Beyond Raw LIT V2 Pre-Workout Review: The Label, the Doses, and the Research

Most pre-workout reviews are really flavor reviews. This one is not, because flavor is the least useful thing a written review can tell you. What a written review can do is take the label, line each number up against the doses that were actually studied, do the cost arithmetic, and flag what the manufacturer did not tell you. Beyond Raw LIT V2 is a good candidate for that treatment because it publishes most of its doses instead of hiding them in a proprietary blend. When a label is this open, the interesting questions are whether the doses make sense and whether the price is fair for what is in the scoop.

This article covers the label, the research behind each active ingredient, and the cost math. Where we have already written the ingredient-level science, we link to that article instead of repeating it: our Beyond Raw LIT breakdown covers the original formula, and the ingredient guides linked throughout cover caffeine, citrulline, and beta-alanine in depth.

What You Are Buying

The details below come from the Amazon listing for the Blue Raspberry flavor. The supplement panel on this listing is published as text in the "Important information" section, which is useful because panel images are often the only place amounts appear. Check the tub you receive against this summary, since formulas change between production runs.

Three things in that table are worth slowing down for. First, the caffeine is a blend, but it is not a hidden one: the listing breaks the 250 mg into its two components, so you can see that 200 mg is plain caffeine anhydrous and 50 mg comes from the slower-release form. Second, the listing does not state the weight of a scoop in the text we retrieved, so we cannot tell you the grams of powder per serving, and we will not guess. Third, the listing contradicts itself in places, and you should know where.

Where the listing contradicts itself

One feature bullet says the product has "32g of beta-alanine." That is a typo. The panel text and the comparison chart on the same page both say 3.2 g, and 32 g in a single serving would be implausible. We use 3.2 g. The listing's "Directions" field is also unreliable: it tells you to mix one scoop in 6 fl. oz. of cold water and describes the product as an additional source of protein, which reads like text pasted from a protein powder. The product page's own question-and-answer section is more useful. It suggests taking the pre-workout about 30 minutes before exercise, taking it on non-training days only if you want a stimulant boost, and avoiding it near bedtime because it contains caffeine. The bullet also advertises "250mg of electrolytes," while the panel text lists 310 mg of chloride, 150 mg of sodium, and 100 mg of potassium. The 250 mg figure matches the sodium and potassium added together, which is probably what the bullet means, but that is our reading and not a statement from the manufacturer.

None of this changes the formula. It does mean that when you buy supplements through a marketplace listing, the physical label on the tub is the authority and the listing is a convenience. If the label and this article ever disagree, trust the label.

What Changed From the Original LIT

The listing's own comparison chart places LIT V2 between a lower-dose "on the go" product and two higher-dose products from the same brand. In that chart, V2 is described as having a 250 mg caffeine blend, 5 g of citrulline, 3.2 g of beta-alanine plus 50 mg of Senactiv, and creatine in the "muscle fuel" row. Its stated price range is $44.99 against $64.99 for the highest tier. The FAQ on the page says V2 has twice the creatine, twice the electrolytes, and 67 percent more citrulline than the original LIT, and adds three newer ingredients: Senactiv, Cognizin, and AstraGin.

Those comparisons are the manufacturer's, and we have not verified the original LIT's numbers against a retailer page for this review. What is arithmetic is the citrulline claim: if V2 has 5 g and that is 67 percent more, the original would have had 3 g, which matches the "3g Citrulline + 1g L-Arginine" entry for the lower-dose product in the same chart. The practical takeaway is that V2 moved the citrulline from a dose that barely met the minimum in the research to one that is comfortably inside it, and moved creatine from a token amount to a dose that actually counts. Those are the two upgrades that matter. If you want the full history of the earlier formula, our original LIT breakdown goes through it ingredient by ingredient.

