In this Honey Badger Performance Energy review, we checked out this pre-workout formula and found everything you need to know about the ingredients and how it works.
Honey Badger Performance Energy is a pre-workout formula that comes in a powder form. Honey Badger contains five ingredients: Citrulline Malate, Beta-Alanine, N-Acetyl-Tyrosine, Caffeine, and Pterostilbene. Performance Energy comes in powder form with a 6-gram dosage per serving.
Whether you’re just starting on your fitness journey or you’ve trained regularly for several years already, then a pre-workout supplement could be exactly what you need to kick start your workouts or take them to the next level.
Marketed as a nutritional aid to training, capable of boosting your physical and mental readiness for tough workouts as well as helping to maximise the gains you make from regular training, pre-workout supplements really do promise the world!
But how much of the marketing jargon and sales pitch can you actually trust, and what exactly is in these miracle supplements to make such results possible?
Well, that’s where we come in.
Our reviews for products such as Honey Badger Performance Energy pre-workout aim to give you all the information you need to decide whether it is the right supplement for your training needs.
That means a detailed breakdown of the ingredients and their dosages and how this compares to what the latest scientific research is telling us, where you can buy it, how much you can expect to pay, what kind of flavors are available, and much more!
The Honey Badger story starts with 3 brothers and special forces veterans with a shared passion for health, nutrition, and fitness. Why “Honey Badger,” you ask?! Because they consider it the most fearless animal on the planet, which means it fits perfectly with the brother’s fierce, determined, and resilient personalities.
“We push our limits every day, demanding optimal performance and recovery. We understand the science and benefits of supplementation. But, unfortunately, the marketplace did not meet our demands for quality, safety, and transparency. We are on a mission to set a new standard without compromise.”
The Honey Badger MISSION: “To fuel a natural and intense experience for your fearless, active lifestyle.”
The Honey Badger PROMISE: To produce “simple, natural, effective, and science-backed formulations with no artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, or preservatives.”
The Honey Badger TRANSPARENCY: To produce “clean, optimized, and multipurpose formulas with full label disclosure of active ingredients.”
There’s only one way of determining whether Honey badger lives up to such claims, and that’s by taking a closer look at the ingredients included and how their dosages compare to what the latest scientific research is telling us!
Honey Badger ingredients- what is in Honey Badger?-
Serving size 1 scoop (6 grams)
Amount Per Serving
%Daily Value
Vitamin C (as Ascorbic Acid)
60 mg
100%
Sodium (as Sodium Citrate)
26 mg
1%
Honey Badger™ Intensity Blend
4610 mg
*
Tri-Citrulline Malate
2,500 mg
*
Beta-Alanine (CarnoSyn®)
1600 mg
*
N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine
350 mg
*
Caffeine Anhydrous
150 mg
*
Pterostilbene
10 mg
Before we delve into the specifics of ingredients and precise dosages, there are two key pieces of information that you can find with a quick look at the Supplement Facts Label, which will give you an instant indication as to whether this product has the capacity to impress or not…
The first port of call is the total weight of one suggested scoop or serving. If this is only very small and the product contains some ‘active ingredients, then you know it’s pretty unlikely to contain meaningful, let alone optimal dosages of those ingredients. However, it can also be worth comparing this serving weight to the actual weight of key ingredients in that serving to ascertain how much of one scoop is made up of fillers such as flavorings and preservatives!
In the case of this Honey Badger Performance Energy pre-workout, a one scoop serving weighs just 6g, and whilst the vast majority is active ingredients (4.7g) this still means the manufacturer is going to struggle to squeeze in good dosages, especially when you consider what those ingredients are… More on that a little later!
The second major issue to consider is whether the product contains any proprietary blends…
For the uninitiated, the company that produces a supplement chooses to group ingredients in one or more blends without listing the exact quantity of each ingredient per serving. Unfortunately, this means it is nigh on impossible for you, the consumer, to work out how much of any of the active ingredients you are actually putting in your body every time you consume a scoop.
Despite what supplement manufacturers try to tell you, there is only one valid reason they do this… And that is to hide underdosed key ingredients from their potential customers.
The good news for this Honey Badger pre-workout review is that there isn’t a single proprietary blend on the show. That means, even if the key ingredients are, in all likelihood, underdosed, at least you know exactly what you are dealing with. I can’t really argue with the TRANSPARENCY aspect of the Honey Badger mission statement, then!
Citrulline malate (2.5g)
Included to help you generate some of the best muscle pumps you have ever seen as well as fight fatigue during tough workouts, citrulline is one of the most impressive up-and-coming nutritional supplements on the market.
Pretty much all the scientific research points to an optimum daily dosage of 6-8g which means Honey Badger falls well short with its 2.5g serving![1] This is a huge disappointment for this product given the proven track record of citrulline malate in boosting exercise performance. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that the dosage is nowhere near optimum given the miniscule 6g scoop weight!
