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Stim-free pre-workout is powder with no caffeine or other stimulants. Instead of a buzz, it uses pump and focus ingredients like citrulline to give you fuller muscles and a sharper session, with no crash and no trouble training late. We stock 8 caffeine-free options in NZ, from as little as $0.55 a serve.
Plenty of people assume a pre-workout has to hit you with a big caffeine kick to be worth taking. It does not. Stim-free formulas skip the stimulants entirely and lean on the other half of what a good pre-workout does. Here is what you actually get, who it suits, and the tubs we stock.
Quick answer
Pick stim-free if you train in the evening, already get caffeine from coffee or energy drinks, or feel jittery on a normal pre-workout; pick a stim formula if you want a wake-up kick for early or low-energy sessions. Stim-free has no caffeine and leans on pump ingredients like citrulline, so you get the fuller feel in the muscle without the buzz. We stock 8 caffeine-free formulas, from $0.55 to $4.90 a serve.
What does stim-free pre-workout deliver?
A stim-free tub is built around pump and focus rather than a caffeine hit. The pump ingredients, usually citrulline and sometimes glycerol, are what give you that fuller, harder feeling in the muscle during a set. You still get the training ingredients, just without the stimulant that keeps you wired afterwards. What you lose is the alertness spike caffeine brings, so a stim-free tub feels calmer than a strong scoop.
Who should use a stim-free pre-workout?
Stim-free suits three groups in particular. Evening lifters, because there is no caffeine to sit in your system and wreck your sleep. Anyone who already drinks coffee or a canned energy drink through the day and does not want to pile more caffeine on top. And people who are simply sensitive to stimulants and get jittery on a normal pre-workout. If any of those sound like you, a stim-free tub is the easy answer.
The stim-free tubs we stock
Here are the caffeine-free options in stock right now, sorted by price per serve. The pure pump tubs like Ghost Pump V2 and the Nexus L-Citrulline are the cheapest way in.
| Product | Price per serve | Citrulline | Beta-alanine | Betaine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Nexus L-Citrulline Malate Single ingredient: citrulline malate |
$0.55 100 serves |
3 g | Not listed | Not listed |
| Ghost Pump V2 | $1.60 40 serves |
3 g | Not listed | Not listed |
| Raw Nutrition Pump Non-Stim | $1.72 40 serves |
2.5 g | 1 g | 2.5 g |
|
GAT Sport Nitraflex Glycerol Glycerol based |
$1.84 32 serves |
Not listed | 1 g | 1.25 g |
|
Gaspari Proven Pump Glycerol based |
$1.84 32 serves |
1.5 g | Not listed | 1.25 g |
| Nexus AMP3D 2.0 | $2.21 40 serves |
4.5 g | 1.8 g | 1 g |
| RAW Nutrition Essential Performance | $2.56 25 serves |
6 g | 3.2 g | 2.5 g |
| CBUM Thuper Pump | $4.90 20 serves |
8 g | 6.4 g | 1.85 g |
Nexus L-Citrulline is a single-ingredient pump powder, so it is more of a cheap add-on than a full pre-workout, but at 55 cents a serve it is hard to beat for the pump alone. Browse the full stim-free pre-workout range or the pump formulas for everything caffeine-free we carry.
Beta-alanine is the ingredient behind the tingle, not caffeine, so a stim-free formula can still tingle. If you would rather skip it, Ghost Pump V2, Gaspari Proven Pump and Nexus L-Citrulline list none.
Gaspari Plasmajet is left out of this table on purpose. Its label lists a natural xanthine blend from green tea and green coffee bean extracts, so it is stim-light rather than caffeine-free.
GAT Sport Essentials L-Arginine is caffeine-free too, but it is a single amino acid in tablet form, 1 g of L-arginine per tablet, rather than a pre-workout powder, so it is not in the table either.
Pump or stim: which do you actually want?
The honest answer is that a stim tub and a stim-free tub are chasing different things. A stim pre-workout is about drive and alertness for the session. A stim-free pump tub is about how the muscle feels and looks while you train. If you want both, you can run a stim tub on heavy days and a stim-free one on evening or lighter sessions. Our pre-workout comparison page lays every tub out by tier so you can see where each one sits.
Stim pre-workout
- What it does: energy, alertness and drive for the session
- Best for: mornings and low-energy days
- Trade-off: can feel jittery, and a late scoop can cost you sleep
- Choose a strength: pre-workouts ranked by intensity
Stim-free and pump
- What it does: blood flow and a fuller pump, mostly from citrulline
- Best for: evening sessions and caffeine-sensitive people
- Trade-off: no buzz or wake-up kick
What stim-free will not do
It is worth being honest about the trade-off. A stim-free tub will not give you the sharp wake-up and drive that a strong caffeine scoop does. If you train early, feel groggy, and rely on that stimulant kick to get going, a caffeine-free tub on its own may feel like it is missing something. That is not a fault in the product, it is simply what stimulants do that pump ingredients cannot. The pump and the alertness are two different jobs, and stim-free only covers one of them.
How citrulline drives the pump
Citrulline is the ingredient doing most of the work in a stim-free tub. It is what people are chasing when they talk about a good pump, that fuller and tighter feeling in the muscle as blood moves into it during a set. Most quality pump tubs use a solid dose of it, sometimes alongside glycerol, which helps the muscle hold more water for the same effect. If you have only ever felt the caffeine side of pre-workout, a dedicated pump tub is a genuinely different experience worth trying once. For a worked example, see our look at Nexus AMP3D 2.0, a stim-free pump pre.
Citrulline per serve, stim-free formulas
Listed citrulline per serve. Formulas without citrulline on the label are left out. NZ Supps range, 24 September 2026.
Nexus L-Citrulline is citrulline malate. AMP3D 2.0 is shown with its citrulline malate and pure L-citrulline combined, as listed. Blue bars list at least 4.5 g of pure L-citrulline.
Our pre-workout cheat sheet puts a full citrulline dose at 6 to 8 g of citrulline malate, or about 4.5 g of pure L-citrulline, and CBUM Thuper Pump and RAW Essential Performance clear that in one scoop. Prefer to shop by feel? Try the strong pump or light pump ranges.
Can you stack stim-free with caffeine?
Yes. A common move is to take a plain pump tub like L-citrulline and add your own caffeine, whether that is a coffee or a scoop of a stimulant tub. That lets you dial the caffeine up or down day to day while keeping the pump ingredients constant. If you would rather not tinker, a ready-made stim tub from the Pre-Workout range already has both in the one scoop.
If you do add your own caffeine, count all of it. The commonly cited guide for healthy adults is up to around 400 mg a day in total, coffee and energy drinks included, and our pre-workout safety guide shows how to add it up.
Browse the stim-free pre-workout range to find a caffeine-free tub that fits your training.