Caffeine: 250 mg Against the Research

Caffeine is the only ingredient in this tub with large, consistent evidence behind it, and it is the one that drives most of what people feel. The question for any stimulant pre-workout is whether the dose is in the useful range for your body size, and whether it leaves enough room under a sensible daily ceiling that you can still drink coffee.

The International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand on caffeine (Guest and colleagues, 2021) concluded that caffeine consistently improves exercise performance at doses of 3 to 6 mg per kilogram of body mass, that the minimal effective dose may be as low as 2 mg/kg, and that very high doses (about 9 mg/kg) cause a high rate of side effects without being needed for the benefit. It also noted that 60 minutes before exercise is the most common timing, that small to moderate benefits show up for muscular endurance, strength, sprinting, and jumping, and that the most consistent moderate-to-large effects are in aerobic endurance. Grgic and colleagues (2020) pooled 21 meta-analyses in an umbrella review and found caffeine ergogenic for aerobic endurance, muscle strength, muscle endurance, power, jumping, and exercise speed, with moderate-quality evidence for most of those outcomes, and an effect that is generally larger for aerobic than anaerobic work. Most of the underlying trials were in young men.

Put 250 mg into that frame. For a 70 kg lifter it is about 3.6 mg/kg. For an 80 kg lifter it is about 3.1 mg/kg. For a 100 kg lifter it is 2.5 mg/kg, which sits in the low end of the effective range the ISSN describes. So one serving is a legitimate ergogenic dose for most adults and a modest one for large lifters. If you weigh well over 100 kg you will be at the bottom of the studied range, and if you weigh under 60 kg you will be above 4 mg/kg from a single scoop, which is why body size matters more than the scoop size when you decide how to use a product like this.

The daily ceiling

The relevant safety question is not whether 250 mg is safe in isolation. It is how it adds up with everything else you drink. The Wikoff and colleagues (2017) systematic review of potential adverse effects of caffeine used 400 mg per day as the comparator for healthy adults, following the earlier Health Canada assessment. One serving of this product is about 62 percent of that figure. If you add two cups of brewed coffee on the same day you will likely pass 400 mg, and a second serving of the pre-workout alone would put you at 500 mg. The listing does not publish a maximum daily number of servings in the text we retrieved, which is another reason to treat one serving per day as the working limit.

The consumer-behavior data are less reassuring than the lab data. A survey of 872 regular pre-workout users by Jagim and colleagues (2019) found that 54 percent reported side effects after use, including skin reactions, heart abnormalities, and nausea, that females were more likely than males to report them, that 14 percent took two or more servings at a time, and that 18 percent took the product more than once per day. The authors noted that variation in caffeine content across products compounds as people take more servings. A self-reported survey cannot prove the products caused those symptoms, but it describes exactly the pattern to avoid: stacking servings and other stimulants. Our caffeine guide covers timing, half-life, tolerance, and genetics in depth.

What the ZumXR split does and does not tell you

The listing describes the 50 mg ZumXR portion as a targeted-release caffeine meant to smooth out the energy curve, and says the 200 mg of caffeine anhydrous is fast-acting. That is a reasonable design idea. It is also a claim we could not verify with an independent study, so we treat it as a formulation choice and not as an evidence-backed benefit. The total caffeine is what the research speaks to, and the total is 250 mg.

Citrulline: 5 g and the Pump

L-citrulline is listed at 5 g, as the free amino acid, not as citrulline malate. That distinction matters for dosing math. Our Nutricost citrulline review works through the arithmetic: 8 g of citrulline malate at the usual 2:1 ratio delivers roughly 5.8 g of citrulline, and many of the best-known rep-count trials used that 8 g malate dose. Five grams of pure citrulline is therefore close to the dose in those studies, a little under it, and well above the minimum.

