Energy drink before workout...
So, I'm doing Rippetoe's Starting Strength right now, and I thought I had hit a plateau on squats at 290 lbs. Well, yesterday before my workout I drank half of a Rockstar energy drink. I was planning on resetting the weight back to 260lbs or so, but I felt pretty good, so I decided I'd go for 295 lbs. I did my warmup sets and then loaded all of the plates on the bar. I walked out with the weight and did two reps. At this point I had to rerack the weight because I was convinced that I had put 25 lb plates on instead of the 35 lb ones. To my astonishment, the weight was actually 295 lbs. I did all of my sets/reps (3x5) with excellent form.
I'm just astonished what a difference drinking an energy drink made in my workout. On Wednesday, 290 lbs on squat felt like it was going to kill me, but 295 lbs on Friday was incredibly easy. Squat wasn't the only lift that went well either. I got 135lbs on my military press for the very first time.
My question is this... Is there a better kind of energy supplement I could take before my workouts without all of the sugar? I can't afford to buy any of the NO stuff that a lot of people take; is there some kind of cheap supplement I could use that would have the same energizing effects for my workouts?