Ritual Reviews (ANS)

For the individual looking for a balanced pre-workout ANS Ritual is exactly what you are looking for! In regards to the three major benefits you may expect from a pre-workout – focus, energy, and pump – Ritual provides a strong mix of all three.

Energy

For starters, it provides a great sense of energy. While there are other mixes that contain larger amounts of caffeine or beta-alanine to give an intense energy high, Ritual provides a balanced micro-dose which does more than enough to get you fired up to lift. While not overloading to the point of an uncomfortable amount of shakes or jitters.

Because of the beta-alanine contained in the product, if you take Ritual on an empty stomach, shakes will occur, but they are very small and can add to the excitement to tear up the gym.

This product also boasts great endurance with little to no crash. In my two years of six-day a week training I have cycled through many pre-workouts. The days that I use Ritual clearly stand out from the days that I don’t. While I may burn out after a day of chest and shoulders on any other workout, I find myself able to run three miles following the exact same workout while on this. As opposed to its mainstream competition in C4 and Muscle Pharm’s Assault, it is safe to take a dose of Ritual without experiencing a post-workout headache or emotional depression.

It is wise though to avoid hard cardio at the beginning of a workout when using this, as the risk of too much cardio-vascular stress could be a risk to health.

Focus

The next category, focus, is the area I feel Ritual lacks in, or rather, is inconsistent in. There are days when the focus is so strong I might find myself focused on a text message for ten minutes. But there are other days where the overwhelming energy has my mind racing too much to focus. Don’t get me wrong, most days Ritual gives me tunnel vision on the weights, but I would say the formula isn’t balanced well in this category, so results may vary.

Pump

While not necessarily the most important pillar of a pre-workout, Ritual sure does deliver here. It is wonderful to take a pre-workout that excites me to lift, and also makes sure that my muscles will retain the swollen look after I have left. Even during cutting season Ritual delivers a solid pump. While many other products require a second supplement for an individual to gain a lasting pump, this keeps my muscles swollen throughout the majority of the recovery phase.

Cosmetic Attributes

Taste and Mixability are more a preference value than one many lifters consider when purchasing a pre-workout. But this category is important to receive max value from any supplement. Ritual excels in the category of mixability. Within seconds of spoon mixing, or just a couple pumps of a shaker bottle, Ritual is completely mixed into your beverage of choice (water suggested here). If left to sit many of the ingredients will re-clump and settle at the bottom of your cup, but it is recommended that you drink the full dose immediately 20-30 minutes before your workout.

As for taste, Ritual receives a giant OK. My preference of flavor is “Icy Blue Freeze”. Which is obviously blue, and does live up to its name. It does in fact taste blue – think blue Gatorade with a more electric feel to it. It retains the acidic taste of most pre-workouts but does not do much in an attempt to incorporate that sour taste into a lemon or lime based flavor. It doesn’t do much to mask the sour, and it doesn’t attempt to bury the sour with a fruit punch blend. Just like the product as a whole, the final effect is a nice blend – it doesn’t taste wonderful, but doesn’t taste bad either.

Summary

In the end, Ritual’s balanced mix of 1.6g Beta alanine, 1.5g Citrulline malate, 1.5g creatine, 500mg agmatine, and 1.25g betaine give great energy, pump, endurance, and mixablity, with an average taste and varying focus. On a scale of 1-10 I give ANS Ritual a 9.5, and would suggest it to anyone looking for an everyday pre-workout.

Especially since it can be found online for a very affordable price, and unlike other pre-workouts, each container of Ritual comes packed to the rim and always exceeds the predicted servings count.