Beta-Alanine: What You Need to Know
By The Feed.
Beta-Alanine is one of those few, natural ways to give your body the boost that it needs to break barriers. It's an actively-occurring compound in our bodies but can used to influence our ability to perform.
Want a surefire, simple way to boost athletic performance? Beta-Alanine is one of the most underrated natural supplementations there is!
What is it?
Beta Alanine is a buzzword in the endurance community, though few actually know what it means, is, and does. Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid…meaning an amino acid that can sometimes be made by the body and therefore wouldn't need to be provided by food. Remember that amino acids are the building blocks of proteins? They’re crucial for recovery, repair, and rebuilding.
Why use it?
Do you know that familiar “burn” when training hard or in an event? Yeah, we do too. As brand Klean Athlete explains, that burn “is actually caused by hydrogen ions, which are generated in large quantities whenever lactic acid accumulates. The muscle naturally buffers these ions with carnosine (beta-alanyl-L-histidine)”.
So what does all that mean? Being that Beta-Alanine is the precursor to carnosine, supplementing with it enables the body to increase its ability to buffer hydrogen ion build-up, which helps you push harder and get more from training.
How to use it
Beta-Alanine has to be used consistently for quite some time before your big event. While it will encourage an increase in carnosine in your body immediately, it’s not something you just use the day of and hope for full performance benefits. It’s recommended to supplement with 4-6g daily for about 3-4 weeks before your goal.
Thorne and Klean Athlete offer extremely effective and simple tablet versions of BA, making your supplementation process easy. Meanwhile Blonxy also offers a powder version if that's more your flavor.
The 1-2 punch!
To expand your benefits from using Beta-Alanine, we’ve seen pairing it with sodium bicarbonate, or better yet: Amp HP Lotion, can enhance the benefits to high-intensity exercise performance.