Nina Haans (24) from Tilburg does strength training five days a week. To be able to train longer and harder, she used pre-workout for years, powder with a lot of caffeine that you mix with water. The effect is comparable to about five cups of coffee. But she soon needed more, causing side effects. “I was scratching the whole workout. And after exercising I didn’t fall asleep anymore,” she says.
We speak to Nina in the gym in Tilburg, where she can be found almost every day. She is a personal trainer and tries to inspire others by sharing her own workouts on Instagram. She succeeds quite well, because she has no fewer than 17,000 followers. She now starts her workout with a sports drink, but before that was always one scoop pre workout.
“I lay staring at the ceiling until 2:30.”
When she just started doing that she went faster than ever. But over time, habituation set in and she had to take more to get the same effect. Resulting in sleepless nights. “If you throw in two more scoops at night, it’s hard to fall asleep. So if I went to work out at seven o’clock, then I would lie staring at the ceiling until half past two. And the next day I couldn’t get out of bed. On a day like that, everything was much more difficult for me.”
A well-known side effect of pre-workout is that your skin starts to tingle. This is due to the ingredient beta-alanine, an amino acid that can improve sports performance. Some people like that tingling sensation, but Nina doesn’t. “At one point I got so much itching and tingling on my hands and my hairline while working out. I was just scratching the entire workout. Then I knew I had to cut down.”
“I think you can get more out of your training with pre-workout. But it depends how.”
She’s been trying alternatives ever since, like sports drinks and caffeine pills. It contains less caffeine. Nina emphasizes that she has also had many positive experiences with pre-workout powder. “I think you can get more out of your training and that is positive. But it depends how. Because anything you take too much of is never good.”
That is also the message she has for young people who often throw in a scoop before exercising. According to her, they are too quick to use these kinds of resources, while they often do not know what they contain. “Young people are thrown to death with it on social media, so they think they really need it. But I think it is also in your head and that sometimes you just have to persevere.”
Pre-workout is available both online and in supermarkets without an age limit. Nina thinks it would be good if young people were better informed. “I weighed around 65 kilos and was on two scoops. That was way too much for me at the time. So information about how much you are allowed when you are young would not be wrong.”
Omroep Brabant dived into the sense and nonsense of pre-workout. You can see that in this episode of HOW..?
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