of the pre-run supplements as energy matrix supplements that will help you stay motivated, achieving your goals.
Conclusion
The pre-workout supplements above are some of the best options on the market, but if you need to choose any other, you’ll need to make sure that it’s made of the safest ingredients. You’ll also be happy to know that these supplements are made with clinically-proven ingredients, meaning that they actually do what they say they do.
If you love running, pre-workout supplements work to increase your energy levels, helping you boost your overall workout results.