Should You Take BCAA On Rest Days/Non-Training Days?

When it comes to fitness supplements, amino supplements have received widespread recognition for their ability to improve exercise performance, recovery, boost gains, and provide an assortment of benefits when used along with a workout. The all-star when it comes to amino supplements is BCAA!! With BCAA, one can aim for greater power output and lesser exhaustion. BCAA is one supplement that suits almost everyone’s fitness goals.

When you do resistance workouts, your muscles are subjected to stressors like the physical forces from weights and the biological effects of your body breaking down muscle tissue. BCAA has been proven to be a potentially efficacious dietary intervention to fight all sorts of stressors of exercise. While BCAA is mostly connected as pre-workout, post-workout or intra-workout supplement, some have come to wonder, ‘is it required to supplement with BCAA on rest days/non-training days?’

 

BCAA Is Connected To Be Beneficial Around Training…Know Why?

BCAAs in BCAA supplements are in free form and bypass digestion in the liver and directly enter the skeletal muscle tissue. BCAA through its unique way of metabolism, initiate the faster onset of action to give a kick to train at your full potential.

When taken before a workout, BCAA promotes endurance by serving as an immediate energy source, shields muscles from catabolic processes, delays the onset of muscle soreness.

When taken during your workout, BCAA powers your workout, delays reduction in strength and force production and prevents the performance from deteriorating. BCAA delays onset of muscular fatigue by reducing the formation of serotonin, by acting as an immediate energy source and by preventing muscle glycogen depletion.

When consumed after a workout, BCAA creates positive nitrogen balance to stimulate muscle protein synthesis, promote muscle recovery, and reduce muscle protein breakdown.

 

Should You Consider Supplementing With BCAA On Rest Days?

Rest days typically mean days when you take a break from hitting the weights or the treadmill and replace the high-intensity training with low-impact activities. Rest days give your body a chance to rest and recover the damage caused to skeletal muscles, replenish the body’s energy stores, reduce muscle fatigue, rebuild damaged muscle tissue and prepare your muscles for the next day’s workout.

Now, one thing is made clear to you, on your rest days, you give your body off from lifting weights. Just think, does a break from lifting or running mean a break from synthesizing new muscles or a break from muscle recovery? The main role of BCAA as you know is in muscle repair, and recovery, which clearly means their role on off-days comes into play through accelerating muscle repair to enable faster, more efficient performance output.

As per research, following a bout of heavy resistance training, muscle protein synthesis increases rapidly, if the rate of muscle protein synthesis is elevated by 50% at 4 hours following resistance training, the rate is more than double at 24 hours. Since the recovery and rebuilding process happens on rest days, providing the body with resources or fuel repair the muscle damage caused from the previous workout, guard the muscles against catabolism (protects from muscle loss), and prepare for the next day’s exertion.

 

Let’s take example No. 1

Imagine, you do intense resistance training in the gym on the first three days of the week or practice for your marathon and then you decide to take a break on the fourth day. That day is your rest day. Taking BCAA on this day will support faster recovery and boost performance.

 

Example No. 2

If you are one of those who practice daily or workout throughout the week and rest on specific days, the chances are DOMS set in hard, the likelihood of your training the next day at your full potential is going to be reduced. Taking BCAA on the rest days will affect muscle hypertrophy and help you train at your full potential and prevent your chances of being out from the maximum performance.

 

Example No. 3

If you are a beginner new to the gym routine, muscle soreness and muscle fatigue will soon set in as your body is still getting accustomed to the stimuli. BCAA supplementation on rest days will be of particular importance to beginners. BCAA supplements can enhance energy levels, speed up the recovery process, reduce exhaustion, so you can step to the gym with confidence the next day.

 

No Need To Time Your BCAA Intake Precisely On Rest Days

BCAA although efficiently complements your training sessions and helps you to adapt to rigorous training, it is definitely beneficial when taken on rest days. The only thing is unlike on the days you workout, you need not have to time your BCAA intake precisely on rest days. This is because, on rest days, many of the factors like muscle damage, exhausted energy stores won’t be present to the same degree as they are right after you exercise.

 

Zenith Sports BCAA

Zenith Sports BCAA is a fast-acting amino supplement that also contains secondary nutrients like minerals, antioxidants and vitamin along with BCAA. Each serving of the supplement provides a previse blend of leucine, isoleucine, and valine in the ratio 2:1:1. It offers a combination of glutamine, citrulline, grape seed extract, potassium, and vitamin B6 that help build muscle, serve as an energy substrate, maintain lean muscle mass, suppress fatigue, and improve performance.

After getting sufficient information about the function of BCAA and the role it plays on rest days, this one question will definitely arise in your mind….

 

Should Those Who Consume Whey Protein Shakes On Rest Days Consider Taking BCAA Too?

As you all know, Whey protein is a fast-acting complete protein that contains a fair amount of BCAA. The reason why we combine BCAA with Whey is because BCAA supplements are known for faster onset of action that’s especially beneficial around training. Combining Whey with BCAA complements your resistance training and translates into bigger muscle mass.

Since you’ll be aiming for complete recovery on rest-days and to maintain the anabolic environment, Whey Protein alone will do that job for you. You can give a skip to BCAA if you are consuming Whey on rest days. Unless you are an avid athlete or professional bodybuilder who would need extra nutrients to repair and recover faster, BCAA supplements may not be required along with Whey.

 

BCAA can help take the edge off post-workout muscle soreness and help the muscles repair faster, which leads to greater performance and muscle building results…

Although rates of muscle protein synthesis are elevated in the hours after a bout of resistance training, it is important to note that skeletal muscle can retain sensitivity to the anabolic influence of nutrient intake for up to 24 hours and more…

Reference:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577439/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8563679/