Amino Acids

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and muscle tissue. Many have specific properties of benefit to health, fitness, performance and muscle growth when supplemented either individually or in combination with other amino acids.Amino acids are fundamentally essential to life and are required by the body to carry out too many functions to list.See More But from a nutritional perspective, it is their necessity in efficient muscle repair and function that is the most significant. Muscle tissue at its most basic level is linear chains of amino acids and during intensive training be it weightlifting or explosive and intense sports, these chains are broken and must be re-built in a process called hypertrophy in which the damaged tissue can be re-built stronger and bigger over time.

Of the 22 major amino acids, 9 are considered essential in that they can only be consumed through the diet with the remaining 13 being considered non-essential in that the body can synthesise them in the amounts required from other ingested amino acids. It is the essential amino acids, which include BCAA’s, that are considered the most critical to efficient muscle growth and recovery.

Amino acid supplements are usually based on either the full spectrum of the 9 essential amino acids, the branch chain amino acids (BCAA’s) or leucine on its own. Leucine is widely considered to be the key amino acid regarding muscle hypertrophy as without enough present, the other amino acids cannot bond to form the chains which go on to make up muscle tissue. Also very popular as a supplement are BCAA’s, of which leucine is the major component. Research on BCAA’s which are comprised of leucine, iso-leucine and valine, has shown that they are anti-catabolic in that they can actually prevent muscle breakdown. This makes them of particular benefit when used whilst training to protect muscle tissue and start the recovery process before training has ceased. All 9 essential amino acids have also been found to be of benefit in supplemental form, particularly when taken with meals to boost the amino acid content of the food which allows the body to make better use of the whole protein that has been consumed.

Amino acids can benefit anyone who trains or competes intensively and can be very useful to those on low calorie diets due to their muscle sparring effects.See Less