Cellucor C4 SPORT: Low-Cost Pre Workout at Major Retailers

Cellucor C4 Sport

Could it be?

Wal-Mart shoppers have been asking about a new pre workout supplement they keep seeing on the shelves, Cellucor C4 Sport.

We’ve been waiting for this. While Cellucor’s flagship product, C4 Extreme, is the best-selling pre workout supplement on the market, we can also feel the “groundswell” slowly shifting in another direction.

Update: On December 11, 2014, the new Cellucor C4 formula for the G4 (4th Generation) was announced. Click the link to read about it.

Users are looking for upgraded effects, and C4 has been slipping down our Top 10 Pre Workout Supplements list as newer products with more novel ingredients come out.

Before we get into the product itself, we’re happy to say that we now have C4 Sport listed online. You can compare prices below and sign up for price drop alerts using PricePlow:

Cellucor C4 Sport – Deals and Price Drop Alerts

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Disclosure: PricePlow relies on pricing from stores with which we have a business relationship. We work hard to keep pricing current, but you may find a better offer.

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Initial Review: Both better and “worse”… and hopefully cheap

Judging by the nutrition facts label, this is not much of an “upgrade” to the original C4, yet it seems to be a great “value choice” for beginning supplement shoppers at Wal-Mart.

The good news is that there are actually more active ingredients — proven stuff that works — than the original C4! So while there’s not a ton of glamour and glitz to this, it will actually work well over the long haul.

However, as a mass marketed product, this cannot contain a lot of stimulants, and Cellucor has dropped some from the lineup. So users looking for the next big wave of energy won’t be into this.

By the looks of the prices above, it’s priced pretty well – lower than the new C4 formula (you can get price alerts for this one too):

Cellucor C4 New Formula – Deals and Price Drop Alerts

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Disclosure: PricePlow relies on pricing from stores with which we have a business relationship. We work hard to keep pricing current, but you may find a better offer.

Posts are sponsored in part by the retailers and/or brands listed on this page.

Now on to the C4 Sport details:

The C4 Sport Ingredients

Below, you can take a look at the facts panel, courteously provided by Stack3d:

Cellucor C4 Sport Ingredients

The C4 Sport Ingredients leave nothing much to be excited about

Each scoop is 9.5g, containing the following:

  • C4 Sport Performance Blend (5.71g)

    • Micronized Creatine Monohydrate
    • Beta Alanine
    • Arginine AKG
    • DiPotassium Phosphate
    • DiSodium Phosphate
    • Magnesium Chloride
  • C4 Sport Energy Blend

    • Taurine
    • Caffeine Anhydrous
    • Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate
    • Methylcobalamin

Unfortunately, this is a proprietary formula that doesn’t really let us know how much you’ll need. For instance, you’re supposed to take 3-5g per creatine every day for best results, as confirmed by numerous studies. Each scoop may have 3g, but we’re not sure.

Similarly, ~3.2g beta alanine per day has been shown to be best for sport performance. Typical pre workout dosages are about half of that, which could be the case here in C4 Sport.

No pumps? No problem… for athletes

But then, if those dosages are high, the arginine AKG dose will be low, yielding literally zero workout pumps or temporary strength boost.

Arginine AKG (also known as AAKG) was the pre workout nitric oxide “pump” ingredient of 5-10 years ago, but it has since been shown that it’s not that effective at boosting nitric oxide levels.

However, as a sport supplement, there’s nothing to be ashamed of in getting “less pumps”. You don’t need pumps to play basketball.

Comparing it to C4 Extreme

But let’s be frank: in terms of creatine, the one ingredient that has hundreds of successful research studies behind it, C4 Sport will contain more than C4 Extreme!

As long as they bumped the creatine up (creatine monohydrate will work better than creatine nitrate in terms of the ergogenic effects of creatine itself), yet kept beta alanine similar, this product has more useful active ingredients that C4 Extreme.

Why? Because the 1g of creatine nitrate in C4 Extreme is going to be about half a gram of creatine total. That’s nothing, and has probably hurt gains more than helped (because users were thinking they were getting enough creatine, but really were getting like a 10-15% efficacious dosage).

This is now discussed in far greater detail on our blog post titled Creatine is BROKEN… and Your Pre Workout is to Blame.

However, this has nothing “sexy” in it that supplement shoppers in the know want to use. Lately, blends of more potent ingredients such nitrates (which are in the original C4), L-citrulline, and agmatine have been proven to work better than AAKG.

This product succeeds for its customer base

That’s all fine, because this isn’t meant for “supplement shoppers in the know”.

It’s meant for Wal-mart shoppers thinking of hittin the gym finally this new year. And for that, it actually succeeds quite well. You’ll get great effects from most of these ingredients, and we’re guessing it’ll taste great (knowing Cellucor).

