The Best Pre-Workout for a Pump

Two routes to the same feeling

The pump is the tight, full feeling in a muscle during a session, and labels sell two different ways of getting more of it:

• Widen the pipe. Citrulline is turned into arginine in the body and feeds nitric oxide, which relaxes the blood vessels feeding a working muscle. It is the best-researched pump ingredient by a distance, and it works better taken as citrulline than as arginine, most of which is broken down before it gets that far. Nitrosigine (an arginine form), agmatine and norvaline are sold on the same route, with much thinner evidence behind them.
• Fill the muscle. Glycerol compounds such as GlycerPump and GlycerSize hold water. The pitch is a fuller look in the muscle you are training, and it only works if you drink enough water for the glycerol to hold.

Every one of the 13 products we track lists citrulline, so "has a pump ingredient" does not narrow the shelf at all. Only 4 stack more than one: RAW Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout, Gorilla Mode Nitric Stim-Free Pre-Workout, Ghost Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout and Gorilla Mode Pre-Workout. In the other 9, citrulline is the only pump ingredient among the headline actives.

Every product we track, by pump ingredient

Counted by name among each product's headline ingredients. The blood-flow column lists what the label sells on widening vessels; the glycerol column is the water route. Sorted by pump ingredients, most first.

Pre-workouts built for the pump (4)

Each of these stacks more than one pump ingredient. Prices and formulas change often, so check the label on the product page before buying.

• RAW Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout$39.99

  5 pump ingredientsStimulant-freeNo beta-alanine

  Pure stimulant-free pump product — no caffeine and no beta-alanine tingles.

  Key ingredients: L-Citrulline, GlycerPump, Nitrosigine, Agmatine Sulfate, VasoDrive-AP

• Gorilla Mode Nitric Stim-Free Pre-Workout$49.99

  4 pump ingredientsStimulant-freeNo beta-alanineCreatine

  Stimulant-free pump and performance formula with creatine and no beta-alanine.

  Key ingredients: L-Citrulline, Creatine Monohydrate, GlycerPump, Nitrosigine, Agmatine Sulfate

• Ghost Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout$39.99

  4 pump ingredientsStimulant-freeNo beta-alanineVegan

  Stimulant-free nitric oxide product — pumps without caffeine or beta-alanine.

  Key ingredients: L-Citrulline, Arginine Nitrosigine, GlycerSize, Norvaline, Astragin

• Gorilla Mode Pre-Workout$49.99

  2 pump ingredients350mg caffeineNo beta-alanineCreatine

  High-stim pump formula with a full 5g of creatine and no beta-alanine.

  Key ingredients: L-Citrulline, Creatine Monohydrate, GlycerPump, L-Tyrosine, Caffeine Anhydrous

Where the caffeine is on this shelf

3 of the 4 formulas that stack pump ingredients are caffeine-free. The only one with caffeine is Gorilla Mode Pre-Workout, at 350mg a serving.

Nobody has shown that caffeine cancels a pump, so this is not pharmacology. It is how the products are built: a formula without a stimulant has room for more pump ingredients, and the pump is often the whole pitch of a non-stim product. It still decides your options. If you want a stimulant and a stacked pump in one scoop, the list above is short. The other way to get both is a stim-free pump formula with your usual coffee, which is the pairing pre-workout vs coffee describes. The stim-free shortlist covers the caffeine-free products this page leaves out.

How to choose between them

• Caffeine. This decides it before anything else does, for the reason above.
• Creatine. Both creatine products we track are on this shelf: Gorilla Mode Nitric Stim-Free Pre-Workout and Gorilla Mode Pre-Workout. Creatine also draws water into muscle, but slowly, over weeks of daily use, not within one session. The creatine guide explains why buying it separately usually works out better.
• Beta-alanine. None of the 4 formulas that stack pump ingredients carry beta-alanine, so this is also a tingle-free shelf.
• Diet. 1 of the 4 is vegan: Ghost Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout. The vegan shortlist has the rest.
• Blood-pressure medication. RAW Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout lists an ACE-inhibiting peptide, the same target as a class of blood-pressure drugs. Read does pre-workout raise blood pressure first if you take one.

Reading the citrulline line

Citrulline comes in two forms. Plain L-citrulline is all citrulline. Citrulline malate is bound to malic acid, and at the usual 2:1 ratio a gram of it is about two-thirds of a gram of citrulline. So 6g of one and 6g of the other are not the same dose, and you can only compare grams on two labels that use the same form. None of the 4 on the shortlist lists citrulline malate, while 5 of the other 9 use the malate form. The buyer's guide has the doses the research used.

What a pump formula costs you

The ingredients that make this shelf good for a pump have downsides that other guides here cover in detail:

• Headaches during the session. Stacked blood-flow ingredients widen vessels in your head too. Pre-workout headaches explains why a stacked formula is the first thing to suspect.
• Your stomach, before breakfast. Glycerol is a gram-scale load that pulls water into the gut. On an empty stomach these are the worst formulas on the shelf.
• A run. Glycerol that was built for a lifting session works against you on a steady run. Pre-workout for running arrives at this same shelf from the other side.

What this list cannot tell you

• We count ingredients, not grams. A formula that names four pump ingredients may carry a little of each, and one with only citrulline may carry a full research dose. The count tells you what a label is built for, not how much pump a scoop delivers.
• We track 5 headline ingredients per product. A pump ingredient further down a panel is invisible to this table.
• Most of the pump is the session. Higher-rep sets, short rests, and training fed and hydrated do more for the pump than a scoop does. A pump formula adds to that; it does not replace it.
• The pump is not growth. It drains away within an hour or so. Does pre-workout build muscle covers what does build it.

Getting this shelf out of the quiz

The quiz has no pump question, but two of its answers get you most of the way. Answer "Yes" to the quiz's tingle question and every product with beta-alanine is removed before anything is scored. The 4 that survive are exactly this shelf. Answer "No Caffeine" as well and the stimulant products go too, leaving RAW Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout, Gorilla Mode Nitric Stim-Free Pre-Workout and Ghost Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout. Then the creatine question decides the order. Take citrulline about an hour before you train, earlier than a stimulant formula; how long pre-workout lasts has the timing for each ingredient.

Frequently asked questions

What ingredients in pre-workout cause the pump?

Two kinds, working two different ways. Blood-flow ingredients (citrulline, arginine forms such as Nitrosigine, agmatine, norvaline) are sold on widening the blood vessels that feed a working muscle, and citrulline is the one with real research behind it. Glycerol compounds (GlycerPump, GlycerSize) hold water, which is sold as a fuller look in the muscle. Every one of the 13 products we track lists citrulline, so "has a pump ingredient" does not narrow the shelf at all.

Which pre-workout has the most pump ingredients?

Counted by name across the 13 we track, it is RAW Pump Non-Stim Pre-Workout, where all 5 of the headline ingredients are pump ingredients. That is a count of ingredients, not of grams, so it tells you which label is built for the pump, not which scoop delivers the most of it.

Are stim-free pre-workouts better for a pump?

On our shelf they are the ones built for it. 3 of the 4 formulas that stack pump ingredients are caffeine-free. The only one with caffeine is Gorilla Mode Pre-Workout, at 350mg a serving. That is a fact about how the formulas are put together, not proof that caffeine cancels a pump. Caffeine does narrow some blood vessels, but nobody has shown that it blunts the pump in a working muscle.

Does beta-alanine help the pump?

No. Beta-alanine buffers acid in the muscle during hard efforts of roughly one to four minutes. It does nothing to blood flow or water. None of the 4 formulas that stack pump ingredients carry beta-alanine, so this is also a tingle-free shelf.

How long before a workout should I take a pump pre-workout?

Earlier than a stimulant one. Citrulline takes about an hour to peak, while caffeine is usually felt within 20 to 30 minutes, so a pump formula wants to go in closer to an hour out. Glycerol needs water to hold, so drink the full amount the label says.

Does the pump build muscle?

Not in any established way. The pump is fluid moving into a working muscle and it drains away within an hour or so of the session. It is a sensation and a look, and it is worth buying for those reasons rather than for growth.