The Ultimate Peri-Workout Stack
(Fueling Performance from Start to Finish)
When it comes to optimizing your training, having a strategic approach to peri-workout nutrition—what you consume before, during, and after your workout—can have a significant impact on your exercise performance, endurance, and recovery. By leveraging proper nutrient timing and scientifically backed supplements, you can maximize energy output, delay fatigue, and accelerate muscle recovery after those hard training sessions. Let’s dive into what the ultimate peri-workout stack can look like and the key science factors behind it.
Pre-Workout Nutrition: Priming the Body for Performance
Before stepping into the gym, heading out on the slopes, or embarking on that long hike, ensuring that your body is primed and fueled for performance with the right nutrients is crucial. A well-thought-out pre-workout regiment should address three main aspects: glycogen replenishment for performance and recovery, central nervous system (CNS) stimulation, and hydration.
Let’s look at these three key areas.
Glycogen: Cellular Fuel
Glycogen is your body’s premium fuel reserve and the stored form of carbohydrates in the muscles and the liver, which acts as a fast-access energy source for high-intensity training, endurance performance, and even muscle recovery. Glycogen can help power explosive movements, delay fatigue, and help maintain optimal performance during grueling workouts where energy demand is highest.
When glycogen stores are depleted, strength and endurance often take the biggest hit, making replenishment crucial for optimal recovery and growth. Proper glycogen restoration—through strategic carbohydrate intake—supports muscle fullness, enhances workout capacity, and prevents muscle breakdown. Whether you're lifting heavy, sprinting, or grinding through long training sessions, adequate glycogen levels keep you performing at your peak.
If time permits a whole food meal to be eaten, opt for complex forms of carbohydrates like oats and whole grains, as these will digest and break down slowly in your system. If your training is low-moderate in intensity (walking, jogging, LISS), adding healthy dietary fats to your pre-workout nutrition is also essential as fatty acids are glycogen sparing. This means that your body burns fat for fuel at these intensities, preserving glycogen for when they are needed most (high intensity sprinting, heavy lifting, etc.).
If a whole food meal is not able to be eaten, consuming fast-digesting carbs like highly branched cyclic dextrin (HBCD) or Vitargo can ensure a rapid but sustained release of energy, preventing premature fatigue.
For those following a lower-carb approach, ingredients like creatine monohydrate can support ATP production, an alternative fuel source during short bursts of maximal effort.
CNS Stimulation: Enhancing Focus and Drive
The central nervous system plays a critical role in motor unit recruitment, reaction time, and overall workout intensity. Ingredients like paraxanthine (200-300mg) provide a clean and sustained energy boost, reducing perceived exertion while increasing endurance.
Citicoline (250-500mg) is another powerful nootropic that enhances mind-muscle connection, improving focus and reaction time. Combining these with other classic ingredients like beta alanine, L-Tyrosine, and even coffee fruit extract can further prevent CNS burnout, keeping energy levels stable throughout your intense training sessions. Its for this exact reason why we included these key ingredients in products like BH2K, DISSIDENT, and OUTLIER.
Hydration: The Performance Multiplier
Hydration is, in my opinion, one of the most overlooked variables when it comes to performance, whether in the gym or out of the gym. Adequate hydration plays a vital role in sustaining endurance and muscle contraction efficiency as well as is essential for every cell that is found within the human body.
Electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium support optimal fluid balance, while other ingredients like L-citrulline and Nitrate based inclusions play a key role in hydration by enhancing blood flow, nitric oxide (NO) production, and cellular nutrient delivery. These ingredients have strong vasodilatory effects (widening blood vessels), which support hydration by improving circulation and nutrient transport within the body as well as working synergistically with key electrolytes and helping clear ammonia from the body. Ammonia is a byproduct of intense exercise that can contribute to dehydration and fatigue.
Intra-Workout Performance: Sustaining Strength and Endurance
As you will have likely experienced, during training, your body undergoes significant metabolic stress, depleting glycogen stores, increasing muscle breakdown, and losing essential electrolytes. A well-structured intra-workout formula can help sustain performance and minimize fatigue so you can push harder for longer as well as prime your body for recovery post training.
