Sometimes You Need Supplements, Sometimes You Don’t

The reality is that athletes, no matter how talented, dedicated and motivated they are, don’t always have the stamina or endurance to push themselves to where they think they need to be. And that’s where the trending, oversized pre-workout supplements online industry steps in. We all want to perform better and faster, and they always show on these promises with products that are designed to improve and boost performance, crush fatigue, extend power, and more. You already know how you feel when you don’t get enough sleep cranky and lethargic. But chronic sleep deprivation has very real consequences in the pool, and perhaps more importantly, to your long term overall health and development. Taking pre-workout to mask the sleepiness and sleep deprivation can keep you chugging along a little while longer while putting off the inevitable crash, encouraging less optimal sleep habits and short-cutting recovery. Why some pre-workout supplements online product gives you a headache if you ask? It depends on the formula, but many have vasodilator compounds in them, or ingredients that cause your blood vessels to expand. This dilates, among others, the blood vessels in your head, which can cause a headache.

The specific vasodilator is typically the amino acid arginine, which increases nitric oxide in the body. The idea behind including this is that at rest, a large part of your vascular beds are closed. In theory, you could take in nutrients or remove waste products better because you have more blood circulating. Some pre-workouts claim this may actually have anabolic effects and can cause muscle growth. But, if you keep getting headaches, see your physician and consider switching to a supplement that doesn’t have this ingredient. Though note that it might have other vasodilators that could cause the same problem. Notice in any generic supplement store and you’re going to see it or better yet, you’ve probably heard of it. Now days there are countless pre-workout supplements online products that simply are not designed to help your goals. We’re talking about of supplements whose ingredients are based on how they can make your brain feel and not how they can help support your body. This is achieved through a combination of the overuse of inexpensive stimulants and the absence of quality BCAAs and power molecules that results in a supplement that’s short-term sensational and incredibly profitable for its maker. What it does is drains your adrenal glands, keeps you awake at night increasing stress hormones, and ultimately makes you jump on the next supplement they make in hopes of that one producing better results. When you glance at the label of a lot of pre-workout powders you not only see a few made-up ingredients, but sometimes a laundry list of vitamins, amino acids, creatine, and much more. The sheer number of ingredients can fool a swimmer into thinking that they are getting what amounts to a well-balanced meal with their pre-workout shake, and as a result, it can lead to some less than stellar eating habits. A supplement should be exactly that, something is complimentary to a full and healthy diet.

What’s behind in Taking Branch Chain Amino Acids

Branch chain amino acid supplements, or BCAAs, are one of the best supplements for muscle growth, muscle repair and muscle recovery.  BCAAs are made up of three amino acids: Leucine, Isoleucine, and Valine. These three amino acids directly influence the muscles. BCAAs are made up of three of the nine essential amino acids: leucine, isoleucine and valine - they account for approximately 35 per cent of essential amino acids in muscle proteins. The idea behind Branch chain amino acid supplements are that they will help build muscle, prolong exercise capacity and spike muscle protein synthesis (due to the leucine in particular). Additionally, to making your workouts more efficient, some studies have found that the BCAA leucine, specifically, may help you feel more full by improving sensitivity to the hunger hormone leptin, explains Smith. Other research indicates that leucine could help promote fat burning and balance your blood sugar levels. And that's important because imbalanced blood sugar levels can lead to weight gain. Many fitness fanatics swear by BCAAs, sipping them throughout the day, during workouts and after a heavy gym session. Taking a Branch chain amino acid supplement before working out can be great for those that train fasted in a morning. Research has shown that taking BCAA supplementation (we prefer powdered BCAAs) can have a fatigue reducing effect allowing you to perform just as well as you would with a prior intake of food 2 hours before. Many people think that they won’t work out as well if they didn’t eat carbs before they train. This is simply not the case, or not the case for most people. If you have a decent meal the night before containing carbs, fats and protein then this should be enough to fuel your morning workout fasted. And you can then take BCAAs to give you that extra amino acid boost. Branch chain amino acid supplements are useful because they contain no carbohydrates or fats, unlike protein shakes: So if you’re on a calorie deficit or fat loss plan and you want to increase lean muscle mass, you can boost your essential amino acid intake with no extra added calories. BCAAs contain six kcal per gram compared to normal whey protein which is four kcal per gram. They basically do the same job as whey, not as well, for more calories, at a higher cost. Part of the hype behind BCAAs is that they contain a 2:1:1 ratio of the amino acids leucine, isoleucine and valine.

Taking Branch chain amino acid supplements in post training is great for muscle recovery and repair. The BCAAs help your muscle fibers to heal and because Amino Performance utilizes instantised BCAAs it means the absorption is rapid and fast acting. Your BCAA needs depend on a number of factors, including your size and the intensity of your workouts, which is why it’s a good idea to talk to an expert before making any drastic changes to your diet. If you’re just getting started or looking for a bit of a boost, Smith suggests timing your meals around your workouts, so you eat within about an hour of finishing your sweat session. It’s worth trying to see if you have more energy and less fatigue and soreness.

