The Importance Of Amino Acid Supplementation

By Xavier Fox

When reading about bodybuilding nutrition and supplementation, you will come across the subject of amino acids over and over again. Why is that? Are they really that important to a bodybuilder? It doesn’t take a whole lot of reading and time to decide the answer. All you need to do is simply look at the supplement industry. You will quickly discover that the top supplements in the industry, the ones that work the best and have longevity, all have something in common… they are some form of amino acid, or a combination of them. You know those days when you do something really smart or really good, and you sit back gloating and thinking about what a good day it was? Well… the day our Creator constructed amino acids, you can bet He sat back and smiled and said, “This is a good day.”

When you digest protein, your body breaks it down into amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. These amino acids are used to manufacture more than 50,000 proteins and over 15,000 enzymes in your body. They are also used in many key functions in your body. There are 23 amino acids, and 10 of them are called essential amino acids (arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine). What this means is that it is essential that you consume foods that contain them so that your body will have them. The remaining amino acids can be synthesized out of those essential amino acids. When selecting protein sources, it is important to ensure that you will be getting sufficient amounts of essential amino acids. In addition, the ratio of essential to non-essential amino acids will determine how quickly and efficiently the amino acids are absorbed. The faster they are absorbed and the greater the quantity that is absorbed will help a bodybuilder grow bigger in less time.
The fact that you are reading this magazine shows that building a lot of muscle in a short amount of time just might be one of your goals. Well… thanks to all of the hard work done by scientists over the years you can get plenty of high quality amino acids through supplementation. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t eat plenty of high quality protein sources, because you will need to eat plenty of dead animals to become large and in charge. However, using supplements will help you get the right amino acids in the right portions to accelerate your muscle-building potential. You will also soon discover that the most effective supplements are usually the ones that are amino acid based.
The most popular supplement available, and one that 90% of bodybuilders use with tremendous results, is whey protein powder. Now, although whey protein powder is not strictly broken down amino acids, it is milk protein that contains a large amount of branched-chain amino acids. And as was mentioned above, what is protein except a combination of amino acids? Another great thing about whey protein is that it has an abundance of proteins known as peptides, which increase the rate that blood flows to the muscles. Increased blood flow means that more nutrients can get to the muscles faster, which also means that the muscles grow at a quicker rate.
Whey protein is digested rapidly by your system, and it is used more efficiently than all other sources of protein out there. It is higher than chicken, eggs, beef, turkey, milk, and cheese on the bioavailability scale. What that means is that if you consumed 20 grams of whey protein and 20 grams of any other protein, more of that 20 grams would be used from the whey, and it would be used much faster. This makes it the optimal protein source directly following your workout. Whey’s ability to break down fast so the body can start rebuilding muscle right away make it the king of the hill for post-workout nutrition. When it comes to protein… whey hydrolysates and isolates are the way to go.
Another protein powder that is derived from milk that is packed full of amino acids is casein protein powder. Most research on casein suggests that it is almost as good as whey when it comes to accelerating protein synthesis. Although casein is not quite as bioavailable as whey, its particular amino acid profile gives it a characteristic that makes it better than whey in one situation. Casein digests much slower than whey, so it is a good source of protein (amino acids) for the meal before bedtime. Its slow and steady digestion enables it to rebuild muscles and supply amino acids for other critical functions throughout the evening while you sleep. Whey after the workout and casein before bed, and your muscles will be in amino acid heaven.
Our first two wonder supplements were made up of enough amino acids to produce complete proteins, but the next incredible amino acid based supplement only needs three amino acids. Just three amino acids were needed to produce one of the most effective and celebrated supplements the bodybuilding industry has ever seen: creatine. It is a combination of the three amino acids arginine, glycine and methionine. By combining with phosphate, creatine provides abundant amounts of ATP that is used to replenish energy stores within the mitochondria so that a bodybuilder will be able to continue a set when he normally would have been forced to stop. It also allows the muscle to recuperate quicker, so there is less time needed between sets. This allows the lifter to step up the intensity and work capacity of their weight training sessions and become stronger.
As creatine saturates the muscle, it creates a need for the muscle to absorb a lot of extra water that will combine with the creatine molecules. What this does is volumize the muscle, making it larger. Creating muscles that look larger is probably the number one reason that people go to the gym in the first place. However, there is another reason that volumizing the muscle is pretty darn cool. Muscle strength is related to the diameter of the muscle… so a larger muscle will also become stronger. Not only will creatine provide massive amounts of energy so you can destroy the gym, it will also make the muscles more massive and help you lift massive weights.
