I've never actually tried making my own shakes, so I don't know how it acts solo. But let me tell you, if I'm missing it from my pre-workout shake I KNOW it's gonna be hell at the gym for me. So for me, it's a staple. And I look forward to the tingling - lets me know when everything is working. I don't feel the tingle as intensely anymore after using 4gs of this at a time, but it's so amazing to just be able to work till muscle failure before reaching muscle fatigue 99.5% of the time (muscle fatigue will stunt your gym progress).