Looking for recommendations for Amino Acid supplement.
What do you use and like?
Thanks,Scott
I went through a phase of chronic like fatigue and experimented on myself with all sort of healthy potions and the one thing besides coffee that perked me up was this stuff with no crash later. I believe the 8 aminos you can only get through food and body doesn’t produce by breaking down protein. Anyway I take 2 serves prior to every training session or race, often after and at least one serve a day. I recently put my girlfriend onto it as an experiment to see how she felt on it. She prefers the tablets at midday and says she is so much more energised when she would normally feel tired in the afternoon. She is now a convert too…
https://www.amazon.com/BodyHealth-PerfectAmino-Essential-Supplement-Utilization/dp/B07M7L4DYZ?th=1
I like to eat food.
I like to eat food.
I’m usually pretty pro using supplements if needed, but aa supplementation does seem unnecessary. If you are hitting recommended protein goals you should be getting plenty of essential amino acids. If you are not hitting recommended protein intake, regular whey protein is a good supplement and contains all essential amino acids.
The evidence to support bcaa supplementation is pretty questionable. The idea that leucine is super important for protein synthesis seems to have been disproven by more recent research.
Luc Van Loon, world leading authority on protein and exercise: “in short, there is absolutely no evidence that BCAAs enhance performance or recovery if supplemented at any timeâ€.
this will be interesting.
and a train wreck.
Im in
Wonder if Asker Jeukendrup is lurking here. He just tweeted a link to an article of his on this:
https://www.mysportscience.com/post/2017/10/02/the-truth-about-bcaa
What does van loon or jeukendrup know?!?
(I have benefited from their work since I was a teenager)
Here’s the canned answer I give my clients:
BCAA thoughts:
For endurance performance:
There is some limited evidence that BCAA ingestion alongside pre- or intra-workout beverages might enhance cognitive or motivational ability during endurance exercise. I have a list of supplements that I recommend for endurance sport. BCAA is on the very bottom of the list, but it does make the “maybe” list. But barely. There are half a dozen other things to take first, for endurance performance enhancement over BCAAs.
For health, and body composition:
Whey protein is derived from milk, and makes up ~20% of the protein found in milk. For the purpose of making whey protein powder, they just filter out the whey protein and either put it straight into a jug or do some additional filtering to make it finer and more easy to digest (this is where the names “concentrate, isolate, and hydrolysate†come from). In all types of whey protein, ALL of the amino acids are left in the protein in roughly their natural state. There are 20 of them. These 20 amino acids make up all the protein in your body. They serve as the building blocks for the proteins that are used to build muscle and perform most of your cellular functions. Three of these have been especially identified to be associated with muscle gain. They are leucine, valine, and isoleucine. Together, as a class, they are called the branched chain amino acids (BCAA) because their “side chain†(the thing that identifies each of the 20 amino acids) is branched.
In the absence of BCAA’s, muscle growth is limited, as compared to when they are present sufficiently in the diet pre-, intra-, and post-workout, and throughout the day. Whey protein has BCAA’s in it (more than most protein sources, actually), as does lean meat. Interestingly, whey protein and meat have enough BCAA’s in them such that the supplementation of BCAA’s doesn’t do anything additionally for hypertrophy or muscle retention during fat loss phases. Only during phases of incredibly tight caloric restriction, and in the slight absence of protein, are BCAA’s useful for preservation of muscle mass. If you’re eating whey protein before, during, or after your training session, and/or are eating at least .75 grams of protein per pound of body weight from lean meats/eggs/seafood ect, per day, there will be no measurable benefit to taking BCAA’s.
Is that list of supplements you recommend for endurance sport available for public consumption?
Thanks for the response. I’m interested in other supplements you feel are beneficial.
I’m getting older (63) and I’m purely cycling (8-12 hours per week)now with some strength and flexibility work.
My diet i feel is spot on and in the past five years my recovery is not what it use to be.
I’m mid 30s and feel my recovery isn’t what it used to be! ðŸ§
Interesting how a post on amino acids descended in BCAA’s??? They are very different and yes a complete waste of time…
As I say this stuff perks me up even when I was suffering from chronic like fatigue that turned out to be due to my gut micro biome and I have only read great reviews of it. Buy a tub or a bottle of tablets, give it a try and try for yourself and sounds like may be exactly what you’re after. I take it daily, now my girlfriend does as she feels better on it too.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0835/8481/files/New_PerfectAmino_Usage_Guide.pdf?
