Performance Research for June:Beta Alanine
July 23rd, 2008
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by Mike T Nelson · Filed Under: Uncategorized
Brand new research on beta-alanine. Lots of talk lately about it, so I will have a few more studies on it coming up soon. In short, beta-alanine is able to combine with histidine to form carnosine. Carnosine is a powerful buffer in the muscle to help quench those pesky H ions (not really lactic acid as commonly believed).
What the heck does this mean? Translation please?
So in English, it means that Beta Alanine can decrease that burning sensation you get with intense exercise (that is the theory).
Testing
I would be interested if any KBs have used Beta-Alanine and their thoughts? Good,bad, performance change and dose used.
More literature to come. Special shout out to Dave Barr for first introducing me to beta-alanine going back a few years now. Check out his 2 latest books on the Anabolic Index. I bought both with my own hard earned money and highly recommend them (I get paid nothing to plug his product either). Click HERE.
beta-Alanine and the Hormonal Response to Exercise.
Hoffman J, Ratamess NA, Ross R, Kang J, Magrelli J, Neese K, Faigenbaum AD, Wise JA.Health and Exercise Science, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, New Jersey, United State
The effect of 30 days of beta-alanine supplementation (4.8 g per day) on resistance exercise performance and endocrine changes was examined in eight experienced resistance-trained men. An acute resistance exercise protocol consisting of 6 sets of 12 repetitions of the squat exercise at 70 % of one-repetition maximum (1-RM) with 1.5 minutes of rest between sets was performed before and after each supplemental period. Blood draws occurred at baseline (BL), immediate (IP), 15-minutes (15P) and 30-minutes (30P) post exercise for growth hormone, testosterone and cortisol concentrations. A 22 % (p Conclusion: Results indicate that four weeks of beta-alanine supplementation can significantly improve muscular endurance during resistance training in experienced resistance-trained athletes. However, these performance gains did not affect the acute endocrine response to the exercise stimulus.
Comments RSS 
Mike,
i started using this stuff when JB recommended last summer, with first signs of good research. I take it when i’m in a lifting phase – so deadlifting.
a) i get quite the tingling from it
b) i have only deadlifted *with* doing ba so i have little to compare not doing it with – sorry – as the phase of taking it is usually for 3 months.
c) where i have noticed a Big Effect in feel/experience of workout is with l-tyrosine in a power drive type stack.
d) i’ve noticed the with and without effects of creatine on longer kb swing sets (with is better)
so i’ve been doing b-a on faith that it’s doing good things. after sept. i’ll do a test run of with/without and report back.
what i really wanted to say though is that i very much appreciate these kind of research review posts. More and often, sir. thank you.
mc
Thanks for the post MC and info!
The tingling does not seem to cause any issues or than it feels weird (some actually like it). I would be interested in your results. I would expect an effect on higher rep work.
Do you use straight up tyrosine or combined with Power Drive? I have used Power Drive after more CNS intense sessions and it seems to help. The literature is mixed and one researcher I talked to ACMSM was a big fan, but not all studies support it (although they were looking for an acute ergogenic–performance enhancement effect).
Rock on
Mike N