Gift Guide · Freehold, NJ

Gifts for gym guys who read the label.

Read the label the way the lifter would before you pay: every dose printed, the caffeine line in milligrams, and the serving math. We make two products, Gladiatore and Creatine+ Energy Stack, so this guide is two products long, with the facts from our own panels and the rules for who should never be handed a 400mg scoop.

A lifter who reads labels is the easiest person to shop for and the easiest one to disappoint. They do not want a shaker with a slogan on it. They want the tub they would have bought themselves, and the way to find it is to flip the tub over and read the Supplement Facts panel the way they do. Three lines settle it.

Check these three lines on the label before you buy

Every active has its own printed dose.

If the panel groups ingredients under one name with one total weight, that is a proprietary blend, and nobody can tell how much of anything is inside it. A gift you cannot verify is a gift that stays in the cabinet. Our rule is that every ingredient carries its own number, and we would rather you check our panel than take our word for it.

The caffeine line, in milligrams.

A pre-workout is a stimulant first. Find the caffeine number and set it against what the lifter already drinks in a day. The International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position stand on caffeine (Guest and colleagues, 2021) puts the studied range at 3 to 6mg per kilogram of body weight, so a 400mg scoop is a full-size dose for an experienced adult and the wrong first tub for someone new to stimulants. If you do not know their tolerance, ask before you buy.

The serving size and the servings per tub.

Doses on a panel are stated per serving, and the serving is a specific scoop. Read the serving weight, then the count, and check that the two agree with the net weight on the front. On the Gladiatore panel the full scoop is 31.73g and the tub holds 22 of them, with every dose also listed at the half scoop. A tub that quotes big numbers against a scoop the directions then tell you to halve reads bigger than it is.

Run those three on any tub in the store and you have done what the lifter would have done. Below are our own two products, read the same way.

Gladiatore™ Hi-Stim Pre-Workout tub, Fruit Punch

Gladiatore, for the lifter who already runs stimulants

Fruit Punch · 22 servings · 698g · $54

Gladiatore is our high-stimulant pre-workout. Fruit Punch, 22 full-scoop servings in a 698g tub, $54. Twelve actives, each with its own printed dose, and no blends anywhere on the panel. Per full scoop of 31.73g it prints:

Vitamin C (as Ascorbic Acid): 1g
Magnesium (from Magnesium Citrate): 45mg
Sodium (from Sodium Bicarbonate): 800mg
L-Arginine: 7g
L-Citrulline Malate 2:1: 7g
Betaine Anhydrous (Trimethylglycine): 4g
Beta Alanine: 4g
L-Tyrosine: 1g
L-Theanine: 800mg
Caffeine Anhydrous: 400mg
Theobromine HCl: 400mg
Yohimbine HCl: 2.5mg

Who it fits: the lifter who already trains on a strong pre-workout and knows their caffeine tolerance. Who it does not fit is two sections down, and that is the part of this page to read twice.

Half a scoop is the printed first serving, and that is how to hand the tub over: tell them to start at half, which is 200mg of caffeine and half of every other line. The dosing and timing rules are the same for a gift as for a tub they bought themselves, and the ingredients page explains what each line is there for.

$54 · See Gladiatore

Black Stallion Creatine+ Energy Stack tub, Raspberry Lemonade

Creatine+ Energy Stack, the daily tub with no caffeine on the panel

Raspberry Lemonade · 30 servings · 450g · $39.99

Creatine+ Energy Stack is our second product and the easier gift to get right. Raspberry Lemonade, 30 servings in a 450g tub, $39.99. The directions are one 15g scoop in 12 to 16 oz of cold water once a day, and nothing on the panel is a stimulant. Per scoop it prints:

Creatine Monohydrate: 5g
L-Carnitine L-Tartrate: 1g
Taurine: 1g
Pink Himalayan Sea Salt: 600mg
Alpha-Lipoic Acid: 300mg
Potassium (as Potassium Citrate): 200mg
Nicotinamide Riboside: 150mg
Magnesium (as Magnesium Citrate): 100mg
CoQ10: 100mg
Pyrroloquinoline Quinone (PQQ): 10mg

Creatine monohydrate is the form the research base was built on. The ISSN position stand on creatine (Kreider and colleagues, 2017) calls it the most extensively studied form and puts daily maintenance intake at 3 to 5g, which is where the 5g serving sits. Creatine accumulates over weeks, so it suits a daily habit rather than a training-day ritual; the loading and cycling questions are answered on its own page.

Who it fits: the lifter who trains in the evening, keeps caffeine low, or already has a pre-workout they like. It is also the one of our two tubs a gift-giver can choose without knowing anyone’s stimulant tolerance. The two are commonly taken together, Gladiatore for the session and Creatine+ for the months around it, and an order of both ships free. Price, flavor and the full panel are on the Creatine+ page.

$39.99 · See Creatine+

Read this before you wrap it

Who should not be handed a 400mg scoop

This is the section a gift-giver has to read, because the person opening the box is not the person who read the warning. Gladiatore is built for adults who already tolerate strong stimulants. Do not give it to anyone under 18. The same goes for anyone who is pregnant or nursing. Do not give it to someone who reacts badly to coffee or energy drinks, has a heart condition or a blood-pressure issue, or takes medication of any kind; for them the question is whether to use a pre-workout at all, and that belongs to their physician. A first-time pre-workout user should not be opening a 400mg tub either.

If any of that describes the lifter, Gladiatore is the wrong gift however hard they train. Creatine+ carries no caffeine on its panel, but it is still a supplement, and the same groups should clear any supplement with a physician before starting one.

For everyone else, hand it over with three rules. Start at the half scoop. Never more than one serving inside a 24-hour window. No coffee or energy drink stacked on top of it that day. The tub's directions and our how-to-use page say so, and so should you.

How it ships, and what happens if the gift misses

$5.99

flat rate, any order

tubs ship free

business days, door to door

Both tubs ship from Freehold, New Jersey to all 50 states, PO boxes and APO/FPO addresses included. Shipping is a flat $5.99 per order, and any order of 2 or more tubs ships free in any mix, applied at checkout with no code to enter. Orders leave within 1 business day and typically arrive 3–7 business daysafter that. Weekends and federal holidays are not business days, and the carrier’s window is an estimate, so for a Black Friday or holiday gift allow the full 8 business days door to door.

Checkout takes a US shipping address only and sends the receipt to the buyer’s email, so a tub can go straight to the lifter’s door while the card comes from you. If the gift misses, an unopened tub with the seal intact can come back within 30 days under our Return Policy. The Shipping Policy has the rest, including what to do if a box arrives damaged.

We are a family-owned company in Freehold and we make two products, so this is a two-product gift guide rather than a list of twenty things with affiliate links. If the lifter you are buying for reads labels, send them this page. They will know within a minute whether it is their kind of tub.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.