Cellucor C4 Pre Workout Review

By Posted on November 6, 2016

The Promise

C4 from Cellucor is the undisputed no.1 selling Pre Workout in the US. The popular C4 extreme (Generation 3) has been replaced in late 2015 by the new C4 (Generation 4) which is the current version being sold. With such a dominant market position comes a lot of responsibility. And in our review, we were mostly trying to figure out if the product lives up to its leadership spot.

The C4 Pre-Workout Label for Dummies

Well, as you can see the label is partially ‘proprietary’ (energy blend). We don’t like proprietary blends, but we’ll need to live with it, as most of the Pre-Workouts out there will have at least one of these blends.

	Key Ingredients & Dosage	Our Take
Energy	150mg Caffeine, TeaCore	150mg of Caffeine doesn’t sound like a lot but you should add to that the TeaCore which acts very similar to caffeine but hits harder, lasts longer, and also doesn’t develop a tolerance in users as quickly as caffeine
Endurance	Beta Alanine (1.6g)	Recommended dosage for Beta Alanine is 3.2mg which means you’ll need 2 scoops to get the effect.
Pump	Creatine Nitrate (1g), Arginine (1g)	Creatine Nitrate is a nice touch. 1g of it will not do a lot for you as far as the ‘creatine’ part. But you should feel the pumps. Arginine is sort of ‘passe’ when it comes to Pump & N.O and has been replaced by other more effective ingredients.
Focus & Mood	N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine	We personally love Tyrosine and its effects on mental focus (nootropic). But the to get the actual effect you’ll need 500-2000mg of this baby. Based on the fact that all blend is 371mg, It is safe to assume you are not getting anything even close to this in the C4

The Label’s Bottom Line – The label has everything you’d expect from a run of the mill Pre Workout. The caffeine & TeaCore combo should get you going, mostly if this is your first Pre-Workout or you are stimulant sensitive. But frankly, there’s nothing crazy in this blend that will ‘blow your mind’ if you’ve been using Pre Workouts for some time.

Hands On Experience

Taste & Mixability – good tasting supplements is a Cellucor specialty and the C4 is no exception. We tried the Orange Dreamsicle flavor and liked it. Mixes great and tastes great. ,

Effectiveness – To really feel the full effect I went with 2 scoops. Which I believe anyone that has been using a Pre for more than a year would have to do to get the effect. With 3.2g of Beta Alanine, I definitely felt that tingling (I like it) and with ~ 400mg of Caffeine + TeaCore, I did get the energy boost. Pumps were nothing special and the effect lasted through most of the workout. As suspected by the label, I didn’t get that ‘laser focus’ mental effect you would get with a deeper nootropic combo.

Value for Money & Deal History

The ‘retail’ price for the C4 is $29.99, though there’s consistently a deal out there that will get you to the $19.99 range. Check out the updated C4 deals. Assuming you are good with one scoop, then this will serve you well and at $20 the price is comparable to the competition. If you are a 2 scoops guy…well, 15 workouts per tub starts to sound expensive. But, obviously, you’ll wait for us to hunt a deal for you 🙂