Concentrate this!

The biggest lie in the supplement industry involves the use of the term "concentrated"

Written By Jim Stoppani, PhD

Updated August 6, 2019

If you pay attention to preworkout supplements, you will notice that the current trend (excluding Pre JYM which is a 26.5 gram serving size) is to make them with smaller and smaller serving sizes. Some preworkouts currently on the market use serving sizes as small as 3 grams or even smaller! Anyone who knows anything about science would immediately recognize that as a red flag. Yet, supplement manufacturers see the lack of science know-how that most consumers have as an opportunity to sell them less for more. They do this by claiming that these tiny serving sizes are possible because the products have been "concentrated". It's the dirtiest trick in the book. Quite frankly, it disgusts me that anyone would make such a blatant lie to make a buck! And it's just one of the many reasons why I am fighting back with JYM Supplement Science. It's my way of showing the other supplement manufacturers, as well as you, what quality supplements look like and what they can actually do for you.

The Real Science of Concentrates

It is actually possible to concentrate certain supplements. But this pertains to mainly herbs and other plant-based ingredients. Take green tea as an example. The main active ingredient in green tea is EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate). When you drink green tea, you are consuming the whole plant, which provides very little EGCG. Green tea extract, however, is concentrated to provide a certain percent of EGCG. This involves an extraction process using a solvent that has a strong affinity for the EGCG. Most green tea extracts are standardized to provide anywhere from 25-50% EGCG. So green tea extract has been truly concentrated to provide more EGCG, which means you need to consume less than the whole plant.

One concentrated form of an herb can also be more concentrated than another form. For example, if you had 200 mg of green tea extract standardized to provide 25% EGCG, that would provide 50 mg of EGCG. If you had a green tea extract that was standardized to 50% EGCG, you would only need 100 mg to provide that 50 mg of EGCG. So the green tea extract providing 50% EGCG is more concentrated than the green tea extract providing 25% EGCG and you could take less of the more concentrated green tea extract to get the same amount of EGCG. This is one example where the concentrated claim hold up.

Fuzzy Science

Ingredients, such as isolated amino acids, like branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), beta-alanine, citrulline, glutamine, taurine, or tyrosine, as well as amino-acid-derived ingredients, like creatine and carnitine, cannot be concentrated like herbs. These ingredients already exist in an isolated form. Their standard form is as concentrated as you can get. For example, 1 gram of beta-alanine is 1 gram of beta-alanine. You can't take 500 mg (0.5 grams) of beta-alanine and claim that it's as effective as 1 gram of beta-alanine. 500 mg of beta-alanine is half of 1 gram and therefore is half as effective as 1 gram of beta-alanine.

Preworkout supplements focus on, or at least they should focus on, providing amino acids, such as BCAAs, beta-alanine, arginine and/or citrulline, taurine, tyrosine, and creatine. The preworkout category, unfortunately, happens to be the category where you will find the term "concentrate" and "concentrated" most used, or misused, I should say. Calling a preworkout product a "concentrate" or claiming that it's "concentrated" is a complete lie, as these types of ingredients cannot be concentrated. That's simple science.

Let's consider a preworkout supplement that has a 5-gram serving size. The product lists creatine monohydrate, beta-alanine, citrulline, and arginine on the label, along with caffeine and a few other ingredients that you probably have never heard of. After reading that ingredient list, this appears to be a pretty good preworkout product. After all, it has the creatine and beta-alanine you need for more strength and energy. It also has citrulline and arginine for a better pump. And of course, there's the caffeine and other stimulants to ramp you up. But how can they cram all of those ingredients into a tiny 5-gram serving? That's a very good question! So let's do the math.

We know that you need a bare minimum of 3 grams of creatine monohydrate to be an effective dose. You also need a bare minimum dose from beta-alanine of about 1.5 grams. And you need minimum doses of 3 grams each for citrulline and for arginine. When you add up what those ingredients alone should tally, you get 10.5 grams. And that doesn't include the caffeine and other ingredients.

So is that 5-gram dose just as effective as the required 10.5 gram dose of those ingredients? No! It's half as effective at best. So how do they get away with this? It all comes down to "feel".

Buzz Worthy

Most people aren't supplement savvy enough to know what ingredients they need before workouts, let alone the proper doses that they need of those ingredients. So many supplement companies underdose on the critical ingredients and claim that they are "concentrated". What they don't skimp on is the caffeine and other stimulants. But luckily you only need 200-300 mg of caffeine, along with anywhere from 10 mcg to a couple hundred milligrams of some other stimulants to give quite a wallop. So with less than 500 mg, or half of a gram, you can create a preworkout that "feels" like it works, even though the absence of critical ingredients or the lack of proper doses of the critical ingredients, tells you that it does not actually work.

This is one of the problems with the preworkout category. Most products have done away with providing the critical nutrients that are essential for more real strength and endurance in the gym, and focus solely on providing a "high", if you will. The preworkout category has sadly become a stimulant war between companies to see who can create the most intense-feeling preworkout on the market. The uneducated consumers demand for these over-stimulated preworkout products has allowed these companies to make quite a pretty penny with cheap preworkout products that they perpetrate as "concentrates" and are simply nothing more than stimulants.

So don't fall for the "concentrate" scam. For a preworkout product to provide you everything you really need before a workout, it should be well over 10 grams per serving. I'd say it should be a minimum of 15 grams, if not over 20 grams, as is Pre JYM with a 26.5 gram serving size. And remember that you need to subtract the carbohydrates from the total serving size to calculate the true serving size of the active ingredients. If a preworkout product has a 20-gram serving size and lists 10 grams of carbs per serving, then it only provides 10 grams of active ingredients. This is another trick that supplement companies do to make it seem like you are getting more than you actually are.

A true quality preworkout product should also have the dose of each ingredient listed on the Supplement Facts panel on the label. And be sure that the doses listed for each ingredient are at the proper amounts shown to be effective in research studies. If you are uncertain about the proper dose of an ingredient, you can get more info on that ingredient right here at www.jimstoppani.com, or simply ask me via Twitter. Take the time to educate yourself on supplements. The more you know, the bigger you can grow.

*A note on creatine HCL

A confusing concept for many people has to do with creatine hydrochloride (HCL), which I use in Pre JYM and Post JYM. Creatine monohydrate is the standard form of creatine typically used. It requires a 3-5 gram dose to be effective. And to maximize its effects, I have found that a 3-5 gram dose of creatine monohytdrate taken both before and after workouts works best. Creaine HCL requires a smaller dose than creaine monohydrate due to the fact that creatine HCL is more soluble in fluid and is absorbed much better by the intestines than the monohtdrate form. In fact, some data shows that creatine HCL can be taken up by the intestines by as much as 70% greater than creatine monohydrate. Personally, I have found that a 1.5-2 gram dose of creatine HCL both before and after workouts works best and is all you need. That's compared to 3-5 gram dose of creatine monohydrate before and after wokrouts. Yet, while 1.5 -2 grams of creatine HCL is far less than 3-5 grams of creatine monohydrate, this does not mean that creatine HCL is concentrated. The form is just absorbed better by the body, so you need to take less to get a similar effect as creatine monohydrate.

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