Beta-alanine (1.6g)
There are few ingredients on the nutritional supplements market for exercise performance, at least, which are as exciting as beta-alanine, with creatine monohydrate probably the only ingredient with more research into its ability to enhance training gains.
Regular supplementation with beta-alanine has been demonstrated to help raise your muscle stores of something called carnosine. Carnosine is directly involved in the buffering of lactic acid in your muscles during short bouts of intense, anaerobic activity, which means having more of it can help you to delay the onset of muscular fatigue![2] Sounds pretty useful, right?!
The vast majority of scientific research into beta alanine suggests an optimum daily serving of 4-6g for a period of at least 2 weeks is required to raise carnosine saturation levels enough in order for there to be a tangible effect on exercise performance.[3]
That means the 1.6g contained in this Honey Badger Performance Energy pre-workout is yet another disappointment, falling well short of even a meaningful, let alone optimal dose!
Caffeine (150 mg)
Most research suggests that caffeine effectively boosts energy and increases fat-burning potential at doses as low as 100 mg, whilst it is safe to consume at levels as high as 400 mg per day.[4] As a result, it is probably the most popular stimulant ingredient on the supplement market, finding its way into pre-workout products regularly!
The 150 mg dose in this product is a little shy of our preferred 250 mg serving, but it should still be sufficient to generate some exercise performance benefits for users, without some of the negative side effects associated with very high doses. Having said that, if you’re looking for a pre-workout supplement to really blow your socks off, then Honey Badger is unlikely to be for you!
Another real disappointment for our Honey Badger pre-workout review!
Tyrosine (250 mg)
Whilst tyrosine has been purported to benefit both cognitive performance and energy levels due to its relationship with hormones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline; there is very little corroborative scientific evidence to support such theories. As a result, there is no recommended optimal serving, and our Honey Badger pre-workout review considers its inclusion in this product largely irrelevant!
Honey Badger side effects
Beta-alanine and caffeine are the only ingredients in this Honey Badger Performance Energy pre-workout that can cause side effects.
Beta-alanine can cause a mild tingling sensation on the skin’s surface (face in particular), which normally subsides after around 20 minutes. The good news is, this symptom is completely harmless, and in all honesty, we’re pretty sure the 1.6g serving in this product won’t be sufficient to elicit such a response anyway!
When consumed in very high doses, caffeine can cause symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting, jitters, and even anxiety. The 150 mg dose in Honey Badger is far from potent and, at most, may cause users to experience looser than normal bowel movements. However, if you have shallow tolerance levels, it may still be sensible to treat this product with a degree of caution!
Honey Badger pre-workout benefits
In all honesty, we’re not sure there really are any…! At a push, the solid, but by no means an optimal serving of caffeine…?
Pricing review
Available on the official Honey Badger website for $29.95, this pre-workout comes in at about $1 per serving, which puts it firmly in the middle of the road as far as cost goes. Given the complete lack of meaningful dosages of the key ingredients, we don’t think this product warrants even a mid-range price tag!
Flavor options
With just three to choose from in Peach Mango, Wild Berry, and Lemon Lime, things don’t get an awful lot better for this product when it comes to flavor options, which means if you are a little fussy about the taste of your supplements, then Honey Badger Performance Energy pre-workout may not be for you!
All in all, this has been a pretty disappointing Honey Badger pre-workout review. Whilst the product undoubtedly includes some heavy-hitting supplement ingredients in the shape of citrulline malate, beta-alanine and caffeine, unfortunately, the quantity in which they appear makes their presence largely irrelevant.
Given the rather small total scoop weight of 6g, I guess it should come as no surprise that this product fails to meet these recommended optimal servings. The unwillingness of Honey Badger to make use of proprietary blends at least maintains a certain degree of brand dignity and lives up to the product transparency element of their mission statement. Unfortunately, this is the only aspect of their brand mission that they do live up to!
The choice of just three flavor options adds fuel to the flames of negativity, and whilst the $1 per serving is pretty average as far as pre-workout supplements are concerned, the product is well below par and really doesn’t warrant this kind of expense.
Our final verdict…?
If you’re looking for a pre-workout product that is dosed with at least meaningful quantities of its key ingredients and will truly help you take your training to the next level, then this Honey Badger Performance Energy pre-workout really isn’t for you.
You should be able to do a whole lot better for just under $1 per serving, and you certainly can for over $1.50 per serving. Keep looking!
References
[1]Pérez-Guisado, J., & Jakeman, P. M. (2010). Citrulline malate enhances athletic anaerobic performance and relieves muscle soreness. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 24(5), 1215-1222. [2] beta-Alanine supplementation augments muscle carnosine content and attenuates fatigue during repeated isokinetic contraction bouts in trained sprinters- J Appl Physiol (1985). 2007 Nov;103(5 [3] International society of sports nutrition position stand: Beta-Alanine- J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2015; 12: 30. [4] Fat burners: nutrition supplements that increase fat metabolism- Obesity Reviews 2011
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