The pooled evidence is modest. Trexler and colleagues (2019) meta-analyzed 12 placebo-controlled studies (13 samples, 198 participants) that gave at least 3 g of citrulline at least 30 minutes before testing and did not combine it with other ergogenic ingredients. The pooled effect on high-intensity strength and power was small: a Hedges' g of 0.20 with a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.01 to 0.39. The authors themselves called the effect size small. Notice what that inclusion rule implies for a product like this one. The studies in that meta-analysis tested citrulline alone, so they cannot tell you how citrulline behaves inside a formula that also contains 250 mg of caffeine and 3 g of creatine. Any extra benefit is an assumption.

The blood pressure data matter for the same reason they mattered in the Nutricost review. Barkhidarian and colleagues (2019) pooled eight trials of L-citrulline at 3 to 9 g per day and found a systolic drop of 4.10 mm Hg (95 percent CI -7.94 to -0.26, p = 0.037), with a significant diastolic reduction only in studies using 6 g per day or more. A single 5 g dose is in the range of those studies. For most healthy lifters a few points of blood pressure is not an issue, but it is the reason the safety section below mentions medications. Our L-citrulline guide has the deeper treatment, including why citrulline raises arginine more effectively than arginine itself.

Beta-Alanine: 3.2 g and the Tingle

Beta-alanine is the ingredient most likely to make you notice the product, because it causes paresthesia, a tingling or itching feeling on the skin. The page's FAQ says as much and tells you the sensation is normal. The research is clear that the tingle is a side effect of how fast beta-alanine rises in the blood, not a sign that the supplement is working. The ISSN position stand on beta-alanine (Trexler and colleagues, 2015) states that the only reported side effect is paresthesia and that it can be reduced by using divided lower doses of 1.6 g or a sustained-release formula. A single 3.2 g serving is double that divided dose, which is why most people feel it.

The larger issue is that beta-alanine does not work like caffeine. It works by raising muscle carnosine over weeks, and the same position stand concludes that four weeks of supplementation at 4 to 6 g daily significantly raises muscle carnosine, with performance benefits shown after 2 to 4 weeks of daily intake and larger effects in tasks lasting 1 to 4 minutes. Taking it once before a workout is not how the studies dosed it. If you only use a pre-workout on training days, and you train four days per week, 3.2 g on those days averages out to about 1.8 g per day over the week by our arithmetic. That is well under the 4 to 6 g range, so the carnosine-loading effect would be slower and smaller than the studies describe, and may never reach the studied level.

The size of the payoff is also modest. Saunders and colleagues (2017) pooled 40 studies and 1,461 participants and found an overall effect size of 0.18 (95 percent CI 0.08 to 0.28). Exercise duration moderated the effect, and the strongest signal was for exercise capacity in efforts lasting between 30 seconds and 10 minutes. A set of eight squats is under a minute. That is the honest limit of beta-alanine for a lifter: it is more relevant to hard conditioning, rowing intervals, and high-rep sets that push into the minute-plus range than to heavy triples. Our beta-alanine guide covers the loading protocol and the tingle in detail.

Creatine: 3 g in a Pre-Workout

Three grams of creatine monohydrate per serving is a meaningful amount, and it is the biggest upgrade V2 made. The classic loading study by Hultman and colleagues (1996), in 31 men, found that muscle total creatine rose by about 20 percent after 6 days at 20 g per day, that 2 g per day maintained that level, and that a similar but more gradual 20 percent rise occurred over 28 days at 3 g per day. The authors concluded that 3 g per day is likely, in the long term, as effective at raising tissue levels as the higher dose. So a daily 3 g is a valid maintenance dose.

There is a catch, and it is the same catch as beta-alanine: creatine is a daily-intake supplement. Taking 3 g only on training days gives you about 1.7 g per day averaged over a four-day training week, which is below the 3 g per day Hultman tested. The manufacturer's own FAQ addresses this by suggesting you add 2 g of creatine if you want to reach 5 g total per day. That advice is sensible. Given that the main evidence for creatine is on a daily schedule, a lifter who already takes a separate creatine supplement does not need the pre-workout's creatine at all, and a lifter who does not could treat the pre-workout's 3 g as a partial dose on training days and fill in the rest with a cheap tub. Our creatine guide covers the full evidence base.