Since taking creatine will cause you to train like a wild man, you will be pushing the muscles to new levels of intensity. One side effect of pushing the muscles to their limits is the creation of lactic acid, which is a by-product of the energy conversion process. As most of you know, when lactic acid builds up in the muscle pH levels deteriorate to the point that the muscle will hardly contract, and you get a nasty burning sensation and it gets tough to continue. Creatine buffers this process so that you do not experience a high amount of lactic acid build-up and the pain that comes along with it. This is just another way that creatine allows you to push the muscles into new realms of growth. Some creatine just before and directly after your workout, and you will be one of the baddest mamba jambas in the gym. Not bad for three amino acids, huh?
Glutamine is one of the most abundant amino acids in your body, and it is another bodybuilder favourite that has been around a long time because it works so well. Although there is a lot of it in the body, studies have shown that glutamine levels decrease by as much as 50% after weight training. In addition, glutamine is used by other systems on the body. Therefore, if you are going to be training hard and attempting to build extra muscle, it is imperative that you have enough glutamine in your body to support all of the muscle building and other functions. One of those key functions is protein metabolism. If glutamine is not available for that, you will not be converting much of your food to new muscle.
Just like creatine buffers the effect of lactic acid in the body, glutamine does the same thing with cortisol. In case you are unaware, cortisol is the hormone that is released when the body is under stress (intense weight lifting puts a lot of stress on the body and it causes the breakdown of muscle tissue). As cortisol levels rise, amounts of muscle lower. Glutamine has proven to be a great anti-catabolic agent by fighting the effects of cortisol. If stopping muscle from being wasted away is important to you, then glutamine should be important as well.
We already mentioned that glutamine helps protein synthesis, and thus enables the body to build more muscle faster. It also helps to spare the use of glycogen that has been stored inside the muscle tissue. Having more glycogen in the muscle equates to having more energy for use when lifting. In addition, the glycogen will help hold water in the muscle, and as you know from our discussion with creatine, more water in the muscle means larger and stronger muscles. Now… not only will it spare the use of glycogen, but it will also aid in the synthesis of glycogen once the workout is done. There is a supplement that increases protein metabolism and glycogen synthesis, two big factors in gaining muscle? Wow! That adds up to more muscle, more energy, more calories burned during rest and working out, and less fat stored.
Many studies have suggested that supplementing with glutamine can raise growth hormone levels by as much as four-fold. That is pretty useful to a bodybuilder. Growth hormone is only the most important hormone in your body when it comes to building muscle, burning fat, and working with other hormones for many other important functions in your body. As a side note… glutamine also supports the immune system, which keeps you healthy and affects how you body uses many other hormones. Do you think that glutamine is an important amino acid? What the hell are you doing still reading this article… you should be on your way to the local Olympus Sports Nutrition store to stock up on this incredible amino acid supplement right away.
Nitric Oxide supplements have been one of the recent favourites in the bodybuilding industry. They work great at dilating the blood vessels, which allows more blood to flow though the system. When this happens, more oxygen, nutrients, water, and hormones can get to muscle tissue in less time, and more waste products can be removed from the muscle. The effect is more available energy during your workout, crazy muscle pumps, and faster muscle recuperation and growth. Now, you are probably thinking that nitrogen isn’t an amino acid… and you are thinking correctly. However, nitrogen isn’t what makes nitric oxide supplements effective; our good friend arginine is. The body manufactures nitric oxide by converting the amino acid L-arginine into L-citrulline using the enzyme nitric oxide synthase. No arginine, no nitric oxide… plain and simple.
Arginine is also a powerful antioxidant, so it can seek out and destroy harmful free radicals that cause a lot of cellular damage in the body that makes it more difficult to add muscle. Arginine will also signal the body to release growth hormone, which enables you to build more muscle and lose more fat. It keeps bad LDL cholesterol levels lower, and it keeps sodium levels consistent in the body. Sodium is an electrolyte, and if its levels dip too much, you will experience cramping and the muscles will not work as effectively. If you have too much sodium, you will hold water, which is bad for your heart and makes you look soft like a bloated pig.
Beta-alanine and carnosine have been getting a lot of press lately, and they should, because they are great supplements for bodybuilders. When beta-alanine combines with another amino acid known as histidine, the combination becomes carnosine. The carnosine is the actual workhorse, but, without beta-alanine, there is no carnosine. Studies have shown that supplementing with beta-alanine will raise carnosine levels in the body more than supplementing with actual carnosine does. Beta-alanine is the key element in the development of carnosine. Histidine is already abundant in muscle tissue, so it is only necessary to supplement with beta-alanine.
Earlier, we alluded to how lactic acid build-up in the muscles causes pH to drop, and that leads to the muscle not being able to contract efficiently. What results is a loss in strength and stamina. Another thing that happens is that hydrogen atoms are released and act as free radicals destroying many other elements in the body. Carnosine is very effective at stopping the intracellular breakdown of molecules caused by hydrogen that lead to a decrease in pH levels. This makes carnosine extremely effective at maintaining the muscle’s ability to contract at full power while recuperating quickly. Studies have shown that by supplementing with beta-alanine for 10-12 weeks, we can increase our carnosine storage up to 60%.
