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The best pre-workout of 2024 to take before your gym session

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2 years ago

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The best pre-workout of 2024 to take before your gym session

Forget snacking on a banana and quickly downing a coffee, if you’re really hitting it hard at the gym and feel like you could use a little extra oomph, then getting your hands on the best pre-workout supplement might just be the thing you need to give your muscles that extra push. 

But what is pre-workout and what does it do? Alex Ward, head trainer at Sweat Society in Surbiton, describes pre-workout as a “sports nutrition supplement, designed to improve energy and enhance exercise performance”. Essentially, it’s a supplement designed to give you an energy boost. Just don’t chase it with a double espresso. 

“Due to the various ingredients found in pre-workout, it can help stimulate the muscles, increase focus and concentration and make you perform at a higher intensity during sessions, with less fatigue,” says Ward. “It will generally keep you going through an hour’s workout of intense training such as a weights session,” he adds. The top rated pre-workouts are the ones that slowly release the energy – and prevent you from a ‘crash-and-burn’ scenario mid-workout. 

With that in mind, I spent weeks testing the best pre-workout and you can read my full reviews below. Underneath that you can find advice from a nutritionist on when to take pre-workout and the effect of individual ingredients. If you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick look at my top five:

Which are the best pre-workout supplements in 2024? At a glance

What are the different types of pre-workout?

A pre-workout supplement typically comes in a powder or drink form (although pre-workout pills and bars are also options). The main two types of pre-workout are a stimulant (with caffeine) and non-stimulant (non-caffeine) – and often contain ingredients like beta-alanine, L-citrulline, creatine, and BCAAs (branch chain amino acids) to provide energy and stimulate the production of helpful nitric oxide in the muscles. These aim to enhance your performance when exercising – although the specific dietary formula varies between different brands.

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If you’re looking to work out more, you might also want to read our guides to the best protein powders, best water bottles and best fitness trackers.

How I tested the best pre-workout

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Skip the 10,000 Steps: The One Exercise That Matches a Full Day of Walking, according to a Fitness Coach

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December 11, 2025

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Skip the 10,000 Steps: The One Exercise That Matches a Full Day of Walking, according to a Fitness Coach

On Instagram, Zarina Manaenkova advised taking short intervals of squats could deliver the same impact as a full day of walking. “Ten squats instead of 10 thousand steps,” Zarina’s post read, referencing a study that equated ten squats every 45 minutes with 10,000 steps. Manaenkova explained the science behind her claim, stating, “When your muscles actively contract, they produce very important compounds that influence your brain, metabolism, and even your fat-burning processes. Meanwhile, a simple walk does not have this effect. So, if you want to stay young, squat.”

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A deload week over Christmas will help you hit your goals, experts say – here’s how

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December 10, 2025

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A deload week over Christmas will help you hit your goals, experts say – here’s how

Has the idea of taking a break from your fitness routine this Christmas left you with more fear than cheer? Good news. Rest days are a legitimate cornerstone of muscle recovery – a hard-earned chance to kick back and allow the past week’s gains to catch up with you, and never has there been more reason to do so than now, when Christmas is here, and, TBH, we deserve a bloomin’ break.

Besides letting up on any mental stress you may have amassed over the year, extended breaks from training help keep you motivated and, plot twist, there are also physical benefits that come from switching the squat rack for the sofa. They trigger powerful physical and biochemical changes that help increase your muscle mass over time.

Your body needs regular breaks to adapt to sustained training. It’s not the work itself that brings your goals into fruition – like enhanced muscle mass and a deadlift PB – but the time you spend recovering. The training is just the stimulus; during rest periods you experience a cascade of biochemical, neural and hormonal changes that cement those changes in your body as it’s the time for your muscles to repair and grow back stronger.

If you don’t regularly take time to recharge and regenerate, you simply won’t cash in on the results you’ve already paid for. Play the hero long enough and you could even suffer overtraining syndrome (OTS), the result of excessive muscular, skeletal and joint trauma.

This could cause a rise in circulating monocytes – a type of white blood cell linked to immune function – which leads to:

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  • Low energy;
  • Reduced protein synthesis;
  • Poor sleep;
  • Reduced performance;
  • A drop in hormone production

Pretty much everything you need to ensure muscle growth and energy production get shut down.

You keep training because you want to achieve your goals. But by overtraining you force your body into survival and protection mode instead. To some, a week away from the gym might seem counterintuitive. Two weeks might seem like heresy. However, in reality, it could be your key to success. When you take a week or two off from the gym every 12 weeks or so, your muscles, tendons and ligaments repair themselves, and the glycogen energy stores in your muscles and liver are replenished.

Best of all, you won’t lose any of your hard-won gains: studies show it takes four to six weeks of pure inactivity – we’re talking proper bed/boxset rest here – to see severe catabolic breakdown. After one or two weeks off, you won’t suffer a significant drop in strength, power, body mass or size – or witness a noticeable gain in body fat.

And it takes even longer to see any decline in aerobic capacity, stamina or VO2 max (the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise, according to BUPA). A week without loud, crowded gyms and rushing to get to spin class will also do wonders for your mental freshness.

You’ll feel sharper, your enthusiasm to return to your workouts come January will surge, and you will have neutralised all the tiredness and irritability associated with overdoing it. So cut yourself some slack and plan in a week of (COVID-friendly) festive fun. Truth be told, you’ll do a lot worse by overtraining than you ever could by taking time off.

Expert source: Ian Aylward, lead strength and conditioning coach at Perform St George’s Park

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 As Women’s Health UK’s fitness director and a qualified Pilates and yoga instructor, Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism. She secured her first role at Look Magazine, where her obsession with fitness began and she launched the magazine’s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!. Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner’s World and Red.Now, she oversees all fitness content across womenshealthmag.com.uk and the print magazine, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as ‘Fit At Any Age’, where we showcase the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise. She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks – all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how.Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram.  

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