Recent pooled data keep the expectation grounded. A 2025 meta-analysis of 69 studies and 1,937 participants (Kazeminasab and colleagues) found small but significant improvements with creatine plus resistance training: 1.43 kg in bench or chest press strength, 5.64 kg in squat strength, 1.48 cm in vertical jump, and 47.81 watts in Wingate peak power. Those are real, modest gains over placebo. None of them depend on the creatine being in a pre-workout, and none of them are a reason to pay a pre-workout price for it.

The 50 mg Extras and the Electrolytes

Below the headline ingredients, the label lists three branded ingredients: Cognizin citicoline at 250 mg, Senactiv at 50 mg, and AstraGin at 50 mg. The listing markets Senactiv as improving high-intensity exercise performance and extending time to exhaustion, Cognizin as a non-stimulant nootropic, and AstraGin as a nutrient absorption aid.

We searched PubMed for human trials on each of these and did not find independent evidence we could verify for Senactiv or AstraGin. The searches for those two products returned no results. The citicoline search returned a randomized study of citicoline on motor speed and attention in adolescent males, which is the wrong population and the wrong outcome to support a claim about adult lifters, so we are not citing it as support. That does not prove the ingredients are useless. It means that the evidence the manufacturer implies, which may exist in manufacturer-funded or unindexed work, is not something we can put in front of you. At 50 mg, the two extracts are also small amounts, and it is hard to evaluate a claim without the study dose in hand. Our general view, which matches the tier logic in our ingredient evidence ranking, is that these belong in the "unproven" bucket. They are not harmful as far as we can tell, and you should not weigh them when deciding whether the tub is worth $44.99.

The electrolytes

The electrolyte content is reasonable and not trivial: 150 mg of sodium and 100 mg of potassium per serving. For a lifter training in a hot gym or sweating heavily that is a small but real contribution, and it explains why the product positions itself on hydration. It is not a hydration strategy. 150 mg of sodium is a small fraction of a typical day's intake. If you want the full picture on sodium and training, see our electrolytes guide.

What It Costs Per Serving and Per Ingredient

At $44.99 for 30 servings, the tub works out to about $1.50 per serving. That is the number to hold against everything else.

The creatine figure comes from the NAKED listing, $35.99 for 1,000 g, or about $0.036 per gram. The citrulline figure uses the $29.95 listed price for 600 g, as covered in our Nutricost review. Together, the creatine and citrulline in one LIT V2 serving cost about $0.36 if bought separately as plain powders. That leaves roughly $1.14 of the $1.50 to account for caffeine, beta-alanine, electrolytes, the branded extras, flavoring, and the brand's margin. We have not fetched prices for plain caffeine or plain beta-alanine, so we are not going to put numbers on those, and you should not read this as a claim that a homemade stack would be cheaper in total. It is a prompt to ask what the other $1.14 buys. A flavored, mixed, ready-to-scoop product with a transparent label has real convenience value. If you are paying for that, know that you are.

One more way to frame cost: the price is per training day if you use it only on training days. At four training days a week, one tub lasts about seven and a half weeks, and a year of that habit is roughly seven tubs, or about $310 at today's price. Our pre-workout roundup compares this against other products on a consistent cost-per-serving basis.

Safety, Side Effects, and Who Should Not Use It

A stimulant pre-workout carries more safety considerations than a plain amino acid. In plain terms, the main ones are these. Caffeine can raise heart rate, cause jitters and anxiety, and disrupt sleep. The listing recommends avoiding the product near bedtime, and the Wikoff review's adult comparator of 400 mg per day is the practical ceiling to keep in mind when you add coffee or other stimulants. Beta-alanine causes harmless but noticeable tingling. Citrulline can modestly lower blood pressure. Creatine can raise serum creatinine without indicating kidney damage, which matters if you get lab work, and a kidney review of controlled trials (Longobardi and colleagues, 2023) found no support for the claim that creatine impairs kidney function in healthy people, while noting that studies in people with pre-existing kidney disease remain necessary.

