ENGN is Evlution Nutrition’s popular pre-workout supplement that’s aimed to suit everyone’s needs from “track star to bodybuilder”.
Claimed to promote:
- Strength
- Muscle Pumps
- Energy
- Focus
This product claims to provide you with everything you’d want from a pre-workout, so let’s see whether it delivers on its promises.
Take a look:
About the Company
Evlution Nutrition set out to provide their customers with the highest quality products with “unmatched customer service”. They offer a range of supplements, from pre-workouts to fat burners, designed to help you reach your fitness goals.
The Ingredients and How They Work
Evlution Nutrition has created ENGN with two proprietary blends. These are a mixture of numerous nutrients that are placed under one dosage value, which is bad because you’ll never find out the exact quantity of each individual ingredient in these blends.
Take a look at which ingredients in this pre-workout are effective:
Beta-Alanine – Evlution Nutrition has gotten off to a bad start here. We understand why they’ve included this ingredient in ENGN, as it’s been shown to enhance muscular endurance, but it comes with a side effect.
Beta-Alanine can cause paresthesia (a tingling of the skin in your face, chest, hands, and extremities) over a dose of 800mg – ENGN contains double that, so you’re at serious risk of suffering from paresthesia, which would ruin your workout in the gym.
Creatine Complex
This is a proprietary blend containing two forms of creatine (creatine monohydrate and magnesium creatine chelate). The problem here is that you’ll never find out how much of each ingredient there is in the blend.
This is bad, because creatine monohydrate is the most powerful and potent form of creatine, and has been proven to get you results – it’s ideal to have a good quantity of this in a pre-workout, but there might be a minimal amount in this blend. You’ll never find out.
- Creatine Monohydrate – This is the best form of creatine that you can find – it’s the most powerful and potent version, and has been proven to boost your strength, lean muscle mass while reducing fatigue.
- You should look out for creatine monohydrate when searching for a quality pre-workout.
- Magnesium Creatine Chelate – This isn’t as effective as creatine monohydrate, but it has one advantage – it’s shown to prevent water weight gain at low doses. But here’s the issue.
- As it’s in the ‘Creatine Complex’ proprietary blend, you might have a high dose of this inside ENGN, meaning you won’t even experience its benefit.
- If you have a low dose of creatine monohydrate and a high dose of magnesium creatine chelate, you’ll be losing out on the full benefits of each ingredient – the point is, you’ll never find out exactly how much of each is inside ENGN.
See SupplementTester’s
– Highest Rated Pre Workouts Here –
ENGN Mind-to-Muscle Matrix
This is a big proprietary blend inside ENGN, made up of numerous different ingredients but all put under one quantity (2,213mg). Take a look at what’s inside the ENGN Mind-to-Muscle Matrix:
- Betaine Anhydrous – Also known as Trimethlyglycine, it’s a component of beetroot and is an osmoregulator (meaning it helps maintain the fluid balance and concentration of electrolytes, to keep the fluids from becoming too diluted or concentrated.
- Evlution Nutrition has added Betaine Anhydrous into ENGN as it’s believed that it promotes muscular endurance. However, studies have shown that this benefit is minimal – the problem here is, this proprietary blend might be full of this ingredient, meaning you’ll experience minimal benefits.
- Also, it comes with the risk of potential side effects, like nausea, stomach upset, and diarrhea – this would definitely hinder your progress in the gym.
- Choline Bitartrate – This is a molecule that’s found in high amounts in eggs (particularly the yolks). It’s thought to improve your anaerobic running capacity as well as mental function, such as memory and reaction time.
- However, scientific studies have shown that Choline Bitartrate doesn’t deliver these benefits. What’s worse it that it can cause you to suffer from headaches at high doses – with this ingredient being part of a proprietary blend, you’re putting yourself at risk of this side effect, as you don’t know the exact amount of this ingredient in the blend.
- L-Tyrosine – This is an amino acid that’s used to reduce stress. However, while it has been shown to be effective in doing this, it comes with a risk of serious side effects.
- L-Tyrosine can raise your thyroid hormone production and lead you to suffer a hypertensive crisis (a severe increase in blood pressure). We recommend that you try to avoid consuming this ingredient due to these risks.
- Agmatine Sulfate – This is a metabolite of L-Arginine (it’s taken sourced from L-Arginine through the removal of a carboxylic acid group) and is most commonly used to reduce neuropathic pain and help patients deal with drug addiction.
- It has been shown to alleviate pain in studies, which might help during your workouts. However, it’s not key to what makes a quality pre-workout – and as it’s in a proprietary blend, it could be taking up space that a more effective ingredient could have used to benefit you more.
