The TRUTH About BCAA's (How They May Be Harming Your Gains)

The global market for supplements is huge. It's predicted to hit 45 billion by 2022. But with each supplement sold comes with the many benefits it's promised to deliver. And as shown in my creatine video, some supplements actually do hold true to their promises, whereas others simply take advantage of the misinformed. One very popular supplement, branched chain amino acids, or BCAAs, is something I've been asked on numerous occasions to cover. A video on this supplement itself has grown into a multi million dollar industry based on the conc that they create an anabolic environment for muscle growth. They're also something that I personally used for years with the belief that it would help with my muscle recovery and help preserve my muscle during a cut, especially during fasted workouts. But do BCAAs actually hold true to their promise? Well, in order to find out, we need to first understand the concept behind them. So, amino acids are basically the building blocks of protein and muscle. There's a total of 22 different amino acids, which with nine of them being classified as essential amino acids, simply meaning that our body can't produce them and we have to ingest them through various protein sources. Now, research has shown that three of these nine essential amino acids are particularly effective at increasing protein synthesis and can thus be viewed as the more important amino acids for muscle growth. And these three amino acids are exactly what make up the supplements BCAAs. The theory is that increasing our uptake of these three amino acids should theoretically lead to better muscle growth and prevent muscle loss based on their effect on protein synthesis. However, there's a catch that seemed to be overlooked. Several studies have shown that in order to achieve muscle protein synthesis, you need all nine of the essential amino acids present, not just the three that make up BCAAs. And if only three essential amino acids are consumed, as in the case with the consumption of BCAAs, then the avail of the other six essential amino acids in the body becomes the rate limiting factor for protein synthesis and makes the BCAAS you consumed pretty much useless if taken alone. So theoretically, bcaas actually wouldn't provide any benefit over other protein sources that have all nine essential amino acids and are likely to be inferior to them. But what does research have to say about this? Well, it definitely agrees with it. In 2008, Katinos and colleagues showed that muscle protein synthesis was greater after ingesting whey protein when compared to ingesting the same amounts of essential amino acids in isolated form. And these were with all nine of the essential amino acids, not just the three that are in BCAAs, suggesting that whey protein ingestion improves muscle protein synthesis through mechanisms that are beyond those associated with its essential amino acid content. In agreement with this one, 2017 study by Jackman and colleagues found that when male subjects ingested 5.6 grams of BCAAs following their workout, the resulting protein synthesis response was only about 22%, which is only around half of what would be achieved with an equivalent dose of whey protein. So it's clear that BCAAs are in fact inferior to other complete protein sources like whey protein, meaning that it would be more beneficial and cheaper for you to use whey instead. And as stated by researcher Alan Aragon, who's done extensive research on the topic, you'll get several other beneficial compounds within whey that are missing from the isolated BCAAs, and whey will likely provide greater satiety than just taking BCAAs. But with that being said, what about using BCAAs for fasted training in order to prevent muscle loss? Well, this is where it gets really interesting. As I mentioned earlier, if BCAAs are taken alone, then you only get three of the nine essential amino acids, and when you're in a fasted state, the only source for the other six is from breaking down your muscle tissue. So as expected, recent research from the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that when taking BCAAs in isolation, it actually decreases protein synthesis, increases protein breakdown and interferes with the absorption of amino acids, which is all the exact opposite effect of what you're looking for and is thus not ideal to use when fasting. So what can you do instead? Well, fasted training doesn't seem to cause muscle loss in the first place as long as your daily protein intake is sufficient. And this holds true for both fasted cardio and fasted weight training. For example, one 2013 study found that Muslim bodybuilders who continued to train during Ramadan but in a fasted state experienced no difference in body composition or muscle loss when compared to subjects who trained in a fed state. But in the event that your strength suffers when weight training in a fasted state, I'd suggest taking a scoop of whey protein or having a small protein rich meal before your workout instead of instead of taking BCAAs. Although this will break your fast, many people are unaware that BCAAs do actually contain calories and will break your fast due to the insulin response it elicits.

So if you're going to break your.

Fast anyways, you're better off sticking to a complete protein source. So to sum the video up, here are the main points. My personal recommendation would be to use a food first approach. Stick with ingesting your required protein from food sources and if you're still struggling to meet your protein requirements, and then supplement with whey protein since it does a better job of boosting protein synthesis. The only case I can see where BCAAs might be helpful is with vegans who struggle with getting enough of the vital branch chain amino acids through food alone. In this case though, I would suggest making sure you take BCAAs with a protein source in order to override the negatives of taking it alone. But overall, in an industry full of over promises and under deliveries, BCAAs seem to be just that.

Thanks so much for watching guys. I hope you enjoyed the video and found it useful. I just wanted to briefly apologize for any confusion I might have caused since I did recommend taking BCAAs while fasted in one of my older videos. I was simply misinformed at the time since the research showing that it decreases protein synthesis when fasted was only very recently published. But I think that part of being an evidence based fitness professional and means that you have to be open to new evidence and that often means challenging and changing your own biases and beliefs. And that's exactly what I've done regarding my stance on BCAAs. But with that being said, if you genuinely enjoy taking BCAAs, then by all means go for it. But again, I would recommend taking it with another protein source. Anyways, as always for those who are interested, I posted the written summary of this video on my website built with science.com and I'll leave a link to it in the description box down below as well. If you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to give it a like leave a comment down below, subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications from my channel as well as this all really helps me out, I'd also really appreciate it if you guys give me a follow on Instagram and Facebook as well where I try to post informative content on a more regular basis and I'll leave links to both of those in the description box down below. That's it for today guys. Thank you so much for your support. I really do appreciate it. I'll see you guys next time.