Alpha Sports has billed it as a ‘super concentrated’, ‘explosive’ pre-workout because it sounds hardcore.
In reality, nothing really justifies that terminology. Except the fact that the recommended serving is 3 scoops so you’re going to be feeling it.
The product has some interesting approaches and the overall ingredient list is an interesting one. We’ll go through everything in this review.
Table of Contents
About Alpha Sports PreX3 Pre-Workout
In spite of its explosive title, this is actually a relatively low-caffeine supplement which we didn’t expect. The majority of the work comes from other compounds which aim at performance-boosting effects.
The descriptions for the product also says that the aim is “perfectly balancing the flood of energy, heightened mental focus, and enhanced muscle endurance”. This is going to be interesting when we look at the ingredients and the benefits/effects.
Speaking of ingredients, here’s the label so you know what’s coming up:
PreX3 Pre-Workout Supplement Facts
Directions for Use
The intended dose is three scoops. This is a lot, but the overall dosages of ingredients aren’t too crazy despite this.
The obvious intended use is before a workout; hence the name.
You should take three scoops in water or other fluids in the 30-60 minutes before a workout. Equally, if you have a long warm up, you could take the pre-workout before/during this process.
What Is in It?
See the Top Rated
– Pre-Workout This Year –
Protein
This is an interesting choice that we just don’t see in many pre-workout supplements. There’s some value to protein before a workout but we’re not sure if it’s necessary as such a large part of this product.
For every 3-scoop serving (11.3g), 7.5g are protein. That’s pretty intense: roughly ¾ of the product are dietary protein, which you could get from almost any other food or supplement source instead.
There’s nothing wrong with this: protein intake is important and pre-workout protein sources are a good way of supporting muscular health. They are broken down into amino acids which are used to combat muscle breakdown and support muscular recovery/growth.
However, this is a pre-workout supplement and 7.5g is nowhere near enough to have a marked effect on performance and growth. Muscles use around 15g of protein per hour of exercise, so 7.5g probably isn’t going to make much difference.
Equally, there are tons of other places you can get your protein from. The use of a simple, tiny, 7.5g whey protein shake makes more sense than this – or a yoghurt with some pre-workout carbs.
There isn’t much reason to include protein in this supplement, especially at these levels, and it’s a huge chunk of the product. The 70% of every scoop that is protein could easily be replaced with something more useful – even more so since there are underdosed compounds in this product.
Minerals/Electrolytes
The minerals in this product are useful. They’re primarily electrolytes: the specific salts that your muscles and other tissues need for optimal performance.
The main minerals are Magnesium, Sodium, Phosphorus, and Chromium. The first 3 are specifically very useful for exercise, while the Chromium content is only useful for combatting deficiency. They keep muscles healthy and chemically balanced during exercise.
Equally, electrolytes are important for hydration. You’re sweating them out whenever you’re exercising so it’s important to replenish them – if only because it helps your post-workout recovery.
Beta-Alanine
This is a great compound for increasing intramuscular carnosine levels and, thus, boosting endurance performance. It combats fatigue and increases the time to exhaustion.
As we mentioned before, muscular endurance was one of the stated goals on Alpha Sports’ website and they got this bit right. There’s not as much focus on endurance-boosting compounds as you’d see in a specific pre-workout, but Beta-Alanine will be helpful.
However, the combination of Beta-Alanine with the electrolytes we’ve mentioned above does provide benefits. They might not be optimal, but they are likely to be noticeable.
Betaine
Betaine is pretty cool; it’s also known as trimethylglycine. This is great for methylation – a large and varied process in the body – as well as the role of glycine in cell hydration.
This is well balanced in this product because the betaine content is low but there’s a secondary pool of glycine. Methylation benefits are cool but not specifically performance-enhancing, so the focus on the osmolytic, but with some health benefits, is fantastic.
This seems to have some interesting and useful effects on the metabolism and the phosphocreatine levels. The knock-on is an unreliable but interesting benefit to strength and repeated bout performance.
A good choice by Alpha Sports, though don’t get too used to that…
Caffeine
Most people love caffeine in coffee or tea. However, it can backfire when added to pre-workout supplements.
Why? Because too much of a good thing can lead to side effects. Such as jitters and energy crashes (which coffee lovers who have had 1 cup too many will know).
As a result, here are Best5Supplements we prefer non-stimulant pre-workouts (that don’t contain caffeine). So that we can take pre-workouts later in the evenings and still sleep okay.
We do see the benefit of energy boosts with caffeine, though. So from an unbiased point, the addition of caffeine isn’t a bad thing in Alpha Sport PreX3.