Also read the sleep angle honestly. Caffeine has a long half-life, and a 250 mg dose taken at 6 p.m. will still be partly active at bedtime for many people. If you train in the evening, a stimulant pre-workout may cost you more in sleep quality than it gives you in the gym, and sleep is the more powerful lever. See our sleep and muscle growth guide.

Quality and Third-Party Testing

The listing text we retrieved does not claim that this specific product has been tested by an independent certifier, and the feature bullets do not mention NSF, Informed Sport, or a comparable program. It does say the product is the successor to GNC's top-selling pre-workout, and it uses the phrase "Clinical Strength" in the title. Neither of those is a purity or label-accuracy claim. "Clinical strength" in particular is a marketing term and not a regulated standard, and the independent evidence for the branded extras is the part of the formula we could not confirm.

If testing matters to you, for example because you compete in a tested sport, ask the company for a certificate of analysis for your lot number, and look for a product-level certification on the tub. A transparent label is a good sign, because it lets you check the dosing, but it is a claim about what the company says is in the tub and not proof of what is in it.

Who Should Buy It and Who Should Skip It

It makes sense if you want a stimulant pre-workout that publishes its doses, you weigh roughly 65 to 95 kg and want 250 mg of caffeine to land in the 2.5 to 4 mg/kg range, you do not already take creatine and citrulline separately, and you value convenience enough to pay for it. The 5 g of citrulline and 3 g of creatine are doses that matter, and that is more than you can say for many products at this price.

Skip it, or look elsewhere, if you are caffeine-sensitive, train in the evening, already take creatine every day, want a stim-free option, or are buying it primarily for the branded extras. Also skip it if you are expecting the 3.2 g of beta-alanine to do its job from training-day-only use. And keep the hierarchy straight: caffeine and creatine are the two ingredients here with strong, replicated evidence, and neither requires a $1.50 scoop.

How HonestLifter Is Reviewing This Product

This is a research review built on the manufacturer's listing and the published studies. HonestLifter's plan for each product is a written review first, then dated checkpoint updates at 30, 60, 90 days, 6 months, and 12 months, backed by our own notes and data and added to this page as they are written. You can read more in our longitudinal review program article.

Checkpoint Update: 30-Day, 60-Day, 90-Day and 6-Month Notes (October 2026)

Here is what HonestLifter's owner reports from regular use. These are personal notes, not measurements, and they are a single person's experience.

• Use: On training days, which works out to about seven days a week. Skipped only after two or three weeks without a rest day, or when traveling without gym access.
• Dose: One large rounded scoop, which is more than the labeled serving. It is mixed in one shaker with two large rounded scoops of NAKED creatine and a rounded scoop of L-citrulline powder, with a small amount of water, and drunk on the way to the gym (about a seven-minute drive). It is starting to kick in by the time the gym routine begins.
• Taste: Okay, in line with other pre-workouts, with "a bite." Not a great taste.
• Sleep: Taken before an evening workout, it keeps the owner awake, which fits its caffeine content. Morning workouts are fine.
• Versus the listing: Nothing different from the listing.
• Verdict: Would buy again, and buys it frequently.

Several supplements are taken together, so none of these notes isolates the effect of this product. The 12-month update will be added when it is written.

The Bottom Line

Beyond Raw LIT V2 earns credit for transparency and for upgrading the two doses that matter. At 250 mg, the caffeine is in the studied range for most adults. At 5 g, the citrulline matches the doses behind the modest pooled strength effect. At 3 g, the creatine is a real maintenance dose, provided you take it daily. The beta-alanine is the right ingredient at a dose that only pays off with consistent daily use. The branded extras are small and unverified, and the stimulant load is high enough to deserve respect. The price, about $1.50 per serving, is the cost of a convenient, flavored, publicly dosed formula, and the plain-powder comparison shows where most of the value sits.

