Why BCAA’s are Essential For Peak Performance

Amino acids are essential in the human body and given that they are the building blocks of proteins, muscles can hardly grow without them. The word ‘essential’ means that your body does not make them on its own and therefore, you get them from workout supplements and the food you eat. Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are vital amino acids valine, isoleucine, and leucine that consist of 35% of the muscle protein of your body. These amino acids also conserve muscle glycogen stores which reduce the breakdown of protein and energize your muscles during exercise. You need amino acids to build red blood cells, muscles, and other molecules. If you are still wondering how these BCAA’s are helpful in your body, here is why.

The Skinny on BCAA’s

Amino acids

Proteins are made up of amino acids which are essential in human bodies through the following;

• They build DNA and RNA
• They transport oxygen throughout the body
• They form antibodies
• They create energy
• They take part in hormonal and enzyme system
• They help in repairing tissues and building cells

Essential amino acids

• Histidine
• Isoleucine
• Leucine
• Lysine
• Methionine
• Phenylalanine
• Threonine
• Tryptophan
• Valine

Non-essential amino acids

• Alanine
• Arginine
• Asparagine
• Aspartic Acid
• Cysteine
• Glutamic Acid
• Glutamine
• Glycine
• Ornithine
• Proline
• Serine
• Tyrosine

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Roles of BCAA’s

Protein synthesis

BCAA’s trigger the synthesis of proteins in a big way. When BCAA combine with resistance exercise, they trigger mTORC1 which signals a pathway for muscle building. BCAAs and aspartate, alanine and glutamate are taken in your muscles for energy and as always the case, your muscles tend to burn this BCAAs for energy during exercise which helps you to perform even more. When taking a break from exercising, intake of BCAAs minimizes muscle loss and given that BCAAs activate the synthesis of protein, preservation of lean muscle tissue maintain metabolism and prevent you from gaining fat when inactive.

In layman’s language, BCAAs increase the synthesis of muscle protein which makes them both anti-catabolic and anabolic. Muscle protein synthesis is simply the combination of amino acids to form muscle tissue and stimulate the production of insulin that allows your muscle cell to take blood sugar and use it as energy. The production of insulin enhances the uptake of amino acids by the muscles.

Energy production

Amino acids fall into ketogenic, glucogenic or both. While a ketogenic amino acid makes a fatty acid precursor known as acetyl-CoA, glucogenic amino acids specialize in making glucose through gluconeogenesis. Based on the groups that amino acids are grouped, valine is completely glucogenic, leucine is completely ketogenic, and isoleucine falls into both ketogenic and glucogenic. Leucine is great in energy production and provides skeletal muscle with ATP, a molecule that moves energy to cells for the contraction of the muscle. Similarly, both isoleucine and valine can be used to produce glucose. When doing exercise, your body requires energy and in order to meet this demand, your body breaks down muscle tissue so it can use its BCAAs and that’s why it’s recommendable to consume more BCAAs to meet the demand without necessarily losing your gains.

Fat loss

According to a recent study, people with a high intake of BCAAs in their diets have better body composition, more muscles, and less body fat. In other studies, intake of supplements enriched with leucine enhances the expression of leptin hormone which regulates appetite, metabolism, and weight. The secretion of leptin is associated with the level of fats in your body meaning that the lower the body fat, the lower the leptin levels and the higher the body fat, the higher the level of leptin. Leucine activates the expression of leptin which makes your body to feel full meaning that you don’t consume a lot which supports fat loss.

Boosts your immune system

At times, your body can experience stress, workouts or illnesses and this makes your immune system to suffer and tend to lose strength and become prone to infections. However, with BCAAs, glutamine loss can be reversed. Most importantly, these amino acids prevent the catalytic state of your body which in turn minimizes the damages your body cells undergo and enhances faster recovery. BCAAs also increases protein synthesis and ensure that your muscle proteins are not burned for fuel.

Enhances faster recovery

According to the study, BCAA supplementation enhances metabolic recovery. This makes the recovery period between workouts faster.

Enhances endurance

BCAAs acts as a nitrogen donor during the formation of l-alanine. Therefore, when doing rigorous exercises, for example, the glycogen stores are depleted but BCAAs provides your tissues with glucose. Also, when a person is on a low carbohydrate diet, it’s the BCAA supplementation that keep their energy at higher levels.

Why should you take BCAA supplements?

When doing exercises, BCAAs are depleted at a very high rate but when you take supplements during or before training, you delay fatigue. On the other hand, when you take them after the training, you lower the damage of your muscles and feed them so they can keep you in an anabolic state. So the following are some of the reasons you should take BCAA supplements.

• Delay fatigue
• Support protein synthesis
• Reduce muscle loss

Final thoughts

Branched-chain amino acids are constituents of the protein responsible for the maintenance of muscle tissues during exercises. In other words, BCAAs acts as anabolic agents allowing your body to minimize loss of muscles and maximize the loss of fat and can be used for energy. When you take BCAA supplementation, you end up gaining masculinity, strength, and energy and therefore recommendable to take them before and during a workout. They will protect your muscles and delay fatigue and the best news is that they have no side effects.