BCAA Powder: The Fuel That Your Muscles Need

BCAAs or Branched Chain Amino Acids are those essential nutrients that your body often acquires from protein present in various foods, particularly legumes, dairy products, and meat. These comprise leucine, valine, and isoleucine. The ‘branched-chain’ is referred to as its chemical structure.

Benefits of Amino Acids:

Amino acids are known as the building blocks of protein. Proteins are made of a chain of molecules that are known as amino acids. Your muscles need them for growth.  Amino acids help with a lot of things such as:

1) Building cells & repairing tissues

2) Generating energy

3) Producing antibodies

4) Forming DNA & RNA

5) Transporting oxygen all over the body

Out of the 20 amino acids, the human body is capable of producing all but 9, and these 9 are termed as essential amino acids that need to be obtained via foods or supplements.

BCAAs are a group of some amino acids that help your muscles recover. BCAAs are a group of 3 amino acids- leucine, isoleucine, and valine.  Amongst these 3, leucine is the most important amino acid and this is why most BCAA powders offer leucine in greater quantity as compared to these two.

1) BCAA’s role in the human body

2) Aiding protein synthesis

3) Helping in energy production

4) Helping in the production of other amino acids such as glutamine & alanine

5) Regulating leptin

6) Improving muscle recovery rate

Why Choose BCAA Supplements?

BCAA supplements are very popular with bodybuilders because they offer a variety of benefits such as reduced fatigue, relief in muscle soreness, and faster muscle recovery. BCAA supplements are available in 2 forms- capsules and BCAA powder. BCAA powder is the most common form of BCAA supplement sold in the market.

BCAAs are rapidly absorbing supplements that get directly into your bloodstream and enrich you with essential amino acids. They are known as the building blocks of protein.

What is BCAA Powder?

The powdered form of BCAA is BCAA powder which can be consumed easily by mixing with water. It tastes great (in case of flavored BCAA powders) and gets involved in the bloodstream faster. It can be used as a pre or post-workout supplement.

BCAA powder offers many benefits when it comes to muscle building. This is why many bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts consume BCAA supplements as their pre or post-workout supplement.

Benefits of BCAA Powder:

1) Helps in protein synthesis: The most important function of BCAA is to promote the synthesis of protein structures. Protein breakdown and synthesis are two such activities that continue to happen in your body. The protein stores in your body are in a continuous state of flux. This constant flux of protein and enhanced level of oxidation of leucine states the high demand for leucine while you’re working out. As a result, it won’t be able to contribute to muscle growth at its maximum potential. BCAA supplements like BCAA powder ensures you that you’re supporting protein synthesis at the maximum level during your workout sessions.

2) Helps in delaying fatigue: BCAA powder comes in powdered form and can be consumed easily by mixing with water. This allows them to travel through the blood to the brain faster and reduce the formation of serotonin in the inside of the brain and eventually reducing the fatigue level by bringing down serotonin levels. So intake of BCAAs during your workout can keep you fresh for long so that you can work out for longer durations.

3) Helps in minimizing muscle loss: BCAAs are a great anti-catabolic in nature as they help in restricting protein breakdown and muscle loss. This is of use particularly to those who are following an aggressive fat-loss diet. This is the time when such an individual consumes low calories and thus BCAA intake is highly recommended as there is a high risk of muscle loss due to reduced rate of protein synthesis and enhanced proteolysis. Proteolysis is breaking down of protein into simple and soluble compounds like peptides and amino acids.

4) Gets absorbed faster: Since BCAA powder is in powdered form, it gets absorbed faster in your body to give maximum results. It gets mixed into the bloodstream really fast and performs a variety of functions to delay muscle fatigue, boost muscle growth, and prevent the breakdown of muscles.

Choosing the right ratio of leucine, isoleucine, and valine

Leucine has high metabolic properties and this is why many individuals focus only on taking leucine and ignore isoleucine and valine. But by doing so, what happens is, an imbalance is created in your body as the level of isoleucine and valine drops. This imbalance can have an adverse impact on your muscle building. This is why it is important to maintain a balanced intake of all the 3 amino acids. A 2:1:1 or 3:1:1 ratio of leucine to isoleucine, and valine is considered to be the ideal ratio for BCAA supplements.

You can obtain BCAAs via foods but still, there are a lot of benefits of using BCAA supplements. The fastest absorbing whey protein also cannot fuel your muscles with nutrients as a pure amino acid supplement. Whey protein is absorbed at a fast pace but doesn’t have the same metabolic response.

BCAA supplement is a faster way of flooding the bloodstream and amino acid pools.