September 01, 2021
Combination Of BCAA & Arginine Can Pump Up Your Workouts
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mino acid supplements have been theorized to enhance performance in a variety of ways, such as modifying fuel use during exercise, preventing mental fatigue, decreasing body fat, promoting muscle strength, increasing secretion of anabolic hormones, preventing muscle soreness.
If you are a newbie looking for an effective amino supplement, these two names will certainly ring the bell – BCAA and Arginine.
The individual benefits of these amino supplements are well-lauded in the fitness arena, now it’s time to look for the combined effects of the two-star supplements.
BCAA
BCAAs represent the 3 nutritionally essential amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine. BCAAs have a branched-chain structure that sets them apart from other amino acids. BCAAs are classified as essential amino acids as they cannot be synthesized endogenously by humans and have to be consumed through diet or supplements.
BCAAs perform 4 primary functions:
1. Promote Muscle Building
Leucine, Isoleucine, and Valine serve to help muscle growth and increase muscle strength. Your hard workout can cause damage to the involved muscles and send them to a state of catabolism. BCAAs provide your muscles the substrate required for stimulating muscle protein synthesis.
2. Preserve Muscles During Low-Calorie Diet
BCAA supplements prevent muscle loss while on a fat-loss diet. It is particularly useful for those who do workout in a fasted state. Working out in fasted state or working out on a low-calorie diet greatly increases your chances of losing muscles, BCAAs prevent muscle protein breakdown by preserving muscle glycogen stores and acting as an energy substrate during workouts.
3. Inhibit Lowering Of Muscle Strength
Eccentric contraction of muscles induces muscle damage owing to proteolysis. Replenishing with BCAAs during, or after training can help reduce muscle damage and loss of muscle strength. Intake of BCAAs increase post- exercise muscle protein synthesis, stimulate anabolism and facilitate the adaptive response of skeletal muscle to long-term training. When muscle glycogen stores become depleted, BCAAs serve as the source of fuel to power muscles.
4. Prevent Fatigue During Workouts
Increased levels of serotonin release during prolonged endurance workouts may lead to enhanced perception of fatigue. BCAAs may suppress central nervous system fatigue by reducing the amount of tryptophan that can be converted into serotonin.
L-ARGININE
Arginine is a conditionally essential amino acid, which is synthesized by the body, but not in large enough amounts to support high-intensity, long-term exercises.
Arginine performs 4 primary functions:
1. Boost Nitric Oxide Levels In The Body
Arginine gets converted into nitric oxide in the body with the help of the enzyme nitric oxide synthase. Nitric oxide acts on endothelial cells lining the blood vessels, causing them to dilate and relax. The effect of vasodilation boosts the faster availability of nutrients and oxygen to the working muscles, thus promoting anabolism.
2. Can Lead To Longer Training Sessions
Bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts can greatly benefit from arginine’s vasodilation effects. Apart from helping to meet the high demands for nutrients and oxygen during an intense performance, Arginine also helps meet the high energy demands of intense performance through the production of creatine. Creatine helps meet the potential ATP needs to boost endurance.
3. Improves Pumping Effect
Arginine supplementation increases plasma levels of insulin and growth hormones in the body. Insulin increases glycogen stores, growth hormone stimulates lipolysis. Boosted blood flow by arginine helps increase the pumping-like effect making muscles look stronger and harder. Arginine helps the body retain nitrogen that is an important requisite to enhance protein synthesis and increased muscle pumps.
4. Promotes Muscle Recovery
Arginine mediates smooth muscle relaxation in the blood vessel wall. Arginine acts as a precursor to other amino acids like citrulline, ornithine, glutamate, and creatine. Arginine delays fatigue by facilitating the removal of metabolites like lactate that accumulate in the muscles during high-intensity training. Arginine has a role in the urea cycle, which is the most known metabolic pathway for the removal of nitrogenous waste.
How Does The Combination Of BCAA & Arginine Benefit Your Performance?
The combination of BCAA and Arginine may work synergistically to influence the performance of athletes.
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Endurance athletes may particularly benefit from the combination of BCAA and Arginine as it attenuates muscle proteolysis.
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Elevated BCAA oxidation during a workout can lead to central fatigue by alterations of cerebral energy metabolism. Arginine has been suggested to be able to reduce exercise-induced ammonia accumulation by increasing the urea cycle and vasodilation.
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BCAA may increase protein synthesis, attenuate protein breakdown, decrease the rate of perceived exertion, mental fatigue, promote recovery from muscle damage.
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Arginine enhances the effects of exercise training on insulin sensitivity and capillary growth in muscles. Arginine increases lean muscle mass, produces a pumping effect, and enhances recovery post-workout.
When To Consume BCAA & Arginine? Should You Consume Them Together?
It is not suggested to consume BCAA and Arginine together in order not to negate the best benefits of the 2 supplements. Arginine is a suitable supplement to use before workout (a couple of minutes before lifting heavy weights). BCAA is best when consumed as intra-workout or a couple of minutes after your workout to initiate the efficient recovery of muscles and synthesize muscle protein.
BCAA & Arginine are both the star supplements that hold the ticket to your fitness journey…
Combining BCAA & Arginine means more reps, more reps means more gains…
Reference:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3395580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5568273/
