You pick up a preworkout tub. The label says "Proprietary Energy Matrix, 1,500 milligrams" and lists 6 ingredients underneath. No per-ingredient dose. Just the total.

If you've ever wondered why brands do this, here is the math.

The clinical doses that matter

The studies that justify the active ingredients in most preworkouts used very specific doses:

• L-citrulline: 6 grams per dose. Below 3 grams, the nitric oxide effect drops off sharply in the published literature.
• Beta-alanine: 3.2 grams daily. Below 2 grams, the muscle carnosine buildup is too slow to matter on a typical timeline.
• Caffeine anhydrous: 200 milligrams per dose for performance. The studied range is 3 to 6 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight.

Add those three ingredients alone, at the doses the studies actually used, and you are at 9.4 grams.

If a brand's full "proprietary blend" is 1.5 grams total across 6 ingredients, the math literally cannot work. Either citrulline is at 250 milligrams (24 times less than the studied dose), or beta-alanine is at 250 milligrams (almost 13 times less than the studied dose), or both. The "performance ingredient" is in the bottle so the label can mention it. The effective amount is not in the bottle, because that would cost the brand real money per serving.

This is the trick. Proprietary blends let the brand list expensive-sounding ingredients without paying for the expensive amounts.

Why brands do it anyway

Three reasons proprietary blends persist:

1. Cost. The clinical dose of L-citrulline is the single most expensive ingredient in a typical preworkout. A real 6 grams costs a manufacturer roughly 25 to 40 cents per serving at scale. Spread across a 30-serving tub, that's $7 to $12 in citrulline alone, before any other ingredient.
2. Differentiation through obscurity. If the dose is hidden, no one can easily compare brand A to brand B. The brand competes on flavor, packaging, and ad creative instead of on what is actually in the tub.
3. Legal cover. Listing 6 ingredients in a blend means a competitor can't sue you for false advertising if any single ingredient is at zero. The bar to prove deception is much higher.

The customer pays for all three of these in the form of an underdosed product.

How to spot it in 30 seconds

Three quick rules:

1. Look for a per-ingredient gram count on the front of the label. If it's there, you can audit the math. If it's hidden in a proprietary blend, walk away.
2. Sum the studied clinical doses for the ingredients listed. If your sum is bigger than the blend total, the math is broken.
3. Look for a third-party Certificate of Analysis (COA). A real brand will publish or send one on request. A brand hiding behind a proprietary blend usually won't.

That's it. If a brand can't print the dose on the front of the jar, the dose isn't really in the jar.

How Valenco Preworkout is dosed

For comparison, here is what we put in our Preworkout, with each ingredient printed on the front of the label:

• L-citrulline: 6 grams
• Beta-alanine: 3.2 grams
• Caffeine anhydrous: 200 milligrams
• Plus betaine, taurine, and L-tyrosine at studied doses

You can read the full label and request the COA for your batch at valenco.org/products/preworkout.

We are not perfect, but the doses on the label are the doses in the tub. Always.