Supplementing Running With Amino Acids

Supplementing Running With Amino Acids | Ecency

I try not to take too many supplements. Part of me feels, you should be getting as much nutrients as possible from the food you're eating. Over the years though, I have picked up a routine of a few different supplements, only because I feel they have made a difference in the way I feel.

I had never taken a Amino Acids until recently though. I was never convinced of the benefits until recently. I had them recommended to me to help with heavy training workloads I might be doing. It's been known for a while the benefits of Amino acids in protein based foods like chicken, beans, nuts or lean meat, which help the body repair some of the damage created as you train. But why should you need to supplement your intake further. You're usually presented with either Branched Chain, or Essential Amino Acids, so what is the right choice when it comes to helping you running performance.

What Are Amino Acids

Amino Acids found in food are the building blocks for protein in your body, which helps you maintain healthy muscles and other body tissues in the body, as well as helping growth. If you consume more amino acids than your body needs in a day, the excess will either be used for energy by exercising muscle, or stored in the body as fatty acids, for future use by the muscle.

Although we mostly associate them with the production of protein and muscle gain, they are actually play a part in most of the bodies functions, including hormone regulation, brain function and metabolism

Essential Amino Acids(ESAAs)

There are 20 Amino Acids used by the human body with 9 of them being classified as Essential Amino Acids and cannot be produced by the body. They need to be acquired through your diet. The quick and dirty list of Essential Amino Acids are:

Lysine
Methionine
Phenylalanine
Threonine
Tryptophan
Leucine
Isoleucine
Valine
Histidine

They support different functionality in the body including muscle repair, recovery, build connective tissue, help the body regulate blood sugar, support fat metabolism and promote immune function, to name a few of the ways they help the body. When you eat protein, it’s broken down into amino acids, which are then used to help your body with various processes such as building muscle and regulating immune function.

Branched Chain Amino Acids(BCAAs)

From the above list of ECAAs. leucine, isoleucine and valine are considered Branched Chain Amino Acids(BCAA) because of their branched molecular structure. While most amino acids are broken down in your liver, BCAAs are broken down primarily in your muscle. As such, they're believed to help improve exercise performance as well as reduce the breakdown of muscle.

So Should You Supplement

Back to my earlier comments of wanting to get all my nutrients from the food I eat, I can confirm that I do take a both a BCAA and ESAA supplement. Having said that though, a recent study posted in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, looked at the protein consumption of elite distance runners in Ethiopia. When they looked at the diets of the runners they found that even though they only consumed about 62 grams of protein a day, they showed no signs of amino acid deficiency and managed to still run between 16 km to 30 km a day.

Looking back on my own experience with taking amino acids, I actually had them recommended to me by a friend, and I actually opted for a generic branch and as a result, really felt no benefit. To mix things up, I then bought a better quality brand. I'm not sure if it was more a psychological change, but I did fell like I recovered better after a big day of training, allowing me to back up and train hard again the following day.

Further research shows that even though BCAA are effecting source of fuel during your workout and can provide numerous benefits to the body, they should not be taken on their own. The study concluded that BCAA's start the process of protein synthesis, but your body needs the remaining ESAA to complete the process.

About the Author
Hey I'm Vince, an Aussie living in New Zealand, trying my best to make the most of the time I have. I work as a Software Engineer but love to run and all aspects of it, including geeking out on the latest science to help get the most out of my body.