However, what is a negative is the amount of caffeine that’s been added. 200mg per serving to be exact, which is 2-3 strong cups of coffee all at once. Which might cause those with a low tolerance jittery side effects.
If you do have a low tolerance to caffeine, you might want to check out the #1 rated non-stim pre-workout here.
Creatine
Obviously, creatine is a popular form of supplement. In a pre-workout, it can play one of two roles:
- A good chance to get your daily creatine in, which supports optimal muscular endurance and strength
- As an osmolyte to improve the absorption of water, increasing hydration near a workout to support muscle health
On top of these, there are the generalized health benefits of Creatine, which can be useful. These include the improved metabolism of cysteine and reduced DNA damage – both in muscle cells and elsewhere in the body.
The well-rounded benefits of Creatine are great and there are very few people that don’t benefit from supplementary levels.
However, the dosage in this product doesn’t hit the necessary amounts to be used for the strength/endurance benefits. The 2.5-3g minimum requirement would be easily achievable if there wasn’t 7.5g of protein in every scoop: creatine would be a better choice!
The osmolyte effects of this compound are worthwhile, and we quite like them, but there’s no reason you couldn’t get both benefits in 11.3g of pre-workout. The only reason you don’t is because someone at Alpha Sport decided a tiny dose of protein was a better choice.
As you can tell, we think this is a real shame. The product would be so much better if the Creatine power was pumped up to 2.5-3g and you’d never have to take creatine as a stand-alone supplement. You’d get all the effects and an effective pre-workout.
But you don’t. You get 7.5g of protein.
AAKG
Arginine in the bloodstream is one of the key factors in nitric oxide levels. This is a cool result because it increases the blood flow to the muscles, delivering oxygen and nutrients, improving endurance and recovery, as well as sick pumps.
The problem here is that serum arginine and oral arginine are not the same.
Studies show us that arginine is really bad at getting from the mouth into the bloodstream intact. The effects of arginine on blood arginine are very slim and, while AAKG is probably the best form, it’s not going to be effective in reliably raising the arginine in your blood.
This means you’re not getting the benefits we just mentioned as reliably or effectively as you could/should.
The kicker is that a combination of citrulline and Piperine would do this ridiculously well. It’s not a scientific secret: there are other products on the market that use citrulline with great effect. It can boost nitric oxide far more effectively and has been proven to boost endurance.
Again; it’s not as if this product was doing the best it could. There are common, superior options on the market and Alpha Sport just…didn’t choose them.
Cysteine
This is an interesting choice – it can bypass the usual homocysteine production which is a little bit toxic to your cells if over-stressed.
You know what is more effective at reducing homocysteine levels than oral cysteine supplementation? Creatine.
We remain baffled that this product makes these choices when the cysteine could easily be replaced with creatine for varied, intense results. There’s literally no justifiable reason to choose cysteine over creatine, but that doesn’t stop PreX3.
Glutamine
This is a conditionally essential amino acid that is primarily useful for digestive health and proper immune function in response to exercise.
You probably don’t need it, but you could also benefit from Glutamine. We’d say this makes more sense in a protein product than specifically a pre-workout, but it’s good to get it one way or another.
The dosages aren’t enough to be a huge deal, but it’s nice to have.
Glycine
This is a cool compound because it’s going to synergize with the Creatine we mentioned above. Since it’s not going to be sufficient doses for strength-endurance benefits, it’s good to see synergistic osmolyte ingredients.
The combination of Creatine and Glycine produces massive water transfer to cells. This is useful for keeping muscle cells healthy while they work, as well as increasing cell volume towards better overall muscular repair/growth.
A great compound, especially combined with the betaine above. The balance in this product is glycine-heavy and keeps betaine specifically for the methylation without shifting the focus to methylation and health.
This is a great trait, and if this approach had been consistent throughout the product, we’d love it!
BCAAs
The BCAAs – leucine, valine, and isoleucine – are important amines for proper muscular health. Leucine is the king of BCAAs with a significant effect on the recovery and growth on muscular health and performance.
The problem with the BCAAs in this product is the overall dosage. The required dose for Leucine alone is more than the total content of BCAAs in this product – and it shows in the effects.
The point of pre- or intra-workout BCAAS is to support proper muscular health throughout. Amino acids are required for the repair of stressed/damaged tissues during exercise – both in the muscles and the tendons.
Proper BCAA intake/levels during training offer the best environment for this, producing muscular recovery and growth signals. Leucine is key here, and also plays a significant role in the repair and strengthening of tendons in response to exercise.
You’re not going to get the best effects of these compounds – the preservation and growth of muscle tissue – in this product. The overall dosage being too low just doesn’t make much sense when there’s so much protein in this product already and other compounds are already underdosed.
