I'll chime in here...
When I started liften age 16- 23ish I used no pre workout.. and at that point in my life I had never touched cafine.. I bought 1 thing of ulitmate organge to take before high school football games. I think it lasted a few games because I shared it as well.. I bought 1 bottole of a fat burned called "shredded".. If you know what I'm talking about, that shit was crazy lol.. full of epherine.. I bought it to help cut, but I couldn't hack it and go to high school without getting sweaty and gross. Even with those couple of things I tried, I never took anything before lifting during thos ages I had intense workouts. I always sweated and got fired up.. I didn't own any type of music playing device either.. Adn the gyms usually played 80's top 40 back then lol.. or the radio..
Around 23/24 my buddy told me to try epherine before i lifted. I started with 25mg and then eventually 50.. man.. amazing workouts.. You didn't have to make sure you slept well, ate well etc.. you always had a great work out.... I did this for 4 years than quit cold turkey.. Around this time I started driknign coffee due to a night job.. I only drank it to get throgh a night shift.. then when I started my career I would drink 1 cup before work.. and one cup before work out..
After a year or two, I bumped up to 3 cups (8oz) morning and 4-8 oz around dinner time and lifted afterwards. This was every day, not just training days..
A month ago or so, I cut out the pm cafeine.. I thought I'd have awful work outs, but no.. I feel much better on nothing.. There was a slight low in energy, but it didn't last long.. I feel great in the gym.. lots of sweat, lots of blood pumping.. IT sort of feels like how I lifted 16-23 with NO cafine in my life or ephderine.
I think stimulants fuck with out brain chemicals quite a bit.. I think we can all agree to that.. Then your brain craves it and needs it to functioning normally.. and right then, you no longer get the benefits from stims anyways.. you now have to take them to feel normal and have energy to lift.. And then you add more stims to get that feeling again..
What I am saying is I think we are better off without them long term.. I will likely use cafeine before the odd lift when I've have a rdiculosuly long stressful day.. But 99% of the time I think I will lift stim free.
Way back when Iron addcit trained me, one of the first things I had to do was quit ephederine.. he was ok with it during a competiion lift or once in awhile, but not regularly.. he explained to me the brain chemcial stuff, but I was too young to understand it as much as I want to now..
