What a proprietary blend actually is

A proprietary blend is a group of ingredients declared under one name — "Power Matrix", "Focus Complex", "Recovery Fuel" — with a single combined weight instead of individual amounts. The ingredients inside must be listed in descending order by weight, but that's the only structural information the label gives you.

So a blend tells you exactly two things: the order of the ingredients, and the total. Everything else — including whether the headline ingredient is present at a dose that has ever been studied — is undisclosed. The stated reason is trade-secret protection. The practical effect is that you cannot check the one thing that determines whether the product works.

Worked example 01 A typical blend declaration on an Indian pre-workout
INTENSE PRE-WORKOUT — SUPPLEMENT FACTS Serving size: 1 scoop (12 g) "Power Matrix" (proprietary blend) ........ 9,000 mg L-Citrulline DL-Malate, Beta-Alanine, Arginine AKG, Taurine, Caffeine Anhydrous, Theobromine

Six ingredients, one number. Citrulline malate is listed first, so it weighs the most — but "the most" could be anywhere from 1.5 g (if all six were equal) to nearly 9 g (if the other five are a dusting). The studied dose of citrulline malate is 6–8 g.1 Is it in there? The label is built so you can't know.

The arithmetic the label hopes you'll skip

You can't recover the exact amounts, but descending order plus a total gives you hard ceilings. Two rules do all the work:

  • The position rule. The ingredient listed k-th can weigh at most total ÷ k. It can't outweigh any ingredient listed above it, so the 3rd ingredient in a 9 g blend is capped at 3 g, the 5th at 1.8 g, and so on.
  • The no-floor rule. Nothing except the first ingredient has a minimum. Anything from position two down could be present at a token 50 mg — and the label would look identical.

Run the position rule against the studied dose of the headline ingredient. If the studied dose doesn't fit under the ceiling, the product cannot be clinically dosed — no benefit of the doubt required. If it fits, you still only know it's possible, not that it's there.

Worked example 02 Pre-workout B — ruled out by the ceiling alone
"Pump Complex" (proprietary blend) ..... 4,500 mg L-Citrulline Malate, Arginine AKG, Agmatine Sulfate, Glycerol Monostearate

Best case for the buyer: the entire 4.5 g blend is citrulline malate and the other three ingredients are crumbs. Even then it lands below the 6 g floor of the studied dose range. This jar cannot deliver a clinical dose of its headline ingredient at one scoop — the total makes it arithmetically impossible.

Worked example 03 Pre-workout C — the position rule kills the claim
Caffeine Anhydrous ........................ 300 mg "Endurance Blend" (proprietary) ......... 5,000 mg Taurine, Beta-Alanine, Betaine Anhydrous, L-Tyrosine, Alpha-GPC, Black Pepper Extract

The caffeine is disclosed — that's the number they're proud of. Beta-alanine sits second in a six-ingredient 5 g blend, so the position rule caps it at 2.5 g. The studied dose is 3.2–6.4 g/day.2 The marketing copy on this jar says "clinically studied beta-alanine". The ingredient is studied; the dose cannot be.

All three examples are real products sold on Indian marketplaces in 2026; we've anonymised the brands because the pattern, not the name, is the lesson. The pattern is the norm, not the exception — our shelf survey of Indian pre-workouts found blends on the large majority of jars.

Blend labelling is inherited from the US supplement framework (DSHEA, 1994), which lets manufacturers declare a blend's total weight without per-ingredient amounts to protect "trade secret" formulas. Indian labels copy the convention, and enforcement attention on Indian shelves has focused on safety and permitted-ingredient lists far more than on quantitative disclosure of blend internals.

Keep the two claims separate in your head: legal means the label format is permitted. Dosed means the studied amount is in the scoop. A proprietary blend is precisely the mechanism that lets a product be the first without proving the second.

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Trade secret — from what, exactly?

Any competent lab can reverse-engineer a supplement formula for a few thousand rupees. Competitors are not the audience the blend keeps in the dark. You are.

Your move as a buyer

  • Treat the blend total as marketing, not dosing. "9,000 mg per scoop!" is a weight, not an argument.
  • Run the position rule on the one ingredient you're buying the product for. Thirty seconds of division settles most jars.
  • Assume the worst for anything below position two. You can't rule out a token dose, and the incentive runs one way: the priciest ingredients are the ones worth hiding.
  • Prefer full-disclosure labels. Brands that list every amount exist at every price point in India. A brand that discloses can still underdose — but at least it can be caught.
What to remember

A blend discloses order and total. Everything else is a guess the brand made deliberate.

  • The k-th ingredient in a blend weighs at most total ÷ k — and everything after the first has no minimum at all.
  • If the studied dose of the headline ingredient doesn't fit under that ceiling, the "clinically studied" claim is dead on arrival.
  • If it does fit, you've established possibility, not presence. Full-disclosure labels are the only version you can actually verify.
Try it · ~1 min

Read a real jar — any pre-workout you own or can open in a browser tab.

  1. Find the blend. Note its total weight and count the ingredients inside it.
  2. Find the position of the ingredient the marketing leads with, and compute its ceiling: total ÷ position.
  3. Compare the ceiling to the studied dose (for citrulline malate: 6–8 g; for beta-alanine: 3.2–6.4 g/day). Does the claim survive the division?

Goes deeper

ResearchProprietary blends on Indian pre-workouts — our shelf survey ResearchWhat a properly studied dose looks like: creatine, 27 trials

References

1
Pérez-Guisado J, Jakeman PM. Citrulline malate enhances athletic anaerobic performance and relieves muscle soreness. J Strength Cond Res. 2010;24(5):1215–1222. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181cb28e0
2
Trexler ET, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: beta-alanine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2015;12:30. doi:10.1186/s12970-015-0090-y

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