When it comes to working out, people find pre-workout (a supplement to increase endurance, energy, and focus during a workout) to be very beneficial for improving their workouts. Pre-workout gives you energy to power through workouts, but it can cause many negative side effects and can affect your overall health.

Many people including myself find pre-workout to be addicting. Since the first time I took a pre-workout, I haven’t been able to have a good workout without it. Taking pre-workout can wake you up in 15 minutes. I rely on the caffeine in pre-workout to give me energy to get through my workouts to make it through my day. Senior Justin Dalum has been taking pre-workout for a few years and has had a lot of experience with it. Dalum explains why he takes pre-workout. “Pre-workout allows me to power through my workouts when I don’t have much energy,” Dalum said.

Taking an excessive amount of pre-workout can affect your sleep, lead to increased blood pressure, and can cause anxiety. I have been taking pre-workout for the past two years and didn’t have issues until six months ago. It started to become harder to breathe and my chest started to ache. I went to the doctor and they told me to stop taking pre-workout for two weeks. After not taking pre-workout for two weeks I was able to breathe normally and not have any chest pain. Dalum, however, has never felt any side effects from pre-workout. “For the past three years I’ve been taking pre-workout and I haven’t been fazed or felt side effects from pre-workout,” Dalum said.

Most pre-workout contain a great amount of caffeine ranging from 150-300 milligrams per serving. The average amount of caffeine a person should be taking per day is around 400 milligrams maximum. When I was having issues with my body, I was taking over 750 milligrams of pre workout per day. Some people can consume over 400 milligrams of caffeine a day and aren’t bothered. Senior Luca Platt has recently started to take pre-workout. Platt takes an unhealthy amount of pre-workout everyday, but he has not had any issues . “I take over 600 milligrams of caffeine per day and I still don’t have issues with my body,” Platt said.

The latest trend known as “dry scooping” can be very dangerous. Dry scooping is consuming the powder found in pre-workout all at once instead of mixing it into a drink. Dry scooping pre workout can be very life threatening and could possibly lead into a heart attack. Platt doesn’t dry scoop pre-workout anymore. “I used to dry scoop pre workout, but when I heard about the negative side effects I started to drink it,” Platt said.

If you plan on taking pre-workout I recommend you not to consume over 400 milligrams of caffeine per day and not to dry scoop.