Speaking on stimulants

The same problems can be said for the caffeine dosage. It’s hidden behind an unknown amount of taurine (which is a good amino acid for performance), so we don’t know at all how much caffeine is inside.

Cellucor C4 Extreme uses 135mg caffeine per scoop — we’d guess this would be in the 135-150mg range in each scoop as well.

Compared to the original C4, the synephrine has been dropped. This will yield less fat-loss, and most stimulant fans will be disappointed, but it’s the smart play for the mass-market at Wal-Mart. Synephrine brings more side effects than no synephrine, and may be hazardous to some of Wal-Mart’s customers.

Remember, stimulants don’t build muscle. They can boost performance, but a company like Cellucor has to be careful with a mass market product.

Focus additives are gone

One thing that C4 Extreme fans will miss are some of the cognitive focus boosters, such as N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine. Those are no longer in the mix, likely to save money. This is a trade-off you’d have to make… they’re great for athletes, but costly as well.

This isn’t all bad news

As long as the price is right — which we hope it will be, given that it’s selling at Wal-Mart — this isn’t necessarily a bad formula. It’s just too proprietary for us to properly analyze it, and has nothing new or impressive.

But there are long-term proven ingredients inside, and you can never go wrong with creatine, beta alanine, and caffeine…. when dosed properly.

Strike Price?

All in all, it comes down to price here.

If Wal-Mart can nail this for $15-20, we’re interested. Otherwise, we’ll just get whatever sale’s hot on our supplement deals page or something good at the top of our pre workout supplements page.

The current prices are below:

Cellucor C4 Sport – Deals and Price Drop Alerts

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Disclosure: PricePlow relies on pricing from stores with which we have a business relationship. We work hard to keep pricing current, but you may find a better offer.

Posts are sponsored in part by the retailers and/or brands listed on this page.

Meanwhile, compare to the new formula here:

Cellucor C4 New Formula – Deals and Price Drop Alerts

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Disclosure: PricePlow relies on pricing from stores with which we have a business relationship. We work hard to keep pricing current, but you may find a better offer.

Posts are sponsored in part by the retailers and/or brands listed on this page.

Or look at the prices of the original C4 Extreme formula here:

Cellucor C4 Extreme – Deals and Price Drop Alerts

Get Price Alerts

No spam, no scams.

Disclosure: PricePlow relies on pricing from stores with which we have a business relationship. We work hard to keep pricing current, but you may find a better offer.

Posts are sponsored in part by the retailers and/or brands listed on this page.

Don’t forget about NEON Sport’s Volt

Another product in the Cellucor family is Neon Sport Volt, which is a pre workout that has a bit more zing to it than C4. Both Cellucor and NEON are owned by Nutrabolt, their umbrella organization.

Our Take?

It’s not guaranteed anything is going to happen here. These products may never come to life.

But we believe that if they do in fact come out, C4 Sport will be a pre workout supplement for athletes that may contain a bit less on the pump side, and more on the energy and endurance side. That’s a pure guess.

C4 Elite, on the other hand, might just be the upgrade to C4 Extreme that everyone wants – heavier pumps, more stim, the works. We’ll keep you up to date if any of this happens.

No clue as to what C4X could be. We can’t imagine Cellucor releasing three new pre workout products – that just seems like too much – so it could be that they’re still deciding on names.

Reviews

We await any reviews from any Wal-Mart shoppers!

We’ll also do our best to get in on any beta-testing to post an early review, if that is at all possible.

Sign up for Cellucor alerts on this page and maybe we can find a lucky user or two to also get in on a PricePlow review!

Is there a release date?

The product is now out in select Wal-Mart stores. We expect it on Amazon as well.

As of late September, 2014, no C4 Sport release date has been… released. We’ll update this post when we know more.

Remember Super Sport?

Also noteworthy is that Cellucor once had a pure whey protein isolate product named Cellucor Super Sport. It was unfortunately discontinued (we loved the vanilla taste), but Cellucor clearly likes the word “sport” and wants to continue targeting athletes.

Cellucor C4 Sport – Deals and Price Drop Alerts

Get Price Alerts

No spam, no scams.

Disclosure: PricePlow relies on pricing from stores with which we have a business relationship. We work hard to keep pricing current, but you may find a better offer.

Posts are sponsored in part by the retailers and/or brands listed on this page.

About the Author: Mike Roberto

Mike Roberto

Mike Roberto is a research scientist and water sports athlete who founded PricePlow. He is an n=1 diet experimenter with extensive experience in supplementation and dietary modification, whose personal expertise stems from several experiments done on himself while sharing lab tests.

Mike's goal is to bridge the gap between nutritional research scientists and non-academics who seek to better their health in a system that has catastrophically failed the public.

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