>>76391348Not really.. pre workouts besides the caffeine and taurine that's in them (taurine is usually in pre workouts and energy drinks because it has a synergistic effect on caffeine because it enhances the effects of the caffeine) they just contain a bunch of other supplements just for convenience like beta alanine, creatine, and L-citrulline and other shit that you're supposed to take daily if you want to actually see any benefit from taking them. In that regard, if you take beta-alanine, creatine, L-citrulline, and other common supplements daily, then having a pre-workout allows you to get all those supplements in with a single scoop, rather than having to take them all individually.
At the end of the day if you do not take a lot of these other supplements daily, you're basically paying a ton of money for just caffeine, taurine, and artificial flavoring. All the extra bullshit in pre-workouts is just there for convenience.
With that said, making your own pre-workout can be very cheap and effective and you can actually make a way stronger pre workout for a lot cheaper than the ones you buy off the shelves in retail stores. I've done it several times but I always quit after a few weeks because it's just not that convenient for me to buy all the ingredients, measure them out, then put them in a ziplock bag that I can dump in my water.
Also if you are ever going to make your own pre workout NEVER buy powdered caffeine. It's too easy to measure it wrong and kill yourself with it. Always buy caffeine in a tablet form. For $8 you can get like 250 100mg caffeine tablets. It's way safer that way.
As far as flavoring goes you can add any flavored water packet you want, or if you wanna be fancy you can add electrolyte powder to it but this makes it more expensive (though, still cheaper than retail pre workouts and a lot more beneficial)