Muscle & Fitness UK – July 2019

F E AT U R E

66 MUSCLE & FITNESS/JULY 2019

BY J A K E M E A Y S

@GRASPFITNESSNUTRITION

WWW.GRASPFITNESSNUTRITION.COM

Supplementation:

Fact or Fiction?

N

owadays branch chain amino

acids (BCAA) are a commonly

consumed supplement for

most individuals who are invested

in their resistance-based training to

increase muscle size, strength and

density. Most average joe lifters in

the gym will tell you that BCAAs are

a necessity for building lean quality

muscle, most will have you believe

you need to be drinking them during

cardio, training and through the day to

achieve optimal muscle synthesis and

as a result growth. However, this isn’t

really the case.

BRANCH-CHAIN

AMINO ACID (BCAAS)

Figure 1. List of essential and non- essential amino acids

Essential 9 Non-Essential

Leucine Alanine

Isoleucing BCAAs Aspartate

Valine Arginine

Histidine Asparagine

Lysine Glutamate

Methionine Glycine

Phenylalanine Proline

Threonine Serine

Tryptophan Tyrosine

Cytosine

Amino Acids

Starting at the beginning, the need for an

available pool of essential amino acids

comes from the effects of training on our

muscle fibres. In simplistic terms, the

purpose of training is to cause micro

tears within muscle fibres. Through

adequate nutritional intake and rest our

body then repairs the torn muscle tissue

by producing new and denser muscle

fibres and we are left with a stronger and

denser version of the muscle we tore.

This process is called muscular

hypertrophy. This process increases the

abundance of muscle fibres we have

within a certain muscle, causing an

overall increase in muscle density, size

and strength.

For this process to occur, the body

must make use of molecules called

amino acids. Through a chained bonding

process, single amino acids are chained

together to form peptides, polypeptides

then proteins and eventually muscle

fibres. The body must remain in a

positive net anabolic state to form these

muscles and is impacted by a higher

level of blood amino-acid profile

concentration (usually within a

postprandial state) (1) and rate of muscle

protein synthesis (MPS) – MPS can be

affected by training, nutrition and insulin. PHOTO CREDIT: OSTOCK