BCAA's...

[StanG]

OK so who uses them?
How do you incorporate them?
What brand/kind do you use?
What do you think they do for you?
Anyone found a good, economical BCAA supplement?

Ill be honest I have always felt a good diet nullifies the need for most supplements of this nature but I am open minded enough to hear what people have to say and share experience wise.

[Scrumhalf]

The guys who do fasted cardio, or who do intermittent fasting tend to use them, because the idea is that you get amino acids without supposedly increasing glucose in your blood, so that you can stay in fat burning mode.

I feel however that the only thing they do is to bulk up the wallets of the supplement companies, considering how expensive they are

[chuckz28]

Apparently BCAAS are pretty well researched. I've only begun to look into them and experiment with them myself within the last couple weeks. Supposedly the body will spare protein in the muscles from breaking down by using the BCAAS and they are very fast acting because they do not need processed by the liver, they are bioavailable by themselves. It is good for intra workout energy because of the fast acting. I've replaced nearly all my water intake with added BCAAs a couple days ago as to stay in a constant state of anabolism. I guess I will see how the results are later on but it is hard to tell since I've started a new cycle a little over a week ago as well.

As for brand I chose MTS mixed berry flavor which tastes great if you only use about half a scoop instead of a full scoop otherwise it is a bit strong. The jug I got was 90 servings for about $45. Most typical ones I've seen are usually half that price but only 30 servings.

I believe Dr. Layne Norton has gone into detail about the benefits if you want to dig around a bit.

[Scrumhalf]

Yes, I know the theory behind it but I am not convinced it makes any practical difference for most people.

The time constant of the body's metabolism is much longer, like 72 hours. So, any fine tuning of nutrient timing to the hourly level is going to be completely washed out. The only time when sub-daily adjustments are invoked are during carb cycling but even the best carb cycling routines don't get into hour-type granularity.

[Bouncer]

The time constant of the body's metabolism is much longer, like 72 hours. So, any fine tuning of nutrient timing to the hourly level is going to be completely washed out.

you could make that argument about anything though right? if you take 1 serving of creatine nothing much is going to happen. if your consistent with it day and day out it'll have an effect.

[Scrumhalf]

you could make that argument about anything though right? if you take 1 serving of creatine nothing much is going to happen. if your consistent with it day and day out it'll have an effect.

No, you are missing the point. The point is that if you average your macros over a 2-3 day period, your body will not know the difference. You don't need to sweat the details about whether you take your protein precisely 23 minutes after you wake up or 87 minutes before you work out or whatever.

Unless you have a very specific protocol, for example, you want to do glycogen depletion to induce fat burning, and then want to switch to a high carb refeed to refill muscle glycogen without causing fat storage (which is essentially the basis of carb cycling), just averaging your macros over a day or even a few days is sufficient. You don't just go catabolic if you didn't take protein today. As long as you get enough tomorrow to compensate, you'll be just fine.

[rado]

OK so who uses them?
How do you incorporate them?
What brand/kind do you use?
What do you think they do for you?
Anyone found a good, economical BCAA supplement?

Ill be honest I have always felt a good diet nullifies the need for most supplements of this nature but I am open minded enough to hear what people have to say and share experience wise.

Optimum BCAA 1000 Caps at Bodybuilding.com: Best Prices for BCAA 1000 Caps

I've been using this brand for years and IMO, great solid products. This is the bottle I use; I take 6 a day....2morning/2midday/2night before sleep.

I do feel a difference when I run out and have to wait 5 days for my bottle. I tend to feel more "sloppy" when I don't have any. Maybe it's a placebo, who knows. I can certainly attest that I like taken them.

[Bouncer]

Maybe it's a placebo, who knows.

That's the thing though isn't it? You can't really tell if it's actually working or if it's in your head.

Take steroids for example. You know without a shadow of a doubt that steroids are no placebo. You can see and feel absolute results. BCAA is more like "well maybe it's working I think". lol.

[rado]

That's the thing though isn't it? You can't really tell if it's actually working or if it's in your head.

Take steroids for example. You know without a shadow of a doubt that steroids are no placebo. You can see and feel absolute results. BCAA is more like "well maybe it's working I think". lol.

Disagree

You can have bunk gear and still think it works....I do believe this product helps or any other good brand on bcaa supps

[Bouncer]

Disagree

You can have bunk gear and still think it works....I do believe this product helps or any other good brand on bcaa supps

Well that would further prove the power of the placebo effect. Having bunk gear and believing it's working is similar in effect to using a supp that your not sure is working.

If it was a product like REAL gear or something like caffeine that you can absolutely be sure is having an effect, there would be zero doubt.

I guess what I'm saying is that if people can't tell with absolute certainty that something is working it can't really be that great a product in the first place.

Imagine taking ibuprofin or aspirin for a headache and not being sure if it helps or not..

[chuckz28]

It might be one of those things that is slowly built up so the effect isn't as noticed until it is stopped. Example boiling a lobster and slowly turning up the heat. Fucker doesn't know til it's too late. I don't think any supplement will give a positively noticeable effect compared to AAS.

[Bouncer]

Caffeine chuck. It absolutely works without doubt. Creatine works without doubt. A supp that you can't tell shit is not worth the money IMO.

[Scrumhalf]

Agreed. Caffeine and creatine are the only things that have a) empirically been demonstrated to work and b) have enough data to establish safety.

[Bouncer]

I'm guilty of this myself to be honest. I take a multi-vit and fish oil. I'm not sure they are doing shit.

[Scrumhalf]

Vitamin, probably doesn't do anything if you eat plenty of veggies, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to take one. I think fish oil is just an alternative to eating oily fish, which is good for you, so that is probably OK.

The rest of the supplements that bodybuilders take, there's virtually no data, not just on their efficacy but more troubling, whether they are harmful. Heck, its not even guaranteed that a supplement even has what it says and that it doesn't have a bunch of shit that shouldn't be there. That's the problem with supplements.