You’re from out of town and have been training in Barcelona for the last two weeks ahead of a professional cycling competition. Everything is going to plan until you reach for your supplements one morning and realise you’ve run out of creatine and electrolytes.

Normally, replacing them would be simple. Walk into a supplement shop, grab a familiar product and get back to training.

But you’re a professional athlete subject to banned-substance testing. A positive test can have serious consequences, and grabbing the first sports supplement you find isn’t a risk you’re willing to take.

So the question becomes much more specific: where in Barcelona can I find creatine, electrolytes or protein that has actually been tested for banned substances?

This concern isn’t limited to professional cyclists. Olympic and Paralympic athletes, national and elite-level competitors, athletes in registered testing pools, and competitors in many professional, collegiate and amateur sports may be subject to anti-doping testing. Depending on the sport and governing body, testing can happen during competition or out of competition, sometimes without advance notice.

At The Nutrition Store Barcelona, near Sagrada Família, we serve everyone from recreational gym users to competitive athletes. When someone walks in and says, “I get tested,” the supplement conversation immediately changes.

Informed Sport vs Informed Choice: What’s the Difference?

Imagine two customers standing in front of the same supplement shelf. One trains recreationally after work. The other is competing internationally at the weekend and could be asked to provide a urine or blood sample under anti-doping rules.

They may be looking at the same tub of creatine, but they aren’t necessarily making the same purchasing decision.

For a tested athlete, the key feature of Informed Sport is that every batch of a certified product is tested for prohibited substances before being released to market. Athletes can search the official database for certified products and verify relevant batch information.

Informed Choice also provides independent prohibited-substance testing but follows a different model involving ongoing monitoring and regular blind retail testing.

The simplest distinction is therefore: Informed Sport tests every certified batch before release; Informed Choice uses ongoing certification and regular blind retail testing.

Both provide valuable third-party quality assurance. The distinction matters when you’re specifically searching for supplements in Barcelona as a tested athlete—and it’s also where having a choice of independently certified products becomes important.

At The Nutrition Store Barcelona, that choice includes products from both Informed Sport and Informed Choice certified ranges. For endurance athletes in particular, two names stand out: Science in Sport and Crown Sport Nutrition.

Science in Sport and Crown: Strong Options for Endurance Athletes

Let’s return to our cyclist.

It’s a few days before competition, Barcelona is hot, training isn’t stopping, and the last serving of electrolytes disappeared at breakfast. What they need isn’t a long lecture about sports nutrition. They need to know which actual products they can investigate.

Science in Sport (SiS) is particularly relevant because a substantial range appears in the Informed Sport programme. Certified products include familiar endurance options such as SiS GO Electrolyte Powder, GO Energy + Electrolyte Gel, GO Isotonic Energy Gel, Beta Fuel 80, Beta Fuel Gel, Hydro tablets and Beta Fuel Energy Chews.

The certified range also extends beyond race fueling to products such as SiS Creatine Powder, REGO Whey Protein and REGO Rapid Recovery.

That means we aren’t simply saying, “SiS is a brand athletes use.” A tested competitor can identify specific products and check their certification.

Crown Sport Nutrition provides an equally interesting Spanish example. Crown has an extensive presence within the Informed Sport programme, including Isodrink & Energy for carbohydrate and electrolyte replacement and Creatine Monohydrate Creapure for athletes who need creatine.

Its certified range also includes products such as Whey PROtein+, PRO Salt Caps, Hyperdrink 90, HyperGel 45, Vegan PROtein and Beta Alanine Slow Absorption.

Picture an endurance athlete arriving in Barcelona with their bike, helmet and race kit but only two days’ worth of nutrition. Finding Crown Sport Nutrition locally isn’t useful simply because Crown is a Spanish sports nutrition company. For a tested athlete, the attraction is the breadth of specific products carrying relevant certification.

Rule 1: Certified Whey, Plant Protein, Creatine and More

Rule 1 deserves particular attention because its Informed Choice range is broader than many customers realise.

For somebody searching for Rule 1 protein in Barcelona, both R1 Protein Whey Isolate and R1 Whey Protein are listed within the Informed Choice programme. Importantly, there is also a plant-based option: R1 Plant Protein is Informed Choice certified, making it particularly interesting for athletes who prefer vegan protein but still want independent certification.

Rule One’s certified range also extends into products such as Creatine, R1 Lytes, R1 Essential Amino 9, R1 Active BCAA, R1 Charged Creatine, Clear Whey Isolate, Casein Protein and preLIFT.

