Top 6 Nutritional Supplements: BCAAs

How BCAAs work: Unlike glutamine, the branched chain amino acids, consisting of leucine, isoleucine, and valine, are “essential” amino acids, meaning that the body cannot synthesize them from precursors-they must be obtained directly from the diet. Like glutamine, there is a greater requirement for BCAAs during intense exercise such as weight training and they are derived primarily from catabolized muscle tissue. BCAAs are broken down into (among other things) alanine and glutamine (remember glutamine?) which are in-turn used to generate glucose in the liver. Supplementing with BCAAs will help to prevent their degradation in muscle tissue, limiting muscle-breakdown and speeding up recovery from intense weight training workouts. Leucine itself has been shown to stimulate protein synthesis, and research has shown that the BCAAs have a positive effect on recovery, can reduce fatigue, and encourage an overall anabolic state in the muscle. BCAAs seem to be especially effective during periods of reduced calorie intake (i.e. while dieting down to lose that last 5lbs of fat).

Are BCAAs Safe? Side effects:

Similar to glutamine, there are virtually no side effects with BCAA supplementation in healthy people at recommended doses.

How to supplement with BCAAs:

BCAAs are supplied in powder and tablet form. Like glutamine, a large dose is needed (10-20g before and after the workout), BCAAs are barely soluble in water so most find it convenient to just take the tabs (yes, this is a hell of a lot of tablets!). Most formal research has shown that a dose of 0.2 mg/kg of bodyweight is ideal-this would be 20 g for a 200 lb athlete. Real-world evidence suggests that anywhere in the range of 10-20g is effective. This dosage can be broken up, taking them both before-and after training. On non-weight training days BCAAs can be taken in small doses at every meal or before cardiovascular exercise.

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