Fueling Performance with Carbohydrates
Just like pre-workout we want to ensure our body is filled with plenty of glycogen for an intense training session, keeping those glycogen levels high is also essential so it ensures your body has the energy it needs, especially for extended sessions or high-volume training. Fast-digesting carbohydrates like cluster dextrin (HBCD) or Vitargo can provide a steady stream of clean energy, helping to prevent dips in intensity. These low-osmolality carbs ensure rapid gastric emptying, avoiding digestive discomfort while replenishing muscle glycogen in real-time so you can keep pushing past failure.
Amino Acid Support for Muscle Preservation
Essential amino acids (EAAs) and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), like those found in LONGEVITY-EAA, can help counteract muscle protein breakdown during training. EAAs supply the necessary building blocks for muscle repair, recovery, as well as are protein sparing. Leucine, a key EAA, activates mTOR, the main pathway responsible for muscle protein synthesis, shifting the body from a catabolic (muscle breakdown) state to an anabolic (muscle-building) state. EAAs can also help maintain a positive nitrogen balance, reducing the need for the body to break down muscle tissue for amino acids. By counteracting cortisol-induced muscle breakdown and accelerating recovery, EAAs are crucial for preserving lean muscle mass—especially during fasting, intense training, or caloric deficits.
Optimizing Blood Flow & Hydration
Your pre-workout supplementation is giving your body everything it will need to perform at its best during your workout. Found within those pre-workout supplements are ingredients like L-Citrulline for supporting nitric oxide production, improving blood flow and oxygen delivery to working muscles, delaying fatigue. Beta alanine for buffering lactic acid and aiding in muscular strength and endurance. Nootropics like Cognizin® citicoline for enhancing mental focus, supporting brain ATP production, and increasing dopamine for improvements in mood and mental drive. These ingredients, among others, taken prior to training will allow your body to reap these benefits during your training.
Adding water and electrolytes, especially sodium, should be incorporated intra-workout to help maintain optimal hydration and prevent cramping. ELECTRASHRED combined with LONGEVITY EAA will give your body an unmatched combination intra workout to drive strong performance.
Post-Workout Recovery: Rebuilding and Replenishing
You’ve just crushed a grueling event. Your body is beaten down and you’re exhausted, but your body also is primed for nutrient absorption and ready to accept replenishment. Post-workout nutrition is crucial for muscle repair, glycogen replenishment, and overall recovery so you can come back and do it all over again the next day.
Protein and Amino Acid Replenishment
Protein is the backbone of muscle repair and growth and consists of the vital building blocks needed for hypertrophy, amino acids. Consuming 20-40g of a fast-digesting protein source like UNMATCHED Whey Protein Isolate immediately post-training can jumpstart muscle protein synthesis for recovery and stop muscle breakdown. Adding bioactive peptides like Immunolin or colostrum may further enhance immune support and gut health, ensuring optimal recovery.
Carbohydrate Timing for Glycogen Restoration
Post-workout glycogen replenishment is also key to recovery, especially for those training multiple times per week. Fast-digesting carbohydrates such as dextrose, Vitargo, or cyclic dextrin (30-50g) can provide rapid restoration of glycogen levels, facilitating quicker recovery and muscle fullness. Athletes performing endurance or high-intensity workouts may benefit from a 3:1 or 4:1 carb-to-protein ratio to optimize muscle repair and replenish energy stores but variable will also depend on individual nutrition needs.
Anti-Inflammatory & Recovery Boosters
As we have talked in this article, recovery is one of the essential components for muscle growth and hypertrophy. Ingredients like tart cherry extract (500-1,000mg) have been shown to reduce muscle soreness and inflammation due to their high polyphenol content. Curcumin and omega-3 fatty acids further support anti-inflammatory pathways, accelerating tissue repair. Adaptogens like Ashwagandha can also help regulate cortisol levels, preventing excessive catabolism and aiding in overall stress management.
Final Thoughts
A lot of people might understand that peri-workout nutrition exists, but most may not fully understand what it means or how to optimally structure it into their regimen to elicit the best performance and recovery possible for their goals. A well-structured peri-workout stack can ensure that your body is fully prepared for training, fueled during your session, and primed for optimal recovery afterward. By strategically incorporating high quality foods and utilizing clinically validated ingredients, you can optimize performance, sustain endurance, and accelerate muscle repair, helping you train harder and recover faster. Whether you’re an elite athlete or just someone looking to better their every day activities, dialing in your peri-workout nutrition is a game-changer in achieving your fitness goals.
