No, Not that Kind of Performance Booster
If you know anything about supplements, pre-workout supplements in particular, you should have already heard of beta-alanine. This revolutionary supplement is being included in more and more pre-workout powders where only about a year ago, you would have found it nowhere.
Beta-alanine has become so popular because of its effects as an “in-the-gym” performance booster.
Beta alanine is a non-essential amino acid that is not used to contruct proteins. Thus, it is a non-proteinogenic amino acid. Wow spell-check really hated that one. Beta-alanine is found in protein-rich foods, however, like beef, chicken, fish and pork. But because it is considered non-essential, your body is also able to synthesize it on its own. There; so now you know you aren’t taking some synthetically, genetically modified, hyper-obtruficated… I don’t know…
Beta-alanine has already become one of the most studied sport supplements ever. The results from the studies showed that it may increase muscular endurance and strength during a workout. Studied also supported the claims that beta-alanine can increase muscle mass and simultaneously increase aerobic and anaerobic endurance. This means that during your workout, you will be getting more reps per set, and not wearing out and throwing in the towel early.
Your Brain, on Beta-Alanine
Resistance training causes your muscles to build up a large amount of hydrogen ions as your workout progress. This subsequently causes the pH balance in your muscle to decrease and become more acidic. Everyone has heard of lactic acid build-up during a workout, this is what causes that. The more lactic acid build up, the quickly you will break down and lose those extra reps you meant to squeeze out.
Beta-alanine comes to the rescue. Beta-alanine itself does not slow the build-up of lactic acid. The importance of beta-alanine is its ability to increase your body’s synthesis of another amino acid, carnosine. Carnosine, is an amino acid that is found in high concentrations in your muscle fibers. While it can be found in both type I and type II muscle fibers, it is most abundant in Type II fibers, which are used for highly-intensive and highly-explosive movements. These are the same fibers, or fibra, if you will, that are being used in resistance training.
Carnosine benefits weight trainers because of its knack for absorbing hydrogen ions and thus decreasing the early onset of lactic acid build up. Research has shown that supplementing with beta-alanine can increase carnosine levels by up to 65%. This is a dramatic increase and could make a huge difference in your work out.
Try taking beta-alanine for a spin with your next workout. Taking beta-alanine gives a unique tingling sensation felt on your skin. It isn’t uncomfortable feeling its just different. If you have ever taken niacin, its the exact same feeling. Once you get this feeling, you’ll know that it has started working. And of course, don’t take any supplement without your doctor’s approval.
Here are the highest rated and lowest priced beta-alanine supplements on bodybuilding.com:
Prima Force - $29.98
NOW - $22.99
ScitFit - $19.99
[...] If you click on the ‘buy’ button above, you can check out all the different flavors and sizes available. The reason that NO-Shotgun works so well is because it combines the top nutrients that you need during a workout: L-arginine, Creatine, Glutamine, Caffeine, and Beta-Alanine. If you haven’t heard of beta-alanine, its a revolutionary sports supplement that has been shown to increase muscle carnosine levels. Increasing carnosine means less lactic acid build up in the muscles (which means more REPS). If you haven’t heard about beta-alanine we talk about it in another article here. [...]
It’s funny I just read this. I started taking beta-alanine and I love it. The tingly feeling is weird at first but you get used to and kind of start to like it because you know its working.
But yeah all of my lifts have gone up dramatically since I started taking it.