Early morning workouts are a popular choice among people with busy work and life schedules. Some people are just morning people and enjoy being active at the onset of the day, while others have to get their workouts done early as it is their only option.
When you consider the importance of sleep for workout performance, recovery, and overall health, it’s important to make the morning routine as convenient as possible. You don’t want to sacrifice sleep because you need more time to get ready.
In a previous article we discussed whether or not you can mix a protein shake the night before and leave it in the refrigerator. But how does this apply to other supplements?
Many people use pre workout supplements in lieu of coffee for early morning workouts, or to simply get through the day. To make the morning routine more convenient, can you premix a pre workout supplement the night before and leave it in the refrigerator?
A pre workout supplement is fine to mix the night before. It will maintain its efficacy and freshness while refrigerated overnight. The one caveat is any pre workout containing creatine, as creatine is unstable in liquid.
There may be some settling after leaving the shaker bottle in the refrigerator overnight, but a few light shakes will mix it right back to normal.
This practice makes logical sense when you consider all of the premixed pre workout supplements on the market today. Companies like Cellucor and Redcon1 offer premixed pre workouts in their popular C4 and Total War products. These products are called RTDs, which stand for ready to drink.
To save on cost, people may want to premix their own pre workout powders in water. RTDs cost about $3-4 per serving while premixing your own powder is about $1-2 per serving.
Creatine’s Stability in Water
As mentioned, creatine is unstable in liquid. Over time it will lose its effectiveness due to its nature. This has caused controversy with companies like Bang, an energy drink containing creatine, who claim that they have created a form of creatine that is stable in water.
Bang’s claim of a liquid stable form of creatine is likely irrelevant, due to the negligible amount of creatine in the product to begin with.
When creatine is in a solution for too long, it converts to creatinine. Creatinine is the byproduct of creatine metabolism in the body. If you’ve ever supplemented with creatine for a period of time and had blood work drawn, the results probably showed higher than normal levels of creatinine.
If you ingested creatinine it wouldn’t hurt you, but it wouldn’t provide the benefit of regular creatine.
It’s important to note that creatine’s stability in liquid is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. It’s not as if the clock strikes midnight and creatine magically stops working. Stability is something that changes gradually over time.
Temperature is also a factor when determining creatine’s stability. Creatine degrades more quickly at room temperature compared to cold temperature.
Mixing creatine in an acidic solution like juice speeds the rate of degradation as well. This is likely not a concern as the concept of mixing creatine in juice for better absorption has been debunked. Most people simply mix their pre workout powders with water.
In reality, it takes a few days for creatine to completely degrade. If you wanted to leave it mixed overnight you are probably fine. The 24 hour mark is where rates of degradation begin to increase. But if you want to play it safe in terms of extracting all the benefits of creatine, simply consume it at a different point in the day immediately after mixing.
Keep in mind that all of this information applies to creatine monohydrate, the most researched and effective form of creatine.
Summary
Premixing a pre workout supplement and refrigerating it overnight is perfectly safe practice. The supplement will not lose its integrity or be less effective in any manner.
While creatine is unstable in liquid, leaving it mixed overnight will likely not affect its integrity either. It takes days for creatine to degrade and storing it in a cold environment like a refrigerator slows the rate of degradation.
Even if creatine does begin to convert to creatinine, this does not cause harm in any way. It’s simply an ineffective compound.
While many pre workouts contain creatine, there are various options for those that don’t.
A premixed pre workout without creatine can last for days in the refrigerator. A pre workout containing creatine should be consumed within 24 hours.