Naturo Nitro “Decimus” Pre Workout Review

Today I’m writing a fairly lengthy review of Naturo Nitro’s “Decimus” Pink Lemonade preworkout supplement. To provide some context, my fiance got a discount on this preworkout for the purpose of posting a review and since I’m the one who actually used it I thought I’d write the review for her and try to be as objective and informative as possible.

Some quick background on me first – I am a novice-to-intermediate powerlifter who is off his normal routine workout due to coming back from a bad injury. For the purposes of this review that’s probably a good thing as it gives me something of a clean slate – I’m lifting very light and keeping a close eye on progress with notes week to week. Having only trained for a couple years and starting training in my 30’s I’ve been very critical and skeptical of the merits of various preworkout supplements, so I have not yet used any preworkouts whatsoever – normally I’m only using a 200mg pill of caffeine anhydrous to get a shot of pep prior to my workout.

The workout I tested this preworkout with was a very simple squat/bench/deadlift workout with an accessory of stiff-legged deadlifts with bent over rows. Simple workout and the weights were super light as I’m still nursing myself back up to my normal strength potential and being very cautious of anything that might cause any new injury. My previous week’s workout that I will compare this workout to was the same workout with only the caffeine anhydrous pills as comparison point.

Cover to Cover

First let me describe what you get on the outside label. Naturo Nitro’s bottle is fairly straightforward in a simple blue design with a stamp saying “Best Seller” on the bottle. There is no real unnecessary hype on here which to me is a pro – many preworkout paste spastic nonsense to hype you up. In my mind if the preworkout does its job in my mind, it will hype you up on its own.

There are a few claims posted to the front label – “increase workout intensity, maximum mental focus and energy, enhances muscle growth & endurance, amazing taste and mixability, 100% absorption” with the standard asterick next to each claim pointing to a notice that these claims are “not evaluated by the FDA” and that the supplement does not essentially cure, treat or diagnose any known illness (a fairly standard disclaimer). I will refer back to these claims as I provide my opinion on it.

Ingredients – Flavor & Nutrition

Probably most important to me is the ingredients, lets go through them real quick. 1 scoop is a fairly standard 28 grams with no sugar added. The pink lemonade flavoring is sucralose-based with natural flavor and citric acid which I think is a good simple combo. A standard silica dioxide mix is here to keep the powder dry and to keep the flavors strong. As for the “Amazing taste and mixability” claim I would agree it tastes like pink lemonade, goes down good, my mixing was with a spoon and not a shaker bottle but mixing with the recommended amount of water did leave a fairly small amount of powder at the base of the drink the two times I mixed it. I’m pretty sure that would not be the case if I was using a mixer bottle, but I would rank that as “good mixability” moreso than amazing.

Zero calories, tasty, no complaints.

Ingredients – “Performance Blend”

Naturo Nitro lists all their ingredients in three categories. This one, the “Performance Blend” is 3000mg total of a combination of Beta Alanine, Arginine AKG and Agmatine Sulfate – if everything is to FDA guidelines the first ingredient (Beta Alanine) should be the largest portion of that mix and it should list in descending order from there.

Beta Alanine is a great supplement I’ve eyed for a while, it acts as a great stimulant and has lots of positive workout volume benefits (affecting endurance, oxygen uptake and energy output). Also we don’t get a lot of free form beta alanine so supplementing it makes sense. Arginine AKG is a nice non-essential amino acid, good for kidneys and liver, although sometimes I think its popularity in supplements has more to do with libido pumping. Agmatine Sulfate I assume is in here due to its neurotransmission properties, for the “mental focus” aspect of the aforementioned claims.

All considered, not bad but without exact dosages while I’m pretty sure you’ll get the beta alanine you might want in this dose (I got a bit of paresthesia tingles after my workout which makes me assume its plenty of beta alanine) the arginine AKG is probably on the low side of what I often see recommended as dosage (1500-3000mg) especially if the agmatine sulfate is in the 500-1000mg range. Although all said, great mix of ingredients – simple and effective supplements.

Ingredients – Creatine Blend

I don’t have a ton to say about the creatine blend. 2000mg of creatine base is fine, I don’t know a ton about the creatine subcomponents but having it be I assume mostly creatine monohydrate is fairly straightforward. I might usually consume more than this, but I have powderized creatine that I usually drink with whey protein drinks. Creatine is to me an essential ingredient – if you are a non responder to creatine, it still doesn’t hurt to have more, if you aren’t you will notice a performance gain in long term usage.

Ingredients – Energy and Focus Blend

At 394mg, this has the most as far as stimulating and generating focus goes. I assume a ton of that is the first ingredient, caffeine anhydrous, I hope 200mg worth. The rest appear to be very natural plant based stimulants, with a series of other good effects that improve focus. Again falling back to the “maximum mental focus” claim this supplement it appears to have ingredients with a positive effect on mental focus.

Workout Results

So during my workout I did notice a boost in energy and focus over my normal use of caffeine andryhous from the prior week. This tended to peak about 20-30 minutes into my workout during my bench pressing, which resulted in me topping off that final set with triple the normal range of reps – I was after all handling very (very) light weights. By my previous week’s workout set, I had been fatigued by the end of the complete workout, but despite the extra work this week plus my normal progressive overload and the extra reps I mentioned I finished this workout feeling great. Some of this may be simple readjustment to lifting after the injury as I am in the early phases of that adjustment but I believe quite a bit of it was due to the supplement.

The supplement in comparison to competitors has a lot of easy to understand natural ingredients, with very well established and effective supplements that are helpful prior to working out. Very few of the claims on the front of the package I take any serious objection to, and for someone who is critical of ingredients used I found all of them to be relevant and useful. Would definitely purchase again.