25 Simple Pre Workout Foods To Help You Achieve Amazing Workout Results in 2024.

These small Maca muffins are ideal as a pre-workout snack because not only do they contain the essential carbohydrates you need for slow-release energy to sustain you throughout your workouts.

This is because they include a range of different ingredients that cover all the essential nutrient groups. With the traditional blueberries (2 cups), you’ll be providing your body with antioxidants to promote good health and fight disease.

You’ll also use chia seeds (1/2 cup) that are loaded with healthy fats, bananas (3 medium) for potassium and slow-release energy, and Maca (1/4 cup) to help you improve your stamina and endurance. For this recipe, you’ll also need almond milk (2 cups) which are great if you’re vegan, baking powder (2 tsp) which holds the muffins together and oats (2 ½ cups) which is the main foundation of the muffins that are renowned for their content of healthy carbs.

To produce these muffins, simply add all the ingredients together except half the oats and milk, mix together, then add the other ingredients slowly and while pulsing. When everything is mixed together, scoop the mixture into muffin cases or a baking tray and bake for 35 minutes on high heat (350°F). This recipe will produce around 8-10 muffins, depending on how big you make them.

You can even freeze these muffins to keep them fresh and reheat them to enjoy the warm about 30 minutes before you plan to start your workout.

Serving Size: 2 Muffins

Bananas are simply one of the best pre workout foods available, giving you the energy boost and the calories you need as well as providing you with a bunch of simple carbs and even a dash of potassium. There is no preparation time for these fruits, just unpeel them and eat about half an hour before you start your session.

You can also have bananas with peanut butter on toast which provides a range of extra benefits to your workout. This includes much more slow-release energy throughout your workout to help you perform and protein to help you build muscles and leanness. This is in addition to the endurance properties that a banana already provides.

As the name suggests,all you need is three ingredients; toast (1 slice of bread), a banana (large-sized) and peanut butter (3 tablespoons). Plus, it will take no longer than a few minutes to make.

Serving Size: Medium (about 135g)

Another meal that gives you the best of both worlds, Tuna Pasta is great at least 3 hours before your workout as a proper meal or lunch and will take a maximum of 30 minutes to prepare.

This great dish has tuna (1 tin) which will provide you with the protein your body needs to repair and grow your muscles while the pasta (100g) includes complex carbs to keep your energized from start to finish. You can then add whatever vegetables you like and seasonings for taste for extra benefits, such as broccoli, mushrooms, garlic, spinach, salt, and pepper.

If you’re on a fish-free diet, you can replace the tuna with tofu or another favorite protein-rich alternative and avoid using the cheese to top it off, giving you a complete meal with everything you need for the best workouts.

Serving Size: 200g

Considered by many athletes to be the ultimate workout breakfast, porridge and oatmeal is a fantastic source of complex carbohydrates and fibre that will dramatically aid your digestive functions. Due to the bulkiness of this meal, you’re going to want to consume it around 2 hours before you plan to start your workout.

The preparation time is basically non-existent (a few minutes max) by simply adding porridge (50g) and milk (300ml) into a bowl together and heating up in the microwave. For an extra kick, try adding a scoop of protein powder or fresh fruit.

Serving Size: 60g

Chickpeas are a great pre-workout meal because you can consume them in a variety of ways, or simply by themselves. Since chickpeas are a leading and relatively balanced source of healthy fats, protein, carbohydrates, and fiber, they can be used to accompany any meal on this list, so you can optimize your workouts easily, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

In its simple form, you can simply drizzle lemon juice over your chickpeas (1/2 cup) and let them soak for a couple of hours to provide with an impressive boost of energy. You’ll want to consume these chickpeas between 30 minutes to 2 hours before you start your workout for the best benefits.

Serving Size: Approx. 50g

While it may be easy to go out and simply buy protein bars, making your own saves your money, time and can provide you with even more benefits since you’ll be able to create the bars to suit you. You can even make simple ones in just five or ten minutes that are suitable for vegans, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free and suitable for Paleo.

All you need to do is add coconut flour (62g), 2 scoops of your favorite protein powder, peanut butter (113g) and a sweetener of your choice if you choose to use it. You can then mix all these together, mold them into bar shapes and leave in the fridge to set to whenever you want to eat them.

While these bars only take five minutes to make, you’ll want to eat them around an hour before you start your workout, giving you more than enough time to digest and get the protein you need to assist your muscle in whatever process you’re going to put them through.