Phenylalanine
There are very few real benefits to Phenylalanine in this product aside from the general contribution to L-DOPA and thus to mental wellbeing. It’s useful for controlling overall mood and anxiety, but it doesn’t positively affect your workouts.
This is a good choice for an anti-anxiety and pro-mood supplement but it’s not going to make much difference here. It’s good, but not compared to the things you could be getting instead.
See the Top Rated
– Pre-Workout This Year –
Does it work? / Formula Analysis
Not like we’d hoped for!
The product contains some effective or interesting ingredient choices, but also some horrendous flaws. The end result is a product that doesn’t justify its own price tag and probably wouldn’t if it was half the price.
The protein content makes absolutely no sense and then there’s almost no space for anything else. Protein doesn’t actually boost performance in a pre-workout and there’s a serious under-dose of creatine for a product with 11g per serving!
The AAKG is basically a poor choice because – even as the best form of Arginine – it’s still not as effective as Citrulline. You can’t get the same benefits and there isn’t even a Piperine supplement to try and get around this, despite only needing 5mg per scoop to have positive effects.
There are some redeeming factors: the beta-alanine content is at an effective dose and brings a lot to the product, while betaine and creatine make a great pair. The additional ingredients like BCAAs, Cysteine, and CoQ10 just aren’t dosed effectively – or don’t make sense in this product at all.
Our Verdict
Total let-down: a product with potential but some strange ingredient choices and a lack of overall vision.
This product could’ve been great but the commitment to 7.5g of protein has really reduced any significant benefits relative to the overall intake. There’s no point taking this much of this less-effective product when you could just get a better pre-workout and just eat your protein separately.
The problem is that the space required for this protein content has come from a reduced intake of important performance-boosters like the underdosed creatine or BCAA. Equally, poor choices on the AAKG rather than citrulline add up.
The result is a product that misses out on some of the best benefits – especially given that the caffeine dose is relatively low. There’s not active synergy between ingredients and the choice leaves a lot to be desired when compared to entry level supplements.
It’s not a bad product, it’s just underwhelming and doesn’t justify its cost. The result is that it’s bad in comparison to alternatives. There are better choices at better prices, and they don’t over-market or under-deliver.
Alpha Sports PreX3 Benefits
The benefits of this product are pretty basic considering the extensive ingredient list and hype that Alpha Sport built around it. The main benefits are mild caffeination and the combined effects of creatine/AAKG/beta-alanine.
Beyond these, you’re going to get some vitamins and minerals. These are cool but they’re not noticeably beneficial above or beyond eating your damn veggies.
You could benefit from the protein and L-DOPA in this product but they both seem to be tangential. There are small benefits to each, but they’re more general than pre-workout benefits. If you’re looking for something very niche like this, then PreX3 could be perfect for you.
Who Takes It?
Honestly, it’s hard to say. The product doesn’t endear itself to us on the basis of its dosages or the ingredient selection: the protein adds nothing significant.
We genuinely don’t think there’s any situation where this product is smarter than just taking a better pre-workout with a meal or protein shake. Even a protein snack would provide a superior experience and nutritional benefits beyond 7.5g of supplementary protein.
Any Side Effects?
As with most supplements, there shouldn’t be any side effects.
The ingredient choice is pretty standard and the only likely side effects are either jitters & energy crashes from caffeine or the tingles associated with high dosages of beta-alanine.
You should still consult your doctor if you have any concerns or undesirable reactions.
See the Top Rated
– Pre-Workout This Year –
PreX3 Summary
Pros:
- The ingredients that aren’t protein are well-chosen
- The proper balance of betaine and glycine is great for prioritizing performance, with some health benefits
Cons:
- The protein content makes no sense
- Despite the huge amount of space taken up by protein, the rest of the compounds are relatively underdosed
- AAKG is still inferior to citrulline for almost everything
PreX3 Price & Buying Info
You can get this product direct from the manufacturer website. We don’t think the price is amazing, especially since there’s no real value to be derived from this product compared to alternatives.
The result is that the value is hard to establish. The price point is pretty good, but how good can it be if the product doesn’t work that well? This is the fundamental problem for this product and it’s a significant one for you, as a prospective user.
Final Word on Alpha Sports PreX3
This product is a case of ‘what could have been’ – there’s a significant potential for things to go right, but they don’t. The choices that have been made here just don’t make sense; and it’s this kind of poor design philosophy that mars this product.
The overall structure could’ve been great but a lack of clear vision for the product and some questionable ingredient choices have ruined that. The end result is a product that tries to do some interesting stuff but undercuts the fundamentals.
It undermines its own value by trying to be too much, and subsequently doesn’t feel like the best choice for anything.
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