The Magic In A BCAA Supplement

While BCAA supplementation may be useful for gaining skeletal muscle. A BCAA supplement is especially helpful for maintaining mass while on a calorie-deficit diet. They're particularly useful for bodybuilding competitors who take their physiques to the lean extreme.  Although dieting down makes you look awesome onstage, on the beach, and to your friends, it can also take a chunk out of your muscle mass. Increased BCAA levels also work in your favor by reducing the rate of protein breakdown. They do this by decreasing the activity of the protein breakdown pathway, and also by decreasing the expression of several complexes involved in protein breakdown. There are three BCAAs: leucine, isoleucine, and valine, which are all essential amino acids not produced by the body but needed for survival. BCAAs are the largest collection of amino acids in the body, accounting for up to 35% of muscle proteins. Basically, a BCAA supplement are excreted rapidly. BCAA intermediates can be toxic at high concentrations, so functional BCAA breakdown is vital. BCAA formulas have been on the market since 1996, mainly for treating liver diseases such as cirrhosis and hypoalbuminemia. Nowadays, BCAAs are mainly used by bodybuilders for exercise purposes, to increase energy, and to boost protein synthesis. Another interesting BCAA benefit is delayed fatigue during prolonged exercise, allowing you to work harder, longer. This study shows that BCAAs may help keep you focused and alert by blocking tryptophan from crossing the blood-brain barrier a process that normally increases during extended exercise, and is followed by serotonin production, which causes fatigue. Additionally, to the recovery benefits, that improved mental edge which is critical during strategic, grueling, long-distance events—is why BCAAs are widely used among endurance athletes like ultra-runners and triathletes.

Some people use branched-chain amino acids to prevent fatigue and improve concentration. Athletes use branched-chain amino acids to improve exercise performance and reduce protein and muscle breakdown during intense exercise. Healthcare providers give branched-chain amino acids intravenously (by IV) for sudden brain swelling due to liver disease (acute hepatic encephalopathy) and also when the body has been under extreme stress, for example after serious injury or widespread infection. Branched-chain amino acids stimulate the building of protein in muscle and possibly reduce muscle breakdown. Branched-chain amino acids seem to prevent faulty message transmission in the brain cells of people with advanced liver disease, mania, tardive dyskinesia, and anorexia. Despite all these benefits of BCAA supplementation, there are many skeptics who say branched-chain amino acids are overpriced and you can just get them from whey protein. While proteins like whey are naturally rich in BCAAs, this isn't the most effective strategy for muscle growth or fat loss. The BCAAs in whey are peptide-bound to other amino acids. In order to raise BCAA levels in your body, they must be liberated through digestion and then absorbed into the bloodstream. Even though whey protein is relatively fast digesting, it still takes several hours for all the amino acids to be broken down and absorbed into the plasma. Branched-chain amino acids in supplement form, however, are free-form, require no digestion, and are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. They spike blood amino acid levels more quickly and to a much greater extent than peptide-bound amino in proteins. Even a few grams of free-form BCAAs will spike BCAA plasma levels way more than 30 grams of whey protein. They can start working right away.

Post Window Supplementation

Many people are fatigued and do not have the energy to prepare food or a reduction in appetite may also occur following hard training, therefore it would be necessary to have a convenient liquid food-replacement present to replenish the depleted muscle energy stores. The access to food may be limited, especially when other priorities demand time and energy and limit the time the athlete has to return to work or home while still consuming adequate calories. A post workout supplement can take many forms, focusing on the most popular, amino acids more specifically branch chained amino acids (BCAAs). Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, which are the building blocks of muscle. There are 20 amino acids that are found in the human genetic code, and they can be divided into two categories: essential and nonessential. Your body is able to create 11 out of those 20 amino acids, these are the non-essentials. Since your body can create a sufficient amount of these on its own, it is not considered necessary to get them through your diet. On the other hand, essential amino acids must be consumed from dietary sources in order to get an adequate supply as your body cannot make these. The most important essential amino acids for building muscle are known as BCAAs those famous branch chained amino acids that all fitness fanatics rave about. These three amigos are structurally different from other amino acids and make up around 30 percent of essential muscle tissue is right. Their names are Leucine, Isoleucine, and Valine. BCAAs are great to sip on throughout the day between meals and in times of caloric deficit like if you’re on a calorie restricted diet. This way, you can be sure your body and muscles are getting enough of these vital amino acids to maintain a healthy metabolic rate and discourage muscle wasting.

A post workout supplement such as protein shakes are useful as meal replacement supplement, is optimal for producing enough values of protein and carbohydrates to improve fuel protein structure and to limit protein failure. You can buy supplements from online supplement stores. The benefits of the post-workout drink are regulated by the hormonal (insulin) response to food intake. Elevated insulin levels occur in response to carbohydrate intake and increase the muscle cell's uptake of carbohydrate and amino acids used to synthesize glycogen and protein, respectively. Carbohydrates should not be omitted from the post-workout feeding because they allow the insulin levels to be elevated. Muscular contractions increase the cell's insulin sensitivity and results in a rapid transport of glucose into the cell. Increased post-workout insulin levels are not detrimental and will not cause an increase in fat storage because the nutrients will be directed toward skeletal muscle at this time. Carbohydrate intake results in glycogen re-synthesis to replenish the fuel source for the next bout of resistance training and post-workout carbohydrate intake has been recommended as 0.7-1g/kg.

Keep in mind that you need to realize that fitness is a lifestyle for you or it will be soon enough, which is why it’s important that what goes in your body empowers you to get the most out of it. That means choosing food and supplements with recognizable ingredients and no added junk, because quality nutrition is what sets you up for success.