Serving Size: 1 Bar (24 squares in total)

This incredibly simple to make recipe can be consumed around an hour to 20 minutes before your workout to provide you with a much-needed boost of energy without being weighed down by stodgy meals that make you feel lethargic and unable to perform to the best of your abilities.

All you need to do is add boil some brown rice (1/2 cup) and then mix in some black beans (1/2 cup), and you’ll be ready to eat in less than 15 minutes. The reason we choose brown rice here over white rice is that brown rice contains bran, germ, and endosperm, which come together to make this variety much better for your digestive system, healthier with lower fats and richer in protein.

The black beans are also rich in protein which is ideal for your muscles and contains carbs that hold the slow-release energy to help you get through your workout while producing the right results the entire time.

Serving Size: Approx. 150g

With a vast majority of pre workout meals, you’ll find it’s hard to get the protein you need while minimizing the number of carbs you’re consuming, making it difficult to have pure muscle growth, without gaining a bit of fat. However, this recipe is ideal for those who want absolute muscle growth without the fatty intake.

This high-protein meal is rich with eggs that help to keep you full during your session, which can only be added upon if you add shrimp to the recipe. With this hearty meal, you’ll want, as a basis; eggs (3 large), egg whites (4), ricotta (3 tbsp), cherry tomatoes (1/2 cup), peas (1/2 cup), diced onion (1/2 cup), butter (1 tbsp), and then garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

To create this recipe, you’ll need to set aside about an hour with prepping time and start by melting your butter into a pan on a low heat. Simultaneously, mix your eggs, egg whites and seasoning together. Add your ricotta and whisk well. Brown your onions in the pan and add shrimp.

Finally, add your peas, tomatoes and add everything in the pan to form the frittata, leaving the pan untouched for 2-3 minutes. You should eat this meal around an hour before you plan to start your workout. If you’re looking for a vegan alternative, replace the cheese with vegan cottage cheese and remove the shrimp, replacing it with your favorite protein-rich vegan alternative.

Serving Size: 1 Serving

While we’re all used to Powerade and Lucozade-like energy drinks, renowned for pumping our bodies full of electrolytes that prepare our minds and bodies for sweating during short yet intense workout sessions, why spend the money in a shop when you can simply make and customise your own.

This is an incredibly simple recipe with can take only a few minutes to make but will provide enough juice to keep you going to matter what. It keeps you hydrated, energized and your body performing to the best of its ability. Drink before, during or after your high-intensity exercis, basically any time!

All you need is four ingredients, cranberry juice, not from concentrate (750ml), water (1.25 litres), maple syrup (30ml) and salt (3ml). Mix it all together in a large jug, and you’ll have more than enough energy drink to keep you going (about eight servings in total)!

Serving Size: About 80ml per Serving

When it comes to a simple recipe like a trail mix, a mixture of seeds, nuts, and dried berries, not much comes close to just how effective these recipes are at giving your body everything it needs to perform optimally during workouts.

What’s more, you can customize the recipe completely depending on what you like and don’t like. However, if you suffer from nut allergies, there’s no real way you’ll be able to consume this one. These mixtures only take a few minutes to produce and can be consumed up to 10 minutes before you start working out and especially after you’ve finished your session.

You can add pretty much anything to your mixes, including nuts, dried fruit, raisins, sultanas and anything else you care to name or simply purchase a pre-prepared pack from a supplier.

Serving Size: About 25g

While the vast majority of people will consider fruit smoothies to be a healthy accompaniment to a meal, they are, in fact, meal replacements and shouldn’t be confused. This is because a fruit smoothie is incredibly sweet and therefore full of sugars, which when consumed with a meal can be too much.

However, while packed the nutrients of whatever selection of fruit (around 500g) you choose to blend, this smoothie, that can be consumed at any time before your workout, is full of instant-effect calories and fast-acting glucose to give you all the energy you need to be the best.

Of course, the macros here depend on the ingredients you use and the quantity in which you produce them, so make sure you’re working them out using an online macro calculator, such as this one.

Nevertheless, to get you started, one simple recipe you can follow is for a basic protein and banana smoothie. For this, you’ll need a banana flavored whey protein powder (1 scoop), cashew butter (300g), fat-free yogurt or your favorite vegan alternative (300g), banana (1 medium) and you can even add peaches (80g) and ice.

Alternatively, you could choose a much fruiter substitute, such as your typical whey protein powder (1 scoop), blueberries (80g), spinach (50g), orange juice (150ml) and fat-free yogurt or your favorite vegan alternative (300g).