Because bcaas were the hot amino acid supplementation for a while and still pushed hard by supplement companies. BCAAs are literally amino acids so I’m not sure how you decide they are “very different”. It’s like me saying I don’t know why in a discussion about carbs people are bringing up glucose, they are very different.
If you are deficient in essential amino acids sure a supplement could help. But if you are deficient in essential amino acids, the problem is likely in overall protein intake being too low and that should be the fix.
Fwiw those tablets contain 5g of EAA, a 25g scoop of whey protein contains around 7.9g. There is really nothing special about them.
Yes I am aware protein is made up of amino acids, which are made up of Branch Chain Amino Acids, which are made up of peptides… Most BCAA’s you are taking a narrower spectrum of aminos.
As I say I started taking them and in my darkest fatigue moments noticed a difference. I take a grass fed whey protein isolate shake after my training sessions generally and have a healthy diet having consulted with a nutritionist during my fatigue issues.
Thanks for your input but I personally find them ‘very different’ to anything else I have tried for some kind of noticeable improvement in my health and energy besides caffeine. I had my girlfriend try them and she noticed an energy difference so was sharing what I personally found and was responding to the OP who was asking what aminos people were taking and may be interested in trying.
Is that list of supplements you recommend for endurance sport available for public consumption?
Epo, testosterone, hgh. (Half joking, but they are going to improve performance way more than the legal stuff).
In terms of sports performance ergogenic aids good evidence for the following:
- caffeine
- creatine
- carbohydrates
- sodium bicarb
- sodium phosphate
Mixed evidence for:
- nitrates (beet juice)
- beta alanine (infamous for itchy bthole)
In terms of health supplements some good evidence for:
- Vitamin d, especially those of us with darker skin tones or living in places that aren’t particularly sunny. (Argument that it might be good to take vitamin k with it to prevent some potential negative side effects, but more research needed)
- Vitamin e
Moderate evidence for:
- Selenium
- zinc
- calcium
- EPA (although some evidence now suggesting fish oil supplementation may increase risk of a-fib).
- beta carotene
- folic acid
- vitamin c and a
I suspect I’m missing stuff. Interested to see what Dr Harrison’s opinion is.
I appreciate your experience. The scientist in me is looking at them and thinking well they are just EAA, and not even a particularly high dose. There being no additional ingredients it’s hard to understand how they could possibly be more effective than just eating a diet with sufficient EAA. There just doesn’t seem to be any realistic biological mechanism. Plus with all these things there is a large placebo effect - not that it is necessarily a bad thing, if it works it works who cares about how.
I appreciate your experience. The scientist in me is looking at them and thinking well they are just EAA, and not even a particularly high dose. There being no additional ingredients it’s hard to understand how they could possibly be more effective than just eating a diet with sufficient EAA. There just doesn’t seem to be any realistic biological mechanism. Plus with all these things there is a large placebo effect - not that it is necessarily a bad thing, if it works it works who cares about how.
https://www.viterna.at/What-are-Master-Amino-Acid-Patterns-MAP-
Conclusion
It is not really so difficult to meet the daily protein requirements due to the abundance of protein-rich foods. Conventional protein-rich foods, however, have the disadvantage that harmful nitrogen compounds form during digestion, which in turn can have a negative effect on the body.
With the MAP amino acid mixture, this no longer happens, as the amino acid compound can be converted into muscle protein even without the formation of nitrogen compounds, since the ratio of the individual protein building blocks is perfectly matched to each other.
Does this not answer anything for you? I have no idea if it is true but it works.
When I was suffering fatigue I googled and tried every supplement and herb that had the slightest inkling of helping me and this was the only one that did and still does. As say my pessimistic girlfriend thought I was full of BS and she found the same. No placebo here…
this will be interesting.
and a train wreck.
Im in
Holy cow. You were right. Substantially more train wreckage than I expected. I should be less optimistic.
I’m mid 30s and feel my recovery isn’t what it used to be! ðŸ§
Me too!