Buy it if the convenience and the label are worth that to you and you can keep caffeine under control. Skip it if you would rather assemble the same doses yourself. Watch this page for our dated checkpoint updates.

References

1. Guest, N.S., VanDusseldorp, T.A., Nelson, M.T., Grgic, J., Schoenfeld, B.J., Jenkins, N.D.M., et al. (2021). International society of sports nutrition position stand: caffeine and exercise performance. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 18(1), 1. doi:10.1186/s12970-020-00383-4. PMID 33388079.
2. Grgic, J., Grgic, I., Pickering, C., Schoenfeld, B.J., Bishop, D.J., & Pedisic, Z. (2020). Wake up and smell the coffee: caffeine supplementation and exercise performance, an umbrella review of 21 published meta-analyses. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 54(11), 681-688. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2018-100278. PMID 30926628.
3. Wikoff, D., Welsh, B.T., Henderson, R., Brorby, G.P., Britt, J., Myers, E., et al. (2017). Systematic review of the potential adverse effects of caffeine consumption in healthy adults, pregnant women, adolescents, and children. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 109(Pt 1), 585-648. doi:10.1016/j.fct.2017.04.002. PMID 28438661.
4. Jagim, A.R., Camic, C.L., & Harty, P.S. (2019). Common habits, adverse events, and opinions regarding pre-workout supplement use among regular consumers. Nutrients, 11(4), 855. doi:10.3390/nu11040855. PMID 31014016.
5. Trexler, E.T., Persky, A.M., Ryan, E.D., Schwartz, T.A., Stoner, L., & Smith-Ryan, A.E. (2019). Acute effects of citrulline supplementation on high-intensity strength and power performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 49(5), 707-718. doi:10.1007/s40279-019-01091-z. PMID 30895562.
6. Barkhidarian, B., Khorshidi, M., Shab-Bidar, S., & Hashemi, B. (2019). Effects of L-citrulline supplementation on blood pressure: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine, 9(1), 10-20. PMID 30788274.
7. Trexler, E.T., Smith-Ryan, A.E., Stout, J.R., Hoffman, J.R., Wilborn, C.D., Sale, C., et al. (2015). International society of sports nutrition position stand: beta-alanine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 12, 30. doi:10.1186/s12970-015-0090-y. PMID 26175657.
8. Saunders, B., Elliott-Sale, K., Artioli, G.G., Swinton, P.A., Dolan, E., Roschel, H., et al. (2017). Beta-alanine supplementation to improve exercise capacity and performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 51(8), 658-669. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2016-096396. PMID 27797728.
9. Hultman, E., Soderlund, K., Timmons, J.A., Cederblad, G., & Greenhaff, P.L. (1996). Muscle creatine loading in men. Journal of Applied Physiology, 81(1), 232-237. doi:10.1152/jappl.1996.81.1.232. PMID 8828669.
10. Kazeminasab, F., Kerchi, A.B., Sharafifard, F., Zarreh, M., Forbes, S.C., Camera, D.M., et al. (2025). The effects of creatine supplementation on upper- and lower-body strength and power: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrients, 17(17), 2748. doi:10.3390/nu17172748. PMID 40944139.
11. Longobardi, I., Gualano, B., Seguro, A.C., & Roschel, H. (2023). Is it time for a requiem for creatine supplementation-induced kidney failure? A narrative review. Nutrients, 15(6), 1466. doi:10.3390/nu15061466. PMID 36986197.

Product details were taken from the Amazon listing for Beyond Raw LIT V2 (Blue Raspberry) and may change. HonestLifter carries no affiliate links. This article is educational and is not medical advice.