If you have ever been inside a GNC, Vitamin Shoppe, or Vitamin World, you have probably seen more energy drinks and pre-workout supplements than your brain can comprehend. While these supplements may have different names, they still tend to have most of the same ingredients in them. It is common in energy drinks and pre-workout supplements to find ingredients such as caffeine, ginseng, taurine, and guarana. The major ingredient you can physically feel while taking an energy or pre-workout supplement is the caffeine. Caffeine is one of the only ingredients in these supplements proven to increase your energy level. Ginseng is known to increase the strength of your immune system, taurine’s major function is for heart health, and guarana’s major function is mood enhancement. These are all beneficial ingredients. Although most of these products have the same ingredients, employees of these supplement companies will lead you to believe something different.

Don’t be fooled by the workers at GNC, Vitamin Shoppe, or Vitamin World. While there are exceptions, most of the employees have no idea what are in these products. They have no prior education in the health or nutrition field, and they will lead you to believe that they are knowledgeable about the products just because they managed to read and memorize the label on the supplement. These employees will tell you that certain supplements are the next big thing and have been giving customers crazy results. If you ever hear of a supplement that is giving out of the ordinary results, you may want to be a bit wary about what’s in it. To get an edge on the competition, some supplement companies have been known to slip a few extra ingredients in without listing them. For those who don’t know, very few of the supplements in these stores are FDA approved. FDA stands for the Food and Drug Administration. It’s alarming how many supplements are taken off the shelves a few months after their release due to illegal substances found in them.

Some steps you can take to choosing the right energy or pre-workout supplement for you are:

1. Stick with the basic ingredients, such as caffeine, ginseng, taurine, and guarana. The less ingredients the better.

2. Try to find a supplement with a very limited amount of sugar. Most of the time, the benefits of the supplements don’t out-weigh the negative effects of sugar. If you are looking to burn fat at the gym, sugar will limit your results.

3. Do your research, and find a reputable company. Many of the supplements that try to slip additional ingredients into their products tend to be small companies that are trying to quickly catch up to the big names by giving killer results.

4. Remember, you can get the same benefits and more from just drinking coffee or tea alone.

5. When a person from a supplement store is giving you advice on a product, find out what his/her qualifications are. You have the ability to read a product label as well, so make sure they are more educated in the field than you.

6. Don’t fall victim to a “catchy name” product. This is purely a sales pitch, and very rarely will it give you the results that it claims.

7. Allow a product to be on the market for a while before purchasing. You don’t want to be a test-dummy who ends up developing a health problem due to limited researched ingredients.

When taking a supplement, health should be your number one concern, so make sure you educate yourself on the product first. You only have one body, so I suggest you take care if it!

-Tom