PowerBar® High Intensity Sustained Release Beta Alanine

Triathlon Forum
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PowerBar® High Intensity Sustained Release Beta Alanine dietary supplement - Does anyone have any reviews?

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snake oil
.

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I recently started using EFS Optigen HP which has beta alanine and saw significant gains within a few weeks. Gains to the point it felt like what i would assume a cycle of roids would feel like. Ive been crushing it on the bike lately and especially when I’m near threshhold power. I’m still using it and may switch to Powerbar after Vineman next week because theirs has more BA but also is time released whereas I get the itchy feeling after taking Optigen HP. Do a search on this forum. There was a good thread awhile back about it. I’m a believer in BA.

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What in the research on beta alanine did you read to determine that it’s snake oil?
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What in the research on beta alanine did you read to determine that it’s snake oil?

what research on beta alanine have you read to determine that its NOT snake oil? youve read the studies and you think beta alanine is going to help your triathlon performance. maybe at the end of a sprint… maybe.

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Did you even search the Forum for Beta Alanine? There is already a long thread about it there. Be fore warned there were a bunch of accounts created the same day as the posting by “PowerBar Sponsored Athletes” who are “using the supplement.”

Personally I have been using NOW Beta Alanine from super supplements for about 6 weeks. I have noticed significant improvement on threshold paces at sprint to olympic distance events but have not seen anything significant for anything longer. I’d say the iron supplement I started about 3 months previous to the Beta Alanine improved my performance more greatly for longer distances.

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what research on beta alanine have you read to determine that its NOT snake oil? youve read the studies and you think beta alanine is going to help your triathlon performance. maybe at the end of a sprint… maybe.
I was responding to a post which stated that they believe it’s snake oil. I’m curious as to what he’s read in the powerbar research that’s faulty.

I highly doubt that he (or you for that matter) has read it, but if you/he has, what in it is inaccurate or misleading or leads one to believe it’s snake oil?

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I highly doubt that he (or you for that matter) has read it, but if you/he has, what in it is inaccurate or misleading or leads one to believe it’s snake oil?

you obviously havent read the study:

http://www.powerbar.com/articles/451/beta-alanine-high-intensity-training.aspx

or
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19935102
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19841932
.

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damn, i SWEAR that I didn’t see this thread when I bumped the other BA thread…

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you obviously havent read the study:

http://www.powerbar.com/...ensity-training.aspx

or
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19935102
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19841932
Given that one of the studies you provided to presumably prove it doesn’t work, stated: *This may contribute to the ergogenic effect of the supplement found in some exercise modes, *there’s at least some data to support it’s efficacy.
**
So again I’ll ask, what in the POWERBAR study do you read that leads you to believe it’s *snake oil *or that the claims they’re making are false?

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I recently started using EFS Optigen HP which has beta alanine and saw significant gains within a few weeks. Gains to the point it felt like what i would assume a cycle of roids would feel like. Ive been crushing it on the bike lately and especially when I’m near threshhold power. I’m still using it and may switch to Powerbar after Vineman next week because theirs has more BA but also is time released whereas I get the itchy feeling after taking Optigen HP. Do a search on this forum. There was a good thread awhile back about it. I’m a believer in BA.

Significant gains. How were these gains measured and what level of significance did you observe. What methods did you use to ensure these gains where not not due to bias, chance or confounding?

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I recently started using EFS Optigen HP which has beta alanine and saw significant gains within a few weeks. Gains to the point it felt like what i would assume a cycle of roids would feel like. Ive been crushing it on the bike lately and especially when I’m near threshhold power. I’m still using it and may switch to Powerbar after Vineman next week because theirs has more BA but also is time released whereas I get the itchy feeling after taking Optigen HP. Do a search on this forum. There was a good thread awhile back about it. I’m a believer in BA.

Significant gains. How were these gains measured and what level of significance did you observe. What methods did you use to ensure these gains where not not due to bias, chance or confounding?

interesting to note that the study linked above that showed B-alanine showed no benefit was double-blinded. but hey… sometimes a placebo effect is good enough

13

Something like the saying, there are 3 types of lies: lies, damn lies, and nutrition supplement claims.

  1. I wouldn’t trust a Powerbar-financed study. Go independent.
  2. Statistics can be manipulated, for example, using relative risk instead of absolute.

Lots of claims are like Zipp’s dimples- I swear, if I switched to Zipp products with all of the time subtractions, I would finish a 40km in -3min. I’m with mallaire1 and am critical.

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This is an email I got from my CTS coach last week after a group ride the previous Tuesday and an 80mi training ride the previous Sunday. My rate of perceived exertion (RPE) was around a 7 for both efforts. Good, solid but not crushing it from a perceived exertion perspective. I just “felt like Superman” is the best way I can describe it and I’ve only felt like this since taking Optigen HP. It may or may not be the trigger…I just know I’m going into Vineman full feeling very good.

And as an FYI… I’m new to triathlon. Last summer I did one sprint and one Oly before taking on Silverman full in Nov. (14:02) and IMSG in May (13:31). I’ve never done a HIM nor ran a full marathon as a stand alone event. I had small amounts of down time between Silverman and IMSG and then picked it right back up each time so I’m sure some of the improvement is partly due to continuos training. It just seems to me that I kicked it up a notch when I started taking BA. From my coach:

Group Ride:
This was your best ride of the year, best ride of your life from what the numbers are saying:
Peak 8min effort at 285W
Peak 20min effort at 261W
And check out the middle sustained effort: Normalized power of 258W for over 80min. WOW. Solid.

Long 80mi Ride on the TT bike:
The zones above are the bottom of tempo (224w) and top of SS for power (258w)
As you can see, you spent a good deal of time there. That gives great return on the fitness, but more importantly shows the fitness you’ve gained over the past 6 months. Normalized power of 225W for the entire 4:30 with 3,800ft of climbing. That’s pretty solid.

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I’m a PowerBar sponsored athlete, and I’ve been using the Beta Alanine all summer long. Obviously all of this is totally subjective and anecdotal, but that’s usually the case with supplementation. I’ve used the product all summer, and posted my best race at IM Canada two weekends ago. I also quit my job and focused on racing full time, but I have felt less tired after hard workouts once I got through the loading period.