BCAAs: Slim & Lean Muscle Building
Nutrients like BCCAs, or branched chain amino acids, are one of your best assets for actual results at the gym. This includes building slim and lean muscle mass. If you are looking for efficient, lasting and visible results from your work outs, you will need to optimise your nutrition accordingly.
The wrong diet or nutritional habits can lead to a lack of visible results. Or this can just simply lead to not being able to work out properly or effectively, as your muscles reach their limits earlier.
People who are looking to get results at the gym generally fall into two categories. They are either looking to build muscles, or achieve weight loss through slimming with some specific muscle growth or maintenance. There are huge overlaps to both types of gymgoer, including nutrition, with your muscle endurance at the gym largely depending on your status of specific nutrients.
Optimal Nutrition & Gym Results
If you are getting the right sorts of nutrients for your particular work out then, with the right application, you will achieve your desired results.
This is why Olympic athletes eat so much, as they need a certain amount of nutrients to maintain their muscle mass.
A lot of people quit the gym either because they don’t see the right results or they don’t apply themselves. Neglecting the nutritional side to fitness may definitely contribute to this. Having the right routine can be as important as having the right essential nutrients, like vitamins or BCAAs.
Whether you are looking to just build muscle, or to slim down and achieve lean muscle growth with weight loss, BCAAs offer vital nutrients to assist with muscle tissue growth. Your muscles need nutrients like BCAAs when they are worn down from exercising, to recover properly. In the muscle recovery process, amino acids like BCAAs can be to restore and grow stronger muscle tissues or they can also be used as an energy source.
For optimal gym results with BCAAs, understanding the metabolism, recovery and muscle building process will help massively.
Muscle Metabolism: Amino Acids, Growth & Recovery
Cellular metabolism is really quite simple. The cells in your body are either breaking down larger molecules, for energy or supporting themselves, or they are building larger molecules for growth and repair.
When it comes to movements and exercise, your muscle tissues and cells go about the same process. Your muscle tissues are either in an anabolic state of cell growth, or a they are set to a catabolic state of wear and tear. Muscle cell growth demands mitochondrial energy from ATP and other nutrients to support growth. Your body will also need these nutrients to maintain and support growth, including antioxidants.
When you work out your muscle tissues enter catabolism and in between rest periods will also attempt to recover. When you complete your training the muscles enter recovery. During muscle recovery, it is vital to supply the right nutrients to support their basic function, as well as recovery and growth. As you increase your training on your muscles they will build, grow and develop with the right recovery. This includes optimal nutrients for the muscles.
If you are looking to slim down at the gym, you are wanting to restrict any excess larger molecules like sugar entering the body system. Instead, you want to be focusing on breaking down molecules in certain tissues that are already there. While you also need to supporting regular maintenance of muscle repair and growth with good nutrients. Regulating carbohydrate and fat levels are important there for ideal gym results. Overlap exists with weightlifter types, who need as many essential amino acid building blocks as they can find.
BCAAs form some of the 20 known essential amino acids that make up body proteins, as required for normal cell function. This is why they are vital for muscle recovery and optimal gym results.
What Are BCAAs?
Your muscle tissues are made of intertwined protein networks that are tensed and untensed as you do different exercises. Different muscle tissue fibre types support different exercises. To make, maintain and repair these muscle tissues you need a supply of protein building blocks or amino acids. Some of these amino acids are made of branched chains and so they are called branched chain amino acids, or BCAAs.
These amino acids in particular are crucial to developing muscle tissue, as your body needs a regular supply of all 20 major amino acids for optimum functioning. This is why many people eat higher protein foods or diets, take whey protein or BCAAs after they’ve had a gym session. They are replenishing their muscles with essential nutrients to support muscle growth.
One group of essential muscle nutrients, known as branched chain amino acids or BCAAs, have been clinically shown to activate skeletal muscle recovery after endurance exercise. They assist with helping to maintain muscle mass during resting periods.
There are three BCAAs, or amino acids, known as Leucine, Isoleucine and Valine. They activate a cell signaller protein called ‘mTOR’ in your skeletal muscles. This then directly sets off an increase in protein synthesis and growth within muscles after exercise. This signaller, mTOR, is one of the key cell controllers for increasing protein synthesis.
The cell signaller, mTOR, forms one of the most used cell pathways for muscle and protein building within cells. The switching on of its signalling pathway is strongly associated with the muscle growth that happens after heavy lifting exercises. Branched chain amino acids are easily obtained from your diet or supplementation. They are absorbed with the rest of the digested amino acids in the small intestines.
Results of Muscle Building With BCAAs
The effects of using BCAAs as controlled amino acid supplements on muscle growth after exercise have been well documented over many years.
For example, one particular study found that experienced exercisers had improved muscle recovery and therefore improved muscle functioning. This result was seen when taking 0.087g BCAAs per kg of body mass, before and after resistance training workouts.
This worked out to be about 7.7g BCAAs for an American male of average weight, aged between 20 and 39. A decent BCAA supplement, combined with a healthy diet can make this easily achievable.
Caution should be encouraged with excessive or misuse of BCAAs. This is because they encourage anabolic processes in your cells. Constant cell building can cause cancer to form. While they are not the same as anabolic steroids, they are really good at promoting growth.
If supplementing with additional BCAAs, make sure you take them as directed on the product packaging. Also ask a health care provider about any side effects from products you have concerns about. Or ask about other nutrients you may need if increasing your gym visits.
Rich Sources of BCAAs
Unlike some molecules the body needs to function, BCAAs must come from your diet. They can’t be made by the body.
This is similar to Vitamin C. Vitamin C is also not produced from your body and is found in fruits that we eat. Some animals make Vitamin C, however this is very energetically expensive.
It is energetically more efficient just to eat other organisms that contain Vitamin C. This is how humans have evolved over the years.
Rich sources of BCAAs can be found in various foods. Some BCAA rich foods include eggs, tuna, wild-caught salmon and chicken.
There are 1.3 grams of BCAAs per egg and this is also a quality food source of BCAAs for some vegans or vegetarians. Beef is one of the richest food sources of BCAAs, providing 6 grams of BCAAs per 100g of beef.
Chicken provides around the same serving of BCAAs, with about 6 grams of BCAAs per 100g of chicken. As do Almonds, with around 6 grams of BCAAs per 100g of Almonds.
If possible, it is the better to obtain your BCAAs solely from your diet. BCAAs, like most amino acids, are quite easy to find and integrate into ones diet if you have the right resources and access to the right sorts of food stores. However, it can be quite expensive and inefficient to significantly your consumption of BCAAs through your diet alone.
This has led to the surge in popularity of BCAA supplements, as an easy way to increase your branched chain amino acid intake. This market has particularly expanded for those wanting to lose weight and maintain lean protein or muscle mass.
Conclusion
The right nutrients for muscle recovery can be the difference between getting your desired gym results and you quitting, or success at the gym. Having optimal nutrition is just as vital as the exercises you are doing for the desired results.
BCAAs are essential nutrients for optimal muscle tissue functioning, growth and repair.
Levels of the branched chain amino acids, Leucine, Isoleucine and Valine, regulate one of the most important switches for muscle growth. This protein switch, mTOR, targets the promotion of natural muscle growth within the cells.
Whether you are looking to grow muscle or slim down at the gym, these amino acids are vital for muscle tissue recovery and maintenance.
BCAAs, or Branched Chain Amino Acids, have been tested and shown to have a positive effect on muscle recovery after gym work. Therefore, they could help with getting the results you want to see in the gym for lean muscle growth.
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