True or False? Intra-Workout BCAA Supplements Are Useful Only For Those Who Produce, Import and Sell Them?
Intra-workout BCAA supplements are marketed specifically to resistance trainees. If they do have anti-catabolic effects, though, those are - just like potential fatigue reducing effects - significantly more likely to occur in endurance trainees. If you go by the results of a 2001 study by Blomstrand et al., which is actually the only study to investigate the effect of BCAA intake on the leg exchange of amino acids along with the change in their muscle concentration during exercise and a 2-h recovery period, it would appear as if the claim that "Intra-Workout BCAA Supplements Are Useful Only For Those Who Produce, Import and Sell Them" was true. The study, which measured the amount of amino acids directly and does thus provide a much better proxy of proteolysis than protease measurements which are "a poor index of muscle proteolysis" (Attaix. 2010), did after all indicate that there is no decrease in the rate of protein degradation when BCAA are consumed during...
