This is an interesting novel take on the pre-workout supplement. The general idea is that you drop a totally dissolvable pre-workout sachet into your water, and it will break down into a pre-workout supplement.
This straddles the line between a capsule and a powder, bringing the convenience of a capsule with the hydration and speed-of-delivery associated with a powder. This is a cool delivery system and it’s a cool gimmick.
We like the idea, but the innovation won’t matter if the compounds in the supplement don’t actually do anything. Let’s see if the label lives up to the hype of the delivery system and how generally-cool this idea is!
Table of Contents
Directions for Use
The idea is to simply drop two of the dissolvable packs into water and consume around 30 minutes before a workout. It’s used just like any other pre-workout supplement but with far more convenience, easy to throw in your work or gym bag.
The usual dose of 500ml of water – and ideally some carbohydrates – is a good choice. Proper pre-workout rituals as well as supplementation will be the way to maximize results.
The Ingredients
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– Pre-Workout This Year –
L-Citrulline
Citrulline is great for increasing the arginine in your blood stream and thus increasing nitric oxide levels. The result? Better blood flow to essential areas of the body like the muscles, where nutrient delivery improves pumps, endurance, and possibly muscular recovery.
The problem with this product’s approach to citrulline is that dosages are relatively low, while the actual form of citrulline isn’t ideal. Citrulline Malate has improved digestive effects and uptake, while also being a slightly more effective per-gram compound.
There’s also just not the kind of concentration we’d like to see here. The 3-6g citrulline serving isn’t being met even with 2 packs and effective dosing would require you to burn through the relatively meagre containers rapidly.
B-Alanine (but not at clinically effective levels)
Beta-Alanine is the OG endurance supplement, increasing levels of carnosine in the body. This boosts endurance in the middle range and can improve performance in a number of exercises.
The benefits carry over to a number of strength and endurance benefits as a result. The reduction in fatigue, and increased time to exhaustion, improve almost every aspect of a workout.
The problem with this product is that – again – it doesn’t meet the requirements for effectiveness. The doses are likely to be useful, but we already know that the right doses are much more than you’re going to get from these dissolvable sachets.
This means that you’re going to get a small effect and it probably isn’t going to be noticeable as it would with a proper dose. Other products provide a far stronger concentration, even without the sachet approach, this makes for a better workout and better performance.
BCAAs
These are pre- and intra-workout amines that can contribute to better amino acid during exercise. The proteins in muscles are broken down and deficiency in amino acids during these times can lead to muscle loss.
BCAA intake can be a useful intra-workout method of preventing this kind of muscle breakdown when you’re not able to eat. It’s especially useful when combined with carbohydrates, providing energy and amino acid support together.
Leucine
This is the important one – it’s the key to muscular signaling and the proper tendon repair/growth process. The leucine content is probably more important than the other two put together, and we could take Leucine by itself, alternatively.
The dose in this product is – again – not enough to make the most of your workouts. BCAA supplementation intra-workout benefits from hefty doses. The levels in this product are okay, but not optimal.
Isoleucine
This compound is pretty useful for the reduction of muscle wastage during a workout and supports the best anti-catabolic effects.
While it doesn’t build muscle in the same way that proper dietary leucine does, it’s effective at reducing the breakdown. This is especially useful when you’re dieting and need to keep your muscle mass up, pushing towards fat-burning instead.
Valine
Valine is the least important and effective BCAA; it’s effectively just useful because it is an amino acid. The contribution of Valine is primarily that it increases body amino acid availability.
It’s not as effective or important as the others, but it does contribute to the overall build-up of amines. This is one of the keys for signaling, so we’re happy enough with Valine being here.
Creatine
Creatine is cool but, again, the dose in this product doesn’t do much. You’d usually want minimum 1000mg in a pre-workout, significantly more for sustained supplementation. With two packs here, you get just 641mg.
The intended use of creatine as a supplement is usually to increase strength and strength-endurance performance. However, this product doesn’t get close to the necessary doses, which makes it a bit of a non-issue.
The benefits you will get from the creatine in this product, however, are to do with the hydration of muscles. We always talk about osmolytes – compounds that draw water into muscle cells – but that’s because they’re cool.
The proper endurance benefits of hydration are underrated but creatine can do this very effectively. It’s a good compound to have for the hydration and health benefits, even if the lower doses mean you’re not contributing to chronic strength-endurance performance benefits.
Tyrosine
Tyrosine is primarily a mood compound, but it also contributes to reductions in perceived fatigue. This is useful for both the physical and mental measures of performance – and the results are mild but noticeable.
Proper care of your mental wellbeing is cool, and tyrosine plays well with Beta-alanine. Synergies here are pretty gentle but the overall result is still a better workout – and that’s what this product is for.
ALCAR
ALCAR is a mental and cognitive performance compound that happens to carry over to performance. There are great benefits to better mental performance during a workout and they’re going to be stronger with the combination of tyrosine, caffeine, and ALCAR.
ALCAR is basically the most effective form of carnitine supplementation and helps to improve focus and cognitive execution. These are great when you’re dealing with exercise and performance that involves problem-solving.
Taurine
Taurine is another cool mental performance and anti-fatigue ingredient. It contributes well when combined with the caffeine, tyrosine, and ALCAR in this product.
The synergy is important, but the individual effects of Taurine are also useful; it contributes to hydration and improved blood flow. This makes it a great compound to combine with citrulline, too!
Taurine is something of a universal synergist in this product; the benefits alone aren’t amazing, but it plays two key synergistic roles at once. It starts to look like the ingredient choice here is both smart and deliberate.