In more good news, studies have shown that using beta-alanine together with creatine makes a synergistic effect that makes both the combined supplements work better than the two will give if taken individually. If beta-alanine will help you gain 2kg of muscle and creatine will help you gain 3kg of muscle, then taking them together will help you gain much more than 5kg of muscle. Therefore, if you use creatine and like the effects you receive from it, you can multiply those effects by adding beta-alanine to your supplement program. If you want to be able to delay muscle fatigue so the muscles can contract with more power for longer periods of time, which leads to gaining muscle mass, then pick yourself up some beta-alanine.
L-carnitine is the next supplement that is derived from amino acids (lysine and methionine) that deserves some discussion. It has become a popular supplement for those interested in flattening the spare tyre around their waist, because it is very successful at transporting fatty acids into the mitochondria so they can be burned as fuel. L-carnitine will also create a feeling of being full, and that keeps your hands out of the biscuit tin. L-carnitine has been used for many years to treat heart diseases, and it enhances the hearts ability to pump out blood and oxygen. This makes it a valuable tool for increasing your work capacity when you are training. Having more blood and oxygen in the system combined with more fat being delivered for energy use will make a huge difference in the intensity level that you can perform at when in the gym.
What makes carnitine really exciting for bodybuilders is its ability to allow more testosterone to be utilized for muscle building. A study on 130 men over the age of 60 with erectile dysfunction showed that L-carnitine helped their problem more than testosterone undecanate did. This led scientists to believe L-carnitine had some positive effect on testosterone. This led to more studies, and one of the more popular ones was performed at the University of Connecticut’s Human Performance Laboratory. In a 21-day human clinical study, L-carnitine increased the number of pre-workout androgen receptors compared to results produced by a placebo group. What does that mean to you? Well… androgen receptors act as a go-between in the mechanism that free testosterone has on protein synthesis.
Not much of the testosterone in your body is actually freed up to be used to build muscle tissue. L-carnitine can increase the number of available receptors so that more of what testosterone is available can be utilized. It’s like this… if you need to take long trips every day that require 60 litres of fuel, but your car is only capable of holding 40 litres of fuel, then you won’t get where you are going without having to refill. In addition, let’s suppose that the service stations will only sell a minimum of 60 litres. Trying to pour 60 litres into the 40-liter tank will only cause the excess fuel to end up on the ground where it is waste. If you had a larger 60-liter fuel tank installed, that same car could travel much farther and not create a need to stop, because it could accept the larger quantities of fuel that are available. The same principle holds true for the testosterone in your system. Some ends up as waste, because your body cannot accept all of it. If you can find a way to increase the number of receptors, then you can use a lot more testosterone to create muscle without actually increasing the amount that your body produces. L-carnitine will help transport higher levels of anabolically active free testosterone right into the muscle cells.
I have been sitting here going, “Blah, blah, blah…” about amino acids, and I haven’t even talked about branched-chain amino acids (BCAA’s). This group includes leucine, isoleucine and valine, and is considered to be the MacDaddy of the amino acids when it comes to repairing and building muscle tissue. Although they all work synergistically to perform this action, leucine can actually stimulate protein synthesis all by itself. However, it is recommended to use all three so that you get optimum results.
The best thing about BCAA’s is that they are metabolized in the muscle tissue instead of in the liver. This makes them one serious bundle of potential energy. When BCAA’s are broken down in the muscle tissue, they will provide more ATP than the same amount of glucose. Therefore, they are superior in creating muscle energy and allowing muscle recuperation.
But BCAA’s do much more. They are the pre-cursors for the manufacturing of alanine and glutamine in the body. They also play a very important role in protein synthesis. During weight training, the body starts running low on alanine, glutamine and protein. If the body needs to continue manufacturing these elements, it will break down muscle tissue in order to create more BCAA’s. That is not a good thing for people that are training their rear ends off so they can win shows. By supplementing with BCAA’s in the morning, before training, and after training, the bodybuilder can ensure there are enough in their system to avoid any catabolism of muscle. Muscle sparing is just as important as muscle gaining. Which do you think is worse… staying level and not gaining any new muscle, or losing the muscle that you have? Do not go backwards in your training; use BCAA’s to help you create energy and build more muscle.
All right… if you do not see how important amino acids are to a successful bodybuilding career, then you may need to have your brain capacity examined. Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins, and they provide a wide spectrum of functions in the body that create energy, build muscle, fight muscle loss, aid in hormone development, strengthen the immune system and burn fat, to name just a few. Make amino acid supplementation a mandatory part of your training regimen, and you will experience gains like you never have before.