Simply blend all the ingredients together in your blender or food processor, drinking it immediately or storing it in the fridge to keep it fresh. However, make sure you’re consuming all your smoothie with 24-hours of making it. Otherwise, it will congeal.

Serving Size: 500g (about 20oz)

When we consume foods, there are two main areas that we look at that can help you to increase the effectiveness of your workouts; carbohydrates and fats. These are going to be the main points of focus when we’re looking at the foods that you want to be eating before you start up a session.

Instant-Effect Carbohydrates

While you may consider carbs the enemy of the dieting work or as something you should avoid, this needn’t be the case. In fact, making sure you eat the right amount of carbs at the right time can be hugely beneficial to your body by creating the fast-release energy you need.

You can consume these carbs before, or after or either end of your workouts. These instant-effect carbs work in the same way that sugar, or glucose, works when it comes to giving you the boost you need to perform at your optimal level.

As you may know, when we’re working out, our bodies take advantage of glycogen that gives us this required amount of energy. While there are some people that suggest that our bodies will restore these glycogen levels within 24 hours, consider the fact that many of us still have fairly intensive days after we work out, which makes it essential to our well-being to restore these levels as quick as possible.

Consuming these power-carbs also causes the insulin levels within us to spike. In short, insulin is an anabolic hormone and is commonly associated with muscle synthesis; or repairing the muscles after a workout. There are also studies that suggest that insulin can help reduce the risk of muscle damage, or muscle catabolism.

One study on post-workout found that meals with protein and meals with protein plus fast-acting carbs had the next-to-no difference when it came to the amount of insulin that was produced by the body. This means even something as small as a protein shake can be enough to get your body working to its best potential.

The Essential Fats

While the diet and health industry, especially the commercial side of it, have given fat a bit of bad name and many people believe that fats are bad as they make you gain weight and cause all kinds of health problems. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

While excessive amounts of fats, and industrial trans-fat, are bad for your health, a little bit of fat here and there in the right places, at the right times, with the right amounts, can give your body a whole lot of positive benefits.

The first thing you’ll need to remember is that there are multiple kinds of fat. The natural fats you get from eating meat, such as lamb, grass-fed animals and products like coconut oil can be extremely beneficial to your well-being. However, fats from sweets, crisps, deep-fried foods and chocolate come from sugars or grease and will only do you harm.

After many recent studies, it was discovered that these helpful and beneficial fats could be very supportive to an athlete or somebody working out. By remembering that fats can contain up to 9 calories per gram (making it the most calorie-packed substance) consuming a little of these fats is enough to give you an outstanding energy boost to perform to the best of your abilities.

While its best to avoid certain saturated fats as well as making sure you choose which fats to eat for what exercises (for example, fats will bulk you up and weigh you down when it comes to weightlifting or HITT exercises), if you’re training your endurance and stamina abilities, this could be an area well worth your attention.

In addition to making sure that you eat the right pre workout foods, there are several other processes you can engage in before you start your workouts to ensure that you’re getting the maximum return and the best results back. Here’s a few to get you started;

Get Enough Sleep

This is perhaps the most common practice you’ll see on any health and well-being advice page, and for a good reason. When you sleep, you’re actively giving your body the opportunity to rest and recover properly, as well as restoring your energy levels to the best levels possible.

However, not getting enough sleep means that you’ll feel far much more fatigue throughout the day and suffer from less energy, always resulting in less productive workout sessions. Aim for at least eight hours a night, and you’ll see a dramatic improvement.

Stay Hydrated

Our bodies are made up of a huge percentage of water which means that we need to make sure that we’re drinking enough throughout the day to maintain this level of hydration. Failure to do so will only result in our bodies not working to their full potential and a noticeable lack of energy.

Make Sure You Warm Up

As you may a start on your workout sessions, it’s so important that you start slowly by warming up your muscles, stretching them, so they are ready for more intense workouts. It doesn’t matter if your workout is ten minutes long or an hour, you need to stretch out your muscles and warm them up, or risk damaging them.

When it comes to your exercise workout routines, while many of us focus on the ins and outs of our techniques and the types of workouts that we’re doing, while these elements are important, there are many more aspects at play that need to be considered.

By making sure you’re eating the right pre workout food at the right time, giving your body all the vitamins, fuel and nutrients it needs to perform to the best of its ability and taking care of yourself between workout sessions, you can be sure that you’ll be working out the best you can every single time.