photo credit: Steve Tolcher
This is something I am asked on numerous occasions and in short my answer is, part of a protein that needs to be present for muscle growth to occur. If we look into what an amino acids is they are building blocks of muscle that your body gets from converting the protein that you eat when it digests it. Most of the proteins we get from food are that the body cannot produce itself called Essential Amino Acids (EAA) made up of 9 different aminos: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and valine. The BCAAs only consist of three simpler aminos leucine, isoleucine and valine and are used to form new muscle, infact muscles are actually made up of around 30-35% of BCAAs so it is a big proportion of the muscle build and hence why so many see BCAA supplements as vital in their nutritional program. They are also used to make sure hormonal release is balanced and also for brain function so are vital in the body in order for it to function efficiently.
One major thing that BCAAs are great for is when you are doing either long bouts of cardio exercise or heavy weights and your glycogen stores get depleated making the body call for protein synthesis to stop and start to burn that hard earned muscle for energy something known as catabolism, we don’t want that so supplementing with the BCAAs will allow the protein synthesis to continue and keep your body in an anabolic state which is what we need to continue the growth process and also help the recovery of muscle after hard sessions.
As you can see from the above that BCAAs are one of the most important supplements in the whole range that seem to be out there, personally I see good results when I add around 5g to my protein shakes 2-3 times a day and include a shake consisting of high quanitities of BCAAs during my workout such as Bodybuilding Warehouse’s excel (http://www.bodybuildingwarehouse.co.uk/bodybuilding-warehouse-excel—211-bcaa-blend—1kg-4923-p.asp) and I would highly recommend taking them whether you are looking to do any form of exercise for increased performance all around whether it is general fitness and looking good, long distant running or competing in bodybuilding and powerlifting events.