Here’s where a common mistake can happen. An athlete remembers seeing an Informed Choice logo on one Rule 1 product and assumes another product from the same company carries the same certification.

That’s exactly the assumption a tested athlete should avoid.

The important lesson isn’t simply “Rule 1 is tested.” It’s to ask which exact Rule 1 product is certified. Certification should always be checked at product level rather than assumed across an entire brand.

Perfect Sports and MUTANT: Check the Product, Not Just the Brand

The same principle applies to Perfect Sports.

Someone looking for Perfect Sports DIESEL in Barcelona can find specific products within the Informed Choice programme, including DIESEL New Zealand Whey Isolate, PERFECT New Zealand Whey, Creatine, BCAA, Hydrosplash and DIESEL VEGAN.

DIESEL VEGAN also gives athletes another independently certified plant-protein option.

The DIESEL Bar provides a useful example of why current verification matters: its certification information records a move from Informed Sport to Informed Choice in June 2025.

Imagine an athlete buying it because they remember seeing a particular certification logo a year earlier. Their memory may be accurate—but no longer current.

Certification can change, which is why checking an official database is more reliable than remembering a logo from an old tub.

MUTANT also has multiple Informed Choice products. Someone searching for MUTANT GEAAR in Barcelona may already know the amino-acid formula, but the certified range extends to products including GEAAR, HARDCORE ISO/ISO SURGE, WHEY, MASS, CREAKONG, Creakong CX8, BCAA 9.7 and MUTANT CREATINE BYTZ.

For tested athletes, this is what “third-party tested” should lead to: not a vague brand-level promise, but an identifiable programme and an identifiable product.

Finding Tested Sports Supplements in Barcelona

Back to our cyclist.

They’re away from home, competition is approaching, and their last serving of electrolyte disappeared this morning.

Searching for a supplement store near Sagrada Família, sports supplements for athletes in Barcelona or simply a protein store near me might get them through our door. Telling us “I’m a tested athlete” determines what happens next.

At The Nutrition Store Barcelona, Carrer de la Marina 300, we can help customers identify relevant products from brands such as Science in Sport, Crown Sport Nutrition, Rule 1, Perfect Sports and MUTANT, depending on current availability.

For an endurance athlete needing hydration, that might mean looking at SiS GO Electrolyte Powder or Crown Isodrink & Energy. If they’ve run out of creatine, certified options include products such as SiS Creatine Powder or Crown Creatine Monohydrate Creapure.

For protein, the conversation could include R1 Protein Whey Isolate, R1 Plant Protein, Perfect Sports DIESEL New Zealand Whey Isolate, MUTANT HARDCORE ISO/ISO SURGE or Crown Whey PROtein+.

The point isn’t that one of these is automatically “best.” It’s that a tested athlete can investigate an actual certification rather than relying on a general marketing claim.

And remember, the customer who says “I get tested” isn’t necessarily an Olympic athlete. It could be a professional cyclist, a national-level swimmer, an elite runner, a competitor in a registered testing pool or an athlete competing under another organisation with anti-doping rules.

Testing may involve urine or blood samples and can target prohibited substances and methods including anabolic steroids, EPO, certain stimulants, growth hormone and blood doping.

That’s why there’s an important difference between finding a generic supplement shop and finding one that understands what Informed Sport supplements, Informed Choice supplements and banned-substance testing actually mean.

The Rule Every Tested Athlete Should Remember

You don’t need to memorise an anti-doping textbook every time you buy creatine, protein or electrolytes.

You do need to remember one rule:

Don’t assume. Verify.

Don’t assume that because one product from a brand is certified, every product is. Don’t assume that certification you saw last season is necessarily unchanged today. And don’t assume that a familiar-looking supplement is automatically appropriate simply because other athletes use it.

Check the certification programme. Check the exact product. When using Informed Sport certification, verify the relevant batch information.

Ultimately, athletes remain responsible for what they consume, so third-party certification should be treated as a risk-reduction tool rather than a guarantee against an anti-doping violation.

So if you’re visiting Barcelona for a cycling race, bodybuilding competition, CrossFit event, athletics meeting or another tested sport and suddenly run out of supplements, don’t panic-buy the first tub you find.

Find the product. Verify the certification. Check the batch where appropriate.

Then get back to what you actually came to Barcelona to do: compete.