Beet root
Beet root – primarily rich in betaine – is one of the best compounds for general health and hydration. It’s rich in trimethylglycine, which breaks down into two separate benefits: the methyl group and the glycine.
Methylation is a body-wide process that is important for health, and beet extract contributes in significant ways. Equally, the glycine plays well with creatine and taurine to improve hydration, resulting in cell hyperhydration – great for performance and wellbeing.
Caffiene’ (but not clinically effective doses)
This product contains “caffiene” apparently. We’re not sure what that is, but we think it’s meant to be caffeine – and there’s not enough of it.
The product contains roughly 50mg of caffeine per pack, thus just over 100mg per serving. This is nowhere near the minimum requirement for the physical benefits – and may not be much in the psychological sense, either.
This seems to be a persistent theme with this product: there’s just not enough. The ingredient choice is pretty good, and the overall structure is good, but the doses are just too low in everything to compare to other pre-workouts. Presumably that’s the drawback of the innovative format, which is a shame.
Caffeine is one of the building blocks of a good pre-workout and it’s just nowhere near adequately dosed for clinically effective performance gains. This is what a pre-workout is for, so we’re skeptical about the overall benefits and how effective Vade’s PWO is likely to be.
Piperine
The absorption of these compounds is boosted by the presence of Piperine in this product. It increases the absorption of nutrients into the body during digestion and this can improve the otherwise-sparse doses.
However, this is present in a number of other products that already have good doses. Piperine is good but it’s not going to solve the general under-dosing problems that Vade are struggling with.
Huperzine
We like Huperzine a lot and it’s in great company with the other mental performance compounds in this product. It’s an Acetylcholine-boosting compound, which supports the overall mood and anti-fatigue effects seen with other compounds like ALCAR.
The overall result is a better central endurance profile and improved mental wellbeing. These are some generalized benefits, but they apply to more than just your workout and they are well-structured to provide comprehensive support.
Overall, this is a great choice and we love Huperzine for its natural mood-improving effects.
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– Pre-Workout This Year –
Formula Analysis
Does Vade Nutrition’s pre-workout work? It’s hard to say, and we’re somewhere in the “maybe” category with this product. It’s a compound-rich but dosage-sparse product that has great ingredients – but not much of them.
This is the limiting factor; if you were taking multiple servings at once then you’d see serious benefits and we’d really like it. However, the dissolvable bag gimmick means that you’re getting less effective dosage than you would do with a simple pre-workout powder.
Our Verdict
There’s just not enough product per serving to be effective. This is a problem because the individual servings are 2 bags, and you only get 30 per container. The choices you have, then, are to double up your doses and get real effects or have a relatively ineffective pre-workout supplement.
The result is a product that just doesn’t work well – both by itself and in relation to the alternatives that exist on the market. It’s outperformed by a simple entry-level, economy pre-workout powder because they’re not bound to underdosing.
Vade Dissolvable Pre-Workout Benefits
The benefits are effectively the same you’d expect from a regular pre-workout but gentler. You’ll have a very mild caffeine buzz, a pretty cool improvement to mood and reduced fatigue, and performance improvements that you may not notice at all.
There are some potential benefits but – as mentioned – they’re limited by the dosages. If you’re double dosing (or taking more than two sachets) then you’re going to get the benefits of a fantastic mental performance synergy, as well as some strong performance enhancements to endurance, strength, and overall performance. We hesitate to recommend taking more than the manufacturer suggests, however.
Who Takes It?
The benefits of this product are probably going to make it more appropriate for small humans who are looking for a gentle approach to a pre-workout. It’s a low-stimulant product which can be useful if you’re caffeine-sensitive or only looking for a small pick-me-up.
If you’re looking for the ‘take your game to the next level’ that Vade advertise, you’re probably not going to find it. This product is specifically useful if you want something gentler than your average pre-workout but also with the reduced overall effectiveness/stimulant load.
It’s a good combination, but a little underwhelming unless you know exactly what you’re getting into.
Any Side Effects?
Not likely; this product struggles for potency in the ingredients it uses/the dosages. There aren’t likely to be any side effects since it’s such a small dose of the various compounds – most of which are entirely healthy.
The caffeine is so low that even this compound, which is commonly associated with some very mild side effects, probably isn’t going to be a problem. You may experience some tingling with the Beta-Alanine, though the dose is on the lower side so you may miss this effect altogether.
Either way, the tingling isn’t harmful. We can’t see anything going wrong with this product, but you should consult your doctor if you’re sensitive to any of the ingredients.
See the #1 Rated
– Pre-Workout This Year –
Vade Nutrition Dissolvable Pre-Workout Summary
Pros:
- Great ingredient choices
- Some quality synergy among ingredients
- A good balance of physical and psychological performance benefits
Cons:
- The doses are prohibitively low – and it ruins the whole product
- The dissolvable package gimmick doesn’t make up for the formula itself
Vade Dissolvable Pre-Workout Buying & Pricing Info
Our advice is to not buy it. This product can be best acquired through the dedicated website sale process, directly from the manufacturer.
We don’t recommend actually buying it, because the value is incredibly limited by the problems we’ve already mentioned. These issues are persistent and even the cheap price tag doesn’t do much to save it.
Vade Nutrition Pre-Workout Review: Final Word
This product is close to greatness, you just need more than Vade are giving you. The dissolvable bag gimmick is one we really like but it doesn’t make up for the fact that you’re not getting nearly enough of the active ingredients.
This is disappointing because the overall image of the product is an effective one. It’s just let down by the doses and we’re sad about it because there’s clearly been some clever effort put into ingredient selection.
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