Muscle Element’s PreCre aims to improve your strength in the gym. It has a big nutrient profile with some great ingredients included, but is it worth buying? We’ll take you through the ins and outs of PreCre in this review.
Claimed to promote:
- Strength
- Power
- Lean Muscle Mass
- Energy
- Mental Focus
Let’s see whether this pre-workout delivers on all its promises. Take a look:
About the Company
Muscle Elements was set up in 2013 by “Sports Nutrition Industry Leaders”.
It aims to provide customers with honesty and quality – which is interesting, seeing as their nutrients are part of proprietary blends in PreCre (we’ll expand on this later).
The Ingredients and How They Work
PreCre has a massive nutrient profile, but does it give you results? Having more ingredients isn’t always better – PreCre is made up of 4 proprietary blends.
But what is a proprietary blend and why are they bad?
They are a combination of multiple nutrients, all put together in one mixture. The bad thing is, you’ll never know the exact amounts of each individual ingredient in these blends.
Interestingly, Muscle Elements have given you the quantities of each ingredient in PreCre – so these proprietary blends are a gimmick to make you believe they are more effective than they are.
What’s also worrying is the size of the servings. At 24g for one serving, your body won’t be able to process all of the nutrients so most of this product, and your money, will be wasted – your body can handle smaller servings of around 14g much better, meaning you’ll experience the full benefits of the product.
Take a look for yourself:
Cyclic Dextrin
Also know as Highly Branched Cyclic Dextrin (HBCD), this is a carbohydrate source that is pretty new to sports nutrition. Its main function is to help you recover from your workouts.
However, there hasn’t been any studies conducted about HBCD yet, so who knows if it actually works? One thing’s for sure – nothing’s been proven.
PreCre already has creatine in it, which helps you to recover, so Muscle Elements could’ve left this one out.
Glucose Polymers
Don’t be fooled this nutrient’s fancy name. It’s just an extended version of glucose (basically, it’s a simple sugar).
Glucose will give you a spike in your blood glucose levels, which will give you an energy boost. But this will also lead to a crash in energy levels, leaving you tired and unmotivated to finish your workout.
5 grams of sugar is a lot, especially those that are diabetic. Muscle Elements could have replaced this with a better ingredient, such as Beetroot Extract (AKA. Red Beet) – this promotes nitrate in your blood and has been proven to improve your endurance.
You should look for Beetroot Extract on your search for a quality pre-workout.
Vitis Vinifera
Also known as grape, again, this is a gimmick to fool the customer into believing this product is better than it is. While grape has been shown to reduce blood pressure and control cholesterol levels, is this what you’re looking for in a pre-workout?
Fair enough if you are, but we’d recommend an ingredient like Rhodiola Rosea instead – which improves your mental focus, putting you in the right mindset to smash your workout in the gym.
Creatine (Monohydrate & HCL)
Creatine is the best nutrient in PreCre. It’s been proven to increase your strength in the gym and recovery after your workouts. You can’t argue with the facts here.
However, you don’t need both monohydrate and HCL – HCL is absorbed slightly better than monohydrate, but that’s where the differences stop.
You only need 1500mg per serving in a quality pre-workout to get results, so the 5000mg in PreCre is a lot. If you want a high level of creatine, it would be better to buy it separately and cycle dosing for 3 weeks.
Betaine HCL
This ingredient is created in a laboratory and is used as a medicine. However, in 1993, Betaine HCL was banned in over-the-counter products, with concerns about its safety.
Betaine HCL claims to help digestion, but it only delivers hydrochloric acid and doesn’t actually alter stomach acidity itself. This is definitely a waste of space in this product.
See SupplementTester’s
– Highest Rated Pre Workouts Here –
Beta-Alanine
We understand why companies include Beta-Alanine in pre-workouts – it’s been shown to enhance muscular endurance. However, it comes with an off-putting side-effect.
This nutrient can cause paresthesia, which is an uncomfortable, tingling of the skin that can affect your face, abdomen, chest and extremities.
This occurs after digesting large doses of Beta-Alanine (over 800mg), and with PreCre packing 1,200mg per serving, you’re in danger of experiencing paresthesia – this can ruin your workout, which would be a waste of time and money.
Creatinol O-Phosphate
This ingredient is a synthetic analogue (basically, it’s unnatural) of creatine. It’s believed that it’s cardioprotective, but you won’t even experience this benefit if you take it orally.
However, there hasn’t been any studies regarding creatinol o-phosphate, so nothing is proven yet.
With creatine monohydrate & HCL already in PreCre, you’d benefit more from the addition of L-Citrulline instead – L-Citrulline increases L-arginine levels, meaning you get a muscle pump during your workout.
Tyrosine
This has been proven to reduce stress levels at doses of 500-2000mg. It can’t hurt to have this in here, but it’s not key to a quality pre-workout.
Caffeine
You can’t deny that caffeine works. It’s used in anything from coffee/tea to gym supplements and comes with numerous benefits.
Caffeine is a powerful stimulant which is shown to boost your strength, endurance, and mental focus. You should definitely look for this when choosing a quality pre-workout.
Guarana Extract
Also known as Paulinia Cupana, the ground seeds from this fruit bearing tree is used traditionally as medicine in the Amazon. It’s believed that it improves sporting performance.
However, it comes with potential side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, increased heart rate and blood pressure, when taken in doses greater than 250mg – PreCre contains 200mg, which is worryingly close to that figure.
There hasn’t been enough studies to determine the safety or effectiveness of Guarana, so we recommend staying away from this ingredient.
DMAE
This is shown to improve your memory and cognitive function. However, the studies are quite unreliable, and the side effects outweigh the benefits on DMAE.
DMAE is potentially teratogenic, meaning it can cause defects in unborn babies in the first few days after impregnation. This is a serious risk, and we suggest staying away from this ingredient, especially if you are female.
There are too many ingredients with potential side effects included in PreCre.
Check out which ingredients work and which don’t in our
– Pre workout ingredients guide –
Side Effects
There are ingredients that you should definitely avoid in PreCre, such as DMAE, Guarana Extract, and Beta-Alanine – these all come with potential side effects that can ruin your workout and even affect your life outside of the gym.
Here is a list of the possible side effects you risk experiencing with this product:
- Tingling of your face, abdomen, chest and extremities (Beta-Alanine)
- Nausea (Guarana Extract)
- Vomiting (Guarana Extract)
- Increased blood pressure (Guarana Extract)
- Defects in unborn babies (DMAE)
Not what you’re looking for? See your best options in our
– Top 3 Pre Workout Page –
Pro’s and Con’s
Pro’s
- A few quality ingredients included such as Caffeine and Creatine
Con’s
- Risk of serious side effects
- Very big serving size – 24g (you won’t digest all of the nutrients at once, meaning less benefits)
- Large amounts of ingredients that won’t really benefit you in a pre-workout (Glucose and Vitis Vinifera)
PreCre Review Conclusion
Muscle Elements have really tried to trick you into thinking it’s better than it is. PreCre contains a massive 5,000mg of grape (Vitis Vinifera) and sugar, among others, labeled with fancy names.
The serving of this product is massive (24g), and you’re better looking for a pre-workout with a serving size of around 14g – this ensures you can digest all of the nutrients and experience the full benefits.
The potential side effects from ingredients such as DMAE, Beta-Alanine, and Guarana Extract should be enough to keep you away from PreCre. You should look for a pre-workout that contains nutrients like L-Citrulline and Beetroot Extract – these ingredients will give you a great muscle pump and enhance your workout in the gym.