- Caffeine – You can’t deny that Caffeine is a beneficial ingredient to have in a pre-workout. It’s used in numerous products from tea/coffee to gym supplements for its ability to improve your strength, endurance and your mental function (eg. memory and reaction time).
- You should definitely look for a pre-workout that contains caffeine to experience its full benefits. However, there’s a problem with caffeine being in a proprietary blend.
- While it’s one of the safest ingredients out there, it can cause jitters and insomnia when taken over the recommended daily amount (400mg) – this blend is 2,213mg in total, so there is a risk of there being too much caffeine inside ENGN and suffering from the side effects.
See SupplementTester’s
– Highest Rated Pre Workouts Here –
- Dicaffeine Malate – This is a mild stimulant that contains caffeine and malic acid (malic acid is found in fruit and vegetables, and your body produces it when it converts carbs to energy).
- The advantage of this ingredient is that it can be less harsh on your stomach than caffeine, but ENGN contains caffeine so there’s no reason for having Dicaffeine Malate as well.
- This ingredient also comes with the same side effects as caffeine – jitters, insomnia and rapid heartbeat, so increases your risk of experiences these negatives when mixed with caffeine in an increased load.
- Alpha-Glycerylphosphorylcholine – Also know as Alpha-GPC, it’s most commonly used to improve mental function (memory and reaction time) and strength.
- It’s been proven to increase your strength at a dose of 600mg taken before your training session – however, you don’t know the exact amount of this ingredient in the proprietary blend.
- Also, it comes with a risk of side effects, such as heartburn, headaches insomnia, dizziness, skin rash, and confusion, which would inhibit your fitness goals and ruin your workouts.
- Huperzia Serrata – This is a plant known that’s native to India and southeast Asia. It contains Huperzine A (which is often used to treat patients with Alzheimer’s disease due to its ability to improve memory and function).
- Huperzia Serrata is widely offered in pharmacies as a nootropic – Evlution Nutrition has added this into ENGN in an attempt to improve your mental function.
- However, it comes with a risk of severe side effects, such as slow heart rate (as well as other heart diseases), epilepsy, gastrointestinal tract blockage, sores in the stomach, lung conditions (like asthma) and urinary tract or reproductive system blockage.
- As you don’t know the exact amount of Huperzia Serrata, you’re at risk of suffering from these side effects. We strongly recommend that you avoid this ingredient.
ENGN is let down by its proprietary blends. There are some great ingredients inside, but the less effective nutrients might be taking up the majority of the space in the blends.
Check out which ingredients work and which don’t in our
– Pre workout ingredients guide –
Side Effects
ENGN comes with the numerous potential side effects from its ingredients. We’ve listed these along with each individual ingredient that might cause them, to let you know the exact risks you face from taking this pre-workout.
See for yourself:
- Paresthesia, which is a tingling on the skin of your face, chest, hands and extremities (Beta-Alanine)
- Nausea (Betaine Anhydrous)
- Upset stomach (Betaine Anhydrous)
- Diarrhea (Betaine Anhydrous)
- Headaches (Choline Bitartrate and Alpha-GPC)
- Raise in thyroid hormone production (L-Tyrosine)
- Hypertensive crisis, which is a severe increase in blood pressure (L-Tyrosine)
- Jitters and Insomnia (Dicaffeine Malate and Alpha-GPC)
- Heartburn (Alpha-GPC)
- Dizziness (Alpha-GPC)
- Skin Rash (Alpha-GPC)
- Confusion (Alpha-GPC)
- Slow heart rate (Huperzia Serrata)
- Epilepsy (Huperzia Serrata)
- Gastrointestinal tract blockage (Huperzia Serrata)
- Sores in the stomach (Huperzia Serrata)
- Lung conditions, such as asthma (Huperzia Serrata)
- Urinary tract or reproductive system blockage (Huperzia Serrata)
Not what you’re looking for? See your best options in our
– Top 3 Pre Workout Page –
Pro’s and Con’s
Pro’s
- Some great ingredients like Caffeine, Vitamins B6 & B12, and Creatine Monohydrate
Con’s
- Numerous side effects
- Many unproductive ingredients inside proprietary blends, meaning most of the product could be mostly ineffective
- Contains 2 proprietary blends
- Not good value for money ($59.98 for 30 servings)
ENGN Review Conclusion
There are a lot of ineffective ingredients inside, and most worryingly, they are inside proprietary blends – this means that Evlution Nutrition could have cut costs by keeping the doses of the beneficial ingredients minimal while filling them with the less effective ones.
The list is side effects should be enough to keep you away from this product, and we seriously recommend that you look for a pre-workout without any proprietary blends and better quality ingredients, such as L-Citrulline, Beetroot Extract (these two nutrients promote nitric oxide in your body, meaning you’